Western Railroad Discussion > NWP's Ballast Train at Ignacio Wye

With contractors Balfour Beatty having mostly finished up the tie replacement work along the Northwestern Pacific mainline from Lombard to Windsor attention has now turned to dropping ballast. The rock is being locally supplied and trucked into temporary stockpiles which follow the railroad as work progresses. They started off loading the train at Schellville, then moved on to a site next to the Hwy. 37 grade crossing near Sears Point, and are now filling the cars in the middle of the wye at Ignacio. This cuts down on the number of miles the train has to operate each day.

Willamette Valley GP35 #2502 is seen with nine empties approaching Ignacio from the direction of Black Point where they were dumping ballast this past Tuesday morning. Balfour Beatty is utilizing a fleet of battered ex-SP hoppers numbered upwards from NWP001 for this work--they had been stored derelict on the railroad for the past decade.

THE site to visit if you want to keep track of NWP news:
http://northwesternpacifictoday.blogspot.com

---

---

---

Minutes after the empties arrive on the mainline leg of the wye at Ignacio the contractor goes to work with a front end loader filling the hoppers with rock to help begin another round of ballast dumping on the NWP. Loaded trucks were arriving every ten minutes or so to add to the stockpile.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/09 16:51 by shed47.

---

---

shed47 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

Balfour Beatty is utilizing
> a fleet of battered ex-SP hoppers numbered upwards
> from NWP001 for this work--they had been stored
> derelict on the railroad for the past decade.

It's a wonder that the hoppers would still move after so long a period in storage. One would think that the bearings would be in bad shape. Of course, they may have had to do a bit of maintenance on them.

They're sealed, they either roll or they don't.

Just bring the weed whacker in next followed closely by the grinder/polisher!! We might actually have a shiny set of tracks the NIMBYs of Novato and points North can complain about!

Regards,

-Frank C.

Frank Christ
Cloverdale, CA
FranksRails Photography, LLC.

Need to lay down the 'AGENT ORANGE' on those weeds..... They're chipping away at the work, but will the traffic return? I would imagine that the line is actively scouting out shippers in the Sonoma County area. It's hard to believe that the NWP is still alive and kicking after all the mess the last ten years or so. Certainly hope they make a go of it on the South End! I expect the naysayers to make jokes about the 1 or 2 cars of freight but at this point, and with the light rail on the way, I wouldn't bet against these guys making a go of it. Might have to bite our tongue baby!

Nothing against their hard work, but why are they working MOW North of Ignacio wye if supposedly will put new tracks soon?