Dave’s Photo Blog

How do you replace one railroad tie?

I mean, I knew this was going to happen because I’ve written about it before. But I have to admit, I didn’t expect them to just replace one tie in the middle of the track. I went to the West Medford commuter rail station last week with Alex a few times and I just had to scratch my head at this.

How do you replace one railroad tie?

I don’t have the answer. I know they have work trains that can lift the rails, and work trains that can grab the ties and so forth, but there is a geometric problem here. There’s only so much space between the rails, and there’s only so much space between the rails and the platform (and the rails for the trains traveling in the opposite direction. And it doesn’t seem like enough space to extract a tie.

But now I have been presented with empirical evidence that it is not only possible, it’s normal. I guess I figured that when they started to replace the ties they’d do a whole section of the rails at once and so it would be easier to extract and replace them all. But clearly they can just replace any individual tie. It makes sense. Now I have to figure out how I can see that happening because I’m really curious as to how they do it. I suppose this yellow work train up the line has something to do with it.