|
 Rail GrindersRail grinders have become an increasingly important aspect of railroad maintenance in recent years. The machines greatly help railroads reduce their maintenance costs by extending not only the life of the rail but also other components that make up the track structure such as spikes/anchors, ties, and even the ballast itself. If you are ever able to witness a rail grinder in action, particularly at night, they put on quite a display and are loud enough, even from a distance, to sound like a small earthquake has hit the area.
While it may not look it, trains and any other heavy vehicle operating on the rails causes a considerable amount of wear to them. Over time with the beating rails receive by coming in contact with steel wheels they are ground away and distorted (causing damage to both). For rails this damage is intensified in curves where the outside rail receives much greater wear because of the centrifugal forces applied to it as a train passes over (in other words, more of the train's weight is applied to the outside rail). Because of this the rail head on the outside rail is worn away much more quickly than the inside rail. If left unchecked, as both tangent and curved wear with every passing train and become more worn and distorted (one problem of which is that the track will lose its proper gauge), derailments will occur leaving to even greater problems.
A typical rail grinder doing work along a heavy, freight main line in the United States is not a singular unit but an entire train staffed with several workers. It includes the lead locomotive, which pulls the grinding equipment and crew quarters. A typical grinder is stocked with enough tools, equipment, and amenities for the crew to be out on the open main line for days at a time. For freight railroads in this country almost all rail grinding work is contracted out to a company which specializes in the field such as Loram, Speno, Pandrol Jackson, and Harsco Track Technologies. However, some railroads have purchased small grinding units to do light work to save the costs involved in contracting (which are upwards of $30,000 per day) and most light-rail/commuter lines which do not see freight traffic always use these singular units as their rails simply don't take the heavy beating like freight lines do.
Also, for even more information about rail grinders, spike pullers, ballast cleaners, railroad undercutters, ballast regulators, ditch diggers, and other MOW equipment please click here to return to the main menu. For more reading about rail grinders you may want to consider the book Railway Maintenance Equipment: The Men and Machines That Keep the Railroads Running from noted author Brian Solomon. Throughout the book's 128 pages Solomon covers all types of maintenance equipment from tampers and undercutters to Jordan Spreaders and rotary snow plows. I own this book myself and have used it as reference material for this site many times. It's a great read on an often little understood area of railroading. If you're interested in perhaps purchasing this book please visit the link below which will take you to ordering information through Amazon.com, the trusted online shopping network.
|
