Rail Grinder Train
It's a rail grinder, a maintenance of way train used to extend the life of the rails before replacement.

I posted a notice to the rec.model.railroad newsgroup, refering to the aerial photos I shot, and received a couple dozen e-mails regarding the 'mystery train'.

A few of  the responses I've posted below.

It amazes me how quickly I was able to come up with more information that I bargained for. Thanks to everyone who responded.

It is a "rail grinder" - in operation it is amazing to see - lots of sparks, metal particles - a real light show - especially if operating at dusk.

The NYC subway system has a custom set of rail grinder cars that they move with little diesels thru the tunnel very late at night - talk about a show.

Very noisy operation. The idea is to "true" up the rails after years of operation, and the rails aren't worn enough to warrent total replacment. The one on the east coast is based in Syracuse - it is an orange train.

Nice site - nice presentation.

Take care, Bill

Mike, the train pictured on your page is a "Maintenance of Way" train. You can find more info at www.trackmen.com/index.html JS

The Irondequoit Car Shops / 73 Governor Terrace / Rochester NY 14609 / 716-482-3734 (voice/fax) "specializing in 3 rail O scale model trains and custom electronics"

Howdy-

saw the pics on your website and thought I'd drop you a line. The mystery train that you have pictured, owned by Pandrol Jackson, is a rail grinder. PJ grinds railheads for the RRs in order to maintain and lengthen the life of the rail. They travel all over the country servicing the railroads. TRAINS magazine had a good article on this train last year- don't remember the issue off hand, but if you're interested, I'd be happy to look it up for you.

Later,

Evan P. Miller emiller@roadnet.com

Mike,

I am sure (after your post about your pictures, very nice I must say!! Where exectly are they??) someone has answered by now. That train would be a rail grinding machine. They have close to 100 grinding stone that put that nice curve back into the rail. Have a nice day!!!

Bill Laukaitis

GOD LOVES YOU & SO DO I

It looks like the rail grinding train.

>From Frank in White Plains, New York New Email: far@cyburban.com I'm typing ALL the right letters, not necessarily in the correct order.

Hello Mike:

This train is used for Rail grinding. Pandrol JAckson owns the train and the car. I have never seen one in person, but have seen many pictures. The following link has many pictures on grinders and a link to a faq on grinding

http://WWW.NorthEast.Railfan.net/mow9.html

Tom Daspit

Hello Mike;

Great pic's, and well put together pages, they load very quick, nice to see!

The train,as you have probably already been told,is a rail grinding unit operated by Pandrol Jackson. Interesting lead unit, wonder where that came from? I asume that they purchase their units used and modify to suit themselves. I think that is the cleanest set the I have ever seen pictures of!

I assume that you are in the Illinois area from the yard pics, Nice to see you modeling CN thought, nice long runs, good for creating the 'trains in the countryside' image.

You have a small problem with your web navigation, the first jump off your home page to mike's page fails to bring up a page ( I can view the source however!) THe rest works fine.

stan

Very slowly modeling small town central Ontario, CN, multi time frame in an 8x9' room.

stan Stanley Conley, Instrumentation Technologist Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Carleton University, Ottawa Ontario Canada stanley_conley@carleton.ca

I'm sure you've received hundreds of responses telling you that this is a rail grinding train. Most of them have a locomotive (this is a converted GP38 or GP40, as I recall), grinding cars and usually a car with water on board to fight grass fires.

These things are especially interesting to watch. They are lit up like a fireworks display as they slowly move along grinding down imperfections from the tops and side surfaces of the rail.

John Timm

I'm pretty sure its a rail-grinder of some sort and may have other functions as well. They've all kinds of amazing machines on Pandrol's site. Try http://www.trackmen.com/pandrol13.htm   Your question gave me a 30 minute education in track maintenence. Thanks!

fyi-- Trains (I think) had an article on railgrinders a few months ago. Try Kalmbach's site for an index.

Enjoyed the pictures of your layout. I started in HO in '45 and by the time I was 14 could solder, lay track (brass rail and fiber tie strip and switch kits), had built my DC power pack, several car kits and messed up my Varney F-3 with gloss black and yellow auto touch-up enamel. Oh, the scenery medium for my first two layouts was the preferred---asbestos plaster!!!

At any rate, do your best to keep your son interested in the hobby as it will give him a great background in many areas in the years to come.

Sorry for the soap-box.

Enjoyed the photo-recon. I'm a former SAC type and we flew too high to see much or too low to see very far. One of those pictures looks like its out of Flight Simulator. Nice job.

John Cowles Sumter SC