UPDATED Saturday Night, 17 Sep 05 - For Train Guys Only - See Page 2



I thought you guys and gals would enjoy this photo I shot this morning after unloading my "speeder" onto the track at the SC Railroad Museum. We added extra ballast on top of the ties and I can just drive the Vette up onto the rails and then let it run along the rails far enough to center the trailer. Then I simply crank the "speeder" down onto the track and away I go.

At the end of the day, I pull the "speeder" up to the trailer, crank it on, tie it down, and away I go in my Railroad Vette.

We are using the "speeder" to reopen a section of track that is badly overgrown and in need of a lot of work. Here are some videos I shot of the "speeder" in action:

http://media.putfile.com/13Aug05-01

http://media.putfile.com/13Aug05-02

http://media.putfile.com/13Aug05-03

The speeder was moving at 10-15 mph. There is no suspension. You personally feel every track joint with your butt. The frame flexes when necessary. The noise is the steel wheels on the steel track. You can even here the small 2-cyl, 20 hp, Onan engine.

 

Very cool pic! Looks like your vette wheel base fits the tracks perfect!

 

Choo Choo, I think I can, I think I can.

 

Cool stuff! You should try getting these wheels. Then it would look like a sweet time machine like on "Back to the Future Part III." Except the major fact that a Vette is cooler than a DeLorean.

Then your next mod could be a flux capacitor....

 

Way You know I always enjoy train pics!!!

 

Oh, very, very cool, Mr. Trainman. And, I love the old trains of yore. Adventures, here we come. Thanks for sharing the pics.

 

very cool

 

Looks like that section of track hasn't been used in many years.

 

But then his vette would only hit 88 mph..

 

Very cool.

 

That's

 

I play with 1/4"=1'0" scale trains, but 1 to 1 scale stuff sure looks like fun. What other kinds of power and rolling equipment do you have?

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Neat video!! SO what exactly are you doing with the speeder to open the track again? Using it to get you back and forth while clearing it? Testing the tracks themselves? What?

Some of those trees growing up in the middle of the tracks.. whoa!! Looks like you could have used a small steam engine for weight to roll over some of them!!

Neat stuff!!

Thanks!!

 

thats cool what are you doing?

 

You can find lots of info at the South Carolina Railroad Museum web site: www.scrm.org

A few other retirees and I are working to re-open 6.5 miles of track on the west end of the railroad to speeder operations. There are lots of photos with captions in the files section at: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/grou...?yguid=1313337

As far as we can tell, the last time the original quarry railroad used the track on the west end was 40+ years ago and they had not been doing anything other than absolutely necessary maintenance for many years before that. The useful life of a railroad tie, under ideal conditions is considered to be 25 years, so the track is long over due for rebuilding.

We are first, clearing the brush and saplings and second, putting down weed killer and soil sterilizers.
As we need to, we are starting to replace individual ties here and there to keep the rails in gauge in the worst spots.

My light weight speeder does fine on this track but the heavier speeders and our track maintenance equipment is to heavy and spreads the rails. We are replacing ties the old fashioned way, by hand like they did 100 years ago.

Last weekend we took the big air compressor out and blew the packed red clay out of the flange-ways in one of the railroad crossings.



In the photo below, you see my speeder at the east end of the Chinese Wall. We have cleared about 1.4 miles of track to get there. There are so many saplings there that the speeder can not get through them so we are cutting them down with chain saws.



The work will get easier over the winter when the weather is cooler, the leaves are off the trees and saplings, and the Kudzu has died back.

 

...nice to see your in the lead

 

Good info Trainman... Thanks for the update and keep us posted, would you?