Re: [CBQ] Work Train

["jamessandrin via groups.io" <jamessandrin=yahoo.com@groups.io>]

The concept of a "work train" is as varied as the work needed to be done. A short list would include distribution of ties for, oddly enough, a tie gang which was a summer-time extra-gang project.  A surfacing gang would  start with ballast cars and a probably a Jordan spreader on a realatively short streach of track that, in the 50s-60s era,  would have a good-sized crew armed with shovels, jacks, lining bars and a lot of strong backs.  The modern equivelent would have very few men operating ballast regulators and laser equipped tampers to do the work.  A steel gang could be just a section crew or two brought together building a switch for a new industrial spur or relaying a yard lead, or it could start with a welded rail train distributing quarte-rmile lengths of welded rail for a system steel gang that did the sort of rebuild the Alliance division saw in the 1970s.  Then there was the work extra that might have a crane and gondolas to pick up all the debris left along the right of way from all the projects listed above so that winter snow removal could be done safely.

I suspect the modeler perspective on this is the type of cars parked along various sidings, decked out in Omaha orange, that were a trade-mark of the Q in the Pre-Menk era. (I have seen a qoute credited to Mr. Menk that he claimed the Burlington was the most over-maintained railroad he had ever seen).  For that inventory of car types, there are numerous photo sites showing converted older cars along with specialty equipment used for company service. This is not by any means a full listing of "work trains", just  a brief history of the types I had personal experience with  during my time on the C&S, UP and D&RGW.  Jim Sandrin     

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