More from Bernie’s treasure chest….
Car 212 on Chatham St., just west of Ouellette. c. 1938.
A shot of car # 37 at the Car Barns on London St. (now Univeristy Ave.).
Another shot of # 37 from the same set.
Car # 44 at the Car Barns.
Car # 45 – The Rail Grinding Car. Railfans? Please explaing the rail grinding car to me… Is this specific to streetcars or was is used on the railroads too?
Car # 50
Car # 90
Car # 94
The last two look like they had very specific uses… Bernie or John, do you know what they were used for?
Maintenance cars. #90 is a sweeper. #94 appears to be for maintaining the overhead lines. You can see the scissor-jack lift on the roof.
#94 appears to be an overhead work unit, with matching flat car behind to transport wire, and other equipment. This is a standard style car for most Electric lines around the world, from that time line and in today’s modern street car running, as example with San Fransico MUNI system, and Amtrak/NJ Transit out east, but with a modern Twist.
Ian, I was going to send you a link to this, but I should have known you’d be all over it!
Hi, rail grinding is a maintainance activity that takes place on regular railroads as well as streetcars — it’s done to restore the profile of the tracks as they get deformed from the contact with train wheels. Grinding reduces the need for replacing the rails. One big company that builds this equipment for large applicatios is called Loram.
It’s a really interesting and amazing sight to see if you ever get to see it happening in the field.
Like a lot of other MOW equipment, it looks like the streetcar shop fabricated its own equipment from an old passenger streetcar.
S W & A is an acronym for?
Please! Thank you.
-g
Sandwich Windsor Amherstburg ….
Here is a video of the modern day Railgrinder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdc6zgaulrk
Here is a picture of a Switch Grinder at work.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=92029&nseq=43
This is what Fresh Grinded Rail looks like.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=228067&nseq=337
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=225384&nseq=484
Here is why Rail needs to be Ground down sometimes.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=211859&nseq=41
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=204870&nseq=52
The Rail is needed to be ground to make the life of the rail longer. If you can see in the first photo, you can see the line where the rail is starting to create a little lip, which can in the long run get worst, and start pushing wheels out of alignment and create a derailment. In the second you can see that the outside part of the rail head is not wearing properly, and needs to be ground down, so that the rail gets worn out evenly, or at least try to evenly wear it out.
The railgrinder is an amazing machine, especially with the speed that it operates at. Do they operate around Windsor often?
They do operate around Windsor, but its like once every 2 years or so, and only on the Canadian Pacific Railway (aka CPR) Line. The VIA mainline does not see any rail grinding train, since its not as busy, to warrant the rails to be ground down, also the weight of the train is not dangerous. You will see Test trains come down on all the Rail lines into Windsor, (Geometry Trains), to check the rail with the computers and such onboard, along with other measuring equipment. This sometimes results in the Railroad asking for the railgrinder to come through and grind down some of the tracks that are needed.
it would be great if the city would have built a rail museum and kept one of the original street cars but i keep forgetting this is windsor
here I am late again…..4yr. to be exact. I really appreciated the info & videos on the rails, Ian Deck. I have never heard of rail & switch grinders before. On the VIA rail track not far from is in the Emeryville area (just about 10mi. east of Windsor) there a bundles of wood, railway ties? They’ve been sitting there a couple of months now. That must be quite a job changing ties with the rails in place??? Thanks again.
here I am late again…..4yr. to be exact. I really appreciated the info & videos on the rails, Ian Deck. I have never heard of rail & switch grinders before. On the VIA rail track not far from us in the Emeryville area (just about 10mi. east of Windsor) there a bundles of wood, railway ties? They’ve been sitting there a couple of months now. That must be quite a job changing ties with the rails in place??? Thanks again.
sorry had 2 windows open….made the comment, forgot I did so, made the identical one, with one correction.
Their have been bundles of ties along the Via track at Pillete for a couple of months. If you saw the Don Cherry story their is a scene where they are manually pulling the spikes,pulling out the old ties snd respiking. the new ties. This was in the fifties, today they have machines to pull the spikes, slide out and replace the ties. About two weeks ago this machine was on the line running parrel to Jefferns, south of Tecumseh Rd.
Their have been bundles of ties along the Via track at Pillete for a couple of months. If you saw the Don Cherry story their is a scene where they are manually pulling the spikes,pulling out the old ties snd respiking. the new ties. This was in the fifties, today they have machines to pull the spikes, slide out and replace the ties. About two weeks ago this machine was on the line running parrell to Jefferson, south of Tecumseh Rd.