Model Railroading on the Cheap

   Occasionally we get to see the railroad make emergency repairs right up close. It is always fun to watch how someone else does their work. Most of us never have to worry about heavy materials, but railroad repair crews encounter heavy stuff all the time. I recall watching them change an axel/wheel set on the team track spur in my home town. They arrived with a wheelset onboard their rubber tired crane truck along with modern hydraulic jacks for supporting the car while they rolled the car’s trucks out from under the car. I think one of the roller bearings had gone bad. Then they used their small truck mounted crane to lift the weight of the truck side frames off the bearing supports at the ends of an axel to roll a new wheel set into place. Then they rolled the repaired truck into place under the car and hooked up the brake linkage. The bad axel wheel-set was loaded onto their truck for return to their shop. Two men and a day’s work.    

On the Yardley and Hillton we have seen a variation of ‘roadside repair’ as a follow-up to the Chicago Hard Stop story. They are using their 25 ton rail born crane from the car repair shop to lift the end of the car with a wire rope cable around the coupler and perform the necessary repairs to car or truck bolster and brake linkage. With our models, a setting, a camera and our memory we can make a scene very reminiscent of long ago events that struck our memory. Lately it seems that I enjoy making scenes like this more than running my trains. Is that because of the tremor in my hand or a desire for challenge? This page & picture represents over 4 hours of my retired time and I find it is more enjoyable than TV.