Eastern Railroad Discussion > Dumping a Conrail ballast train and a side rod critter

I worked the Shelly W130Th St stone job today, we had a ballast train of 19 Conrail 100 ton Ortners to dump. The stone was brought on from a quarry in Pennsylvania for the Cleveland RTA, they have a track project around the Cleveland Airport they need the ballast for. While dumping today, the "side rod critter" from the near-by steel mill made an appearance with some mty coil cars.

1. Early morning airing up the cars

2. Looking East towards downtown

3. Belts and stacker

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4. At the pit dumping first car

5. String of Conrail cars

6. Critter pushing 2 coil cars onto NS interchange

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7. Uncoupling from the coil cars

8. Close up of the "critter"

9. Shelly U23B parked, done for the day

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Great pictures of unusual...or at least seldom-seen-now machines.

Now which one do you run again, the pretty little yellow one or the big red one?

The red one! The yellow one is too noisy! That thing clanks and clunks!

Curious, will the stone go back into hoppers when RTA needs it, or will it go by truck or hi-rail?

They will truck it to the work site.

The horn on that yellow critter is so small. It looks like a bicycle horn!