7304 on work train in Albany area

[Bob Sandusky]

banging around Albany with a work train this week. Seems to be picking up discarded ties.

Her paint job doesn't look quite as good as 7303's does.

Bob Sandusky
Esperance

[march hare]

I got a couple of responses to this on the yahoo board, saying theat they're dropping off ties. I had assumed they were picking them up, and couldn't figure out how they'd find them in the snow.

[lvrr325]

By the time relay and junk ties are sorted out and stacked it's just as easy for the same crew to load a tractor trailer as it is to load them on a train.

[Bob Sandusky]

By the time relay and junk ties are sorted out and stacked it's just as easy for the same crew to load a tractor trailer as it is to load them on a train.

Assuming of course that a tractor trailer can get to where the ties are.

[BobLI]

And there are a lot of areas on the D&H where there are no roads at all close to the tracks.

[march hare]

I think there's another issue involved, more than convenience in loading. For a while last year (not sure if it's still going on) the scrap ties were being rail-hauled to a plant in PA that was burning them for energy recovery.

the local logistics was interesting. Around Delanson, the ties were hauled back into Delanson in conventional low sided gondolas, unloaded and stockpiled on the ground, and then eventually reloaded into what appeared to be former coal-train high sided gons for the trip into PA.

At a couple of locations where ties were lying in between small trees, the operator pulled the tree out by the roots and added it to the pile of ties on the gon. Not sure if the tree got shipped to PA or not.

[BobLI]

Any pictures available of that operation? And any pics of the Central Bridge area now that the freight house is gone? I havent been in that area in about a month.

[lvrr325]

Any place that's been two tracks and now is only one, a truck can get into. Unless the remaining track has been realigned in some way.

[Bob Sandusky]

Truck yes. Tractor trailer no. I've driven a good deal of the right away between the Schoharie Creek Bridges and Cobleskill. A good size truck (but nowhere near equal to the carrying capcity of a gondola) sure. Tractor trailer? You'd have to have more guts than smarts to try it.

Besides it would be more efficient to have the train do it. The pickup crane just runs along the top of the gondolas. One engine, 10 cars is a lot more effcient and timesaving than 10 (or more) individual trucks.