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Railroad Spike Pullers

Please note, the images here show general railroad MOW equipment, not spike pullers.

Its name being rather straightforward in describing what it does, railroad spike pullers have been around for several decades now and greatly ease the task of removing spikes during maintenance projects (whether it be to replace ties, rails, or both). That is, of course, unless you are the one operating the machine as the work is hot in the summer, cold in the winter, noisy, and gives one a good jolt when pulling spikes. Spike pullers have a rather unique, unconventional look but are usually easily recognizable by the fact that they have a low profile, open air design and usually only carry one operator.

Railroad spike pullers almost always work as some kind of mechanized gang, usually as part of a tie gang (which today normally consists of an army of machines, not men). Today's tie gangs includes such machines as spike or rail anchor pullers (which pull the spikes/anchors clear of the tie), tie cranes (which remove the railroad ties once they are free of the rails), tie extractors/inserters (different from a tie crane these machines work vertically to remove or replace the railroad tie from underneath the rail), and spike inserters (as you might have guessed these machines use hydraulics to quickly drive spikes down in the tie plate and tie itself).

If very heavy work is being done other large equipment will be used such as a mechanized tie relaying machine and/or even a rail train if new rail is to be laid. As it is, tie gangs may look like machines simply heading off to work in an elephant line. However, they are actually very coordinated work details with each machine and accompanying operator assigned a very specific task to get the work done as quickly as possible. The reason for speed and hastiness in finishing a maintenance job is simply, to keep the trains and goods moving. Delays are quite costly and avoided at all costs because if the freight isn't delivered the railroad's don't get paid!

Railroad spike pullers, like virtually all mechanized railroad maintenance equipment used today, use hydraulics to get the job done. The machine itself is usually ten to twenty feet in length (although some models are very small) and in most cases uses one operator although newer models being built today feature two operators, which allow for the job to be done faster by spikes being pulled from each rail simultaneously.

Most railroad spike pullers built today feature a dull-head, hydraulic "jaw," which uses hydraulics to pull the spike from each side of the rail simultaneously. These hydraulic jaws usually lie just behind or very near the cab of the operator so he or she can be right near the equipment to perform the work as efficiently as possible. Older spike puller models required the operator to manually position the equipment over the rail and spike and properly align it to remove the latter. Today's models are computer guided to greatly improve alignment, allowing the operator to move much more efficiently, and in affect gets the job done much faster. Time is money, and that phrase rings ever so true in the railroad industry.

When part of work detail you will usually see railroad spike pullers work in tandem, whereby the lead unit pulls spikes from one rail while another trails and removes spikes from the other. However, as mentioned above with newer "dual" units which pull spikes from rails simultaneously and use two operators, these are becoming more widespread.

For more information about railroad maintenance equipment you may want to consider picking up a copy of Brian Solomon's book, Railway Maintenance: The Men and Machines That Keep the Railroads Running. I have a copy of the book and not only used it for reference in covering all of the railroad maintenance equipment featured on this site but also found it very interesting as I learned much about a subject of the industry I had known only little about before. If you’re interested in learning more about the maintenance aspect of railroading you will definitely enjoy this book. If you're interested in perhaps purchasing it please visit The Railroad Diamond by clicking the tab in the menu to your left marked "TRD Store".

Also, for even more information about railroad spike pullers, ballast cleaners, railroad undercutters, ditch diggers, and other MOW equipment please click here to return to the main menu.

For more reading about spike pullers 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.

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