It’s Railroad History- Maintaining the Roadbed.

Over the years, railroads are spending large amounts of money, time and manpower on building and maintaining the rights of way.  It is important to have a reliable facility to move the trains and merchandise safely and in a timely manner.  “Back in the day,” much of this labor was performed by hand and required many track workers to keep things running smoothly.
Today, railroads employ large numbers of mechanized equipment which can perform tasks that formerly would require many track workers.  Todays track gang would have possibly 20 or more pieces of mechanized equipment to remove and replace rail, ties and fasteners, as well as other pieces of equipment.  They remove old ballast, level and attach fasteners, apply and tamp fresh ballast and provide a smooth right of way.  They also maintain bridges, crossings and signal systems.
You might have seen videos of MOW trains with a long string of flat cars carrying these machines to a work site.  How do they load and unload this equipment rapidly? These flat cars have rails on them and spacer rails that allow the equipment to travel from one car to the next and the end of the train. Sometimes you might see a flat car at the end of the train which has what looks like an open box or assembly at the very end of the car.  This is known as a ramp car or “scorpion” car.  This box is hydraulically operated and opens up kind of like the stinger on a scorpion.  It provides a ramp for the equipment to drive on to the track and proceed to the work zone.               ​

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