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I think part of the difference in ballast type may have to do with drainage. Also with the dates the rebuilding after the floods and the choice might have been what was available and quick to get the rebuilding done. With the change in technology and use of machine tampers it was easier to use larger size ballast. Chatts and slag would break down with age and wear and then you get mud pumping thru the ballast changing the colors as well as texture. Gravel would have been used on the branches account cheap and available close. Then there is the same problem with ballast as with paving on the roads it builds up and you loose clearances. It got so bad around Cicero that a regular box car would hit the belt bridge so they had to come in and undercut the bridge and eventually the Belt finally raised it up to open up the clearance. In the more modern times I was working the Mainline(Aurora to Galesburg) and they had a work train out trying to dump ballast but had trouble getting track time. The Roadmaster would run his hi-rail beside the train so they could dump the cars using the radio erupted dump doors. No luck first trick. SO when I got to work on 2nd shift in talking to Connie the RDM we hatched a plan and got it in gear and dump a 60 car train in about 2 hours. Sometimes as a train dispatcher you had to let the section get the work done to get them out of your hair Steve in SC On Sunday, August 20, 2017 10:06 PM, "GLEN glenehaug@msn.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Nelson:
L.S. might have meant limestone, but on the alignment chart you are looking for Burlington it could also mean 'light surface'. This would normally mean that the track was surfaced with no additional ballast added, or a minimum amount of the same ballast.
Limestone is too soft and is not very good for ballast, and I would guess that the Q would have preferred slag over limestone.
Glen Haug
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of Nelson Moyer npmoyer@hotmail.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2017 6:19 AM To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com Subject: [CBQ] Alignment Charts in BB#53 Addendum The alignment chart for MP 205-206 (from the Bridge to Main Street in Burlington) list three ballast types over the years, chatts 1943, L. S. 1957, and slag 1960. I assume L. S. is limestone, and I know what slag ballast looks like, but
what is chatts, and what does it look like? I ask Steve Holding, and he thinks it’s unscreened crushed limestone, but if that’s true, why would the alignment chart list chatts in 1943 and L.S. in 1957 if they’re the same thing?
Nelson Moyer
__._,_.___ Posted by: STEVEN HOLDING <sholding@sbcglobal.net> __,_._,___ |