Eastern Railroad Discussion > HI-RAIL vehicles

Is there any place you can buy outdated HiRail Vehicles at all? Legaly

Hi there,

I think the rail gear gets removed and installed on another vehicle.

Absolutely! There are several places that sell them with the hi-railing equipment intact. Don\'t expect to be able to joy ride though unless you\'re in dark territory or that little TOL light wil pop on and give you away!

~Kris
Conrail Enthusiast
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ConrailCorp/

I\'m not sure what a TOL light is but all the hi-rail vehicles that I know of do not shunt the track. This is one of the reasons Form D\'s (on NORAC regulated railroads) are so important. Just last week a track car was destroyed on CSX in NY when a freight (powerred by a UP SD70M) was allowed into a track occupied by a track car due to a dispatcher mistake. Amazingly, noone was hurt but the track car was hit at over 50 MPH!!!

MT

I think he means Track Occupancy Light (just an
edjumicated guess :) I agree with mttrainman,
most hirailers don\'t shunt the tracks, at least
the pickups and stuff. Not sure about the larger
vehicles, but I bet they don\'t either. That\'s
why you don\'t see them trip the crossing gates
either.

Today, on my way to the office to pick up some stuff for a business trip tomorrow, I passed a gas station and sitting there, large as life, was one of those odd-looking hi-rail trucks Conrail track inspectors used to use. No Conrail logo, but the hi-rail gear was intact. I\'m surmising it was bought by a short line in southern NJ, since Conrail stopped using them several years ago.

So there is a secondary market in hi-rails. Just please use them only on out-of-service tracks.

I believe the RR\'s usually sell the used high-rail vehicles to auction clearing houses. I know of one in Fort Wayne, In that would get used pickups from the RR to auction off.

You can bet that if the RR is getting rid of it, there is something majorly wrong with it. Those things take a major beating during their service life, and I would never want to buy one used from the RR.

Because of the possible safety concerns over it, I\'m sure you have to have some form of a permit to mount hi-rail equipment on your vehicle. Something that proves you aren\'t a complete moron and won\'t go getting on track you don\'t belong on. And unless you have permission from the owners of the track, you don\'t belong on it, period.

As for hi-railing out of service track, there probably a reason its out of service. It is usually in such poor shape nothing can go down it. Hi-rail vehicles are more prone to derailments then regular flanged equipment, so the last thing you want to do is pop off the rails out in the middle of no where.

Practice Safe CSX

I totally agree with CSX_CO. One would think it would be pretty easy to get out of the gauge if yuo derail but this is not the case. Back a few years ago, I was trackside at Charlton, MA. Along came a hi-rail truck with two well dressed individuals moving right along. They seemed rather snotty and didn\'t acknowledge my presence a mere few feet away. Well, about a 1000 feet away they derailed in a rock cut. They then backed back up to my location where they attempted to drive off of the tracks. After about thirty minutes, the only thing they succeeded in doing was blowing out both back tires and holding up a van train. A wrecker was then called in to lift them out of the gauge and haul the truck and two very down-cast and verbally-beaten (by the DS) souls away. Let this be a lesson to all you future hi-raillers.

MT

Hi there,

I guess the suits weren\'t trained about putting hi-rails back on the tracks. I wasn\'t trained, but I had to show a TrainMaster how I would put a hi-rail back on the tracks, so I wouldn\'t delay his trains. Took less than 5 minutes and a light foot on the gas.

rresor wrote:

> So there is a secondary market in hi-rails. Just please use
> them only on out-of-service tracks.

Bad advice! One should not use them on ANY tracks unless you have the owning company\'s written permission to do so! One should also not use hi rail equipment unless they are instructed properly on how to do it.

OOS tracks can be just as dangerous, and sometimes even more so (being that they aren\'t maintained or inspected for defects), as in service tracks. Hit just one switch not up to standards at speed, and things will get ugly real fast.

An inexperienced operator, on an out of service track, could easily injure/kill themselves or others.

After derailing once in a Hi-Rail truck. It is not something you would ever want to happen again.

Especially if it happens on a bridge.

farmer wrote:

> After derailing once in a Hi-Rail truck. It is not something
> you would ever want to happen again.
>
> [%sig%]

If you wish to find a hi rail vehicle, you might start mith the motor car organization called NARCOA.

http://www.narcoa.org/

Someone there might be able to point you to one, or even find one in the want ads there.

If you have access to trade magaizines like Railway Age or Railway Track and Structure, they have ads in the back for used vehicles.

As for operation of one, I\'d suggest joining a tourist railroad or even NARCOA. NARCOA has organized events for on track vehicles (hi rail vehicles included) that do leagal, sanctioned meets.

Depending upon where you live, I know of one company in Kansas City that sells used hi rail vehicles. Expect to pay around $8,000 to $12,000 for a good vehicle. Don\'t be surprised if the vehicle you find has over 150,000 miles on it even being only a few years old. Even good used Fairmont hi rail gear can fetch around $4,000.

imrl