Western Railroad Discussion > VLA dish mover

Custom made.  Tracks are all recycled.  Wonder if they came from the AT&SF spur?
Gus

---

I have no idea what I am looking at or where it is or what significance it has; please explain.

Now that is one "BIG SOB".  Been by that area once o twice thru the years, always wondered about how they moved them.  Thanks for sharing. Ben

CCDeWeese Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have no idea what I am looking at or where it is
> or what significance it has; please explain.


If my memory is correct, This is south of Albuquerque Nm along and west of I25. VLA is short for "Very Large Array", aka Radio Telescopes. Very instrumental in "looking" into Deep Space. These are def "Very Large" instruments.  Amazing to see.  Please, If I am in correct in this, correct me, so I too can get a grasp on what they are.   Ben

Yep, it's the Very Large Array. Specialized locomotives allow for repositioning the massive dishes along a set of wye tracks.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array

Posted from iPhone

in reference to this post:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,3701509

Here's another view of the "locomotive"

http://photoseek.photoshelter.com/image/I0000DumEuWXa5P0

It's about 50 miles west of Socorro, south of Albuquerque. The facility is run by the National Science Foundation. The tour of the facility is self guiding and well worth the time to wander around.

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

Now that's a CRITTER!!!!

Mike

The VLA played a big part in Contact ... starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118884/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Will MacKenzie
Dundas, ON

Thanks.

It reminds me of something from Star Wars.......

It would be AWESOME to have in big city traffic though......:<)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/15 16:19 by ns1000.

Also featured in the opening of 2010 (the sequel to 2001, a Space Odyssey)

Very cool, that's not a normal loco by a long shot.

Posted from iPhone

How about that sg hopper car loaded with track ballast on one of the parallel antenna tracks.
VLA's retired safety officer had used rail and ties donated to 2926 to build a  track panel supporting its 22.5 ton tender trucks when the tender body was lifted onto cut-tie  support stacks for its complete renovation.