Eastern Railroad Discussion > Loram Shoulder Ballast Cleaner working at night

Loram SBC 2402 was working on the CSX CE&D sub near Hazelton Indiana on a nice October night back in 2018. Filmed with 2 drones!

From the Loram Website:
  Shoulder ballast cleaning consists of removing ballast at the end of the ties, screening the ballast and discarding fines and fouling material and restoring the good ballast to the shoulder. Integrated scarifiers break open end of tie mud pockets, removes fines, and restores ballast voids in the shoulders and under the tie ends and release damaging trapped water. By consistently excavating at levels up to 8 inches below the tie and restoring the ballast shoulder structure, obstructing fines in the crib are able to migrate and drain freely to the shoulder with dramatically improved seepage time.A regular discipline of shoulder ballast cleaning with Loram prolongs ballast life, reducing the frequency and cost of re-ballasting.

The benefits of shoulder ballast cleaning include:

• Improved drainage that extends surfacing and undercutting cycles and reduces tamping needs up to 200%
• Enhanced lateral resiliency and stiffness of track between 10-30%
• Improved track quality index by 35%

• Better track geometry under the freeze/thaw cycle
• Inhibited vegetation growth, reducing the need for herbicide applications
• Typically, no train speed restrictions following completed work

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Outstanding image.
Bob

What a great photo! Thanks for posting, it is screen saver material! Your text sounds like a sales pitch, but I'm sure you are offering it as explanation to those railfans that have no idea of what this is.
Years ago when the mainline by the house was Conrail, They had one of those Loram ballast shoulder cleaners in town to clean the ballast and drainage on the two track main. It only incorporated one wheel on each side. I'm certain two are better than one! The Conrail MOW guys called it the "Big Wheel" (It did remind me of the Mattel Big Wheel my son wore out learning how to drift around his Mom's minivan and him becoming a championship road racing driver). I'm guessing that is where the name came from. They discussed their plans for the day, and how the recent rains may thwart their best intentions. They got track time from the Dispatcher to open up and work west. About a half hour later they called the Dispatcher again to tell him they they were heading back to the MOW siding. They told him the ROW was like "soup" and they would try again tomorrow, or maybe the next day. I guess the grates that sift the ballast clog up when too muddy.
Gonut



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/24 19:01 by Gonut1.

This 4 wheeled machine can clean twice as much as the 2 wheeled one thus doubling the capacity and doing more work in less time.

A total wow!!

I'll give it a wow! (but with only one exclamation point).
Because I'm holding out for the rail grinder train at night.
/Ted

Very interesting video!!

Larry

Great and Educational video!
I like the 2 drone work too, very innovative.
Nice edits and production too.

I can imagine the crew up front radioing that boom operator when a signal tower or other trackside obstruction is approaching.

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

Very nice..!!

I think that one needs an undercutting ballast cleaner to complete the job.

Really, really cool.

The video is outstanding! Thanks for posting!!!
Human ingenuity when it comes to mechanical design is amazing... What a remarkable piece of engineering!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/24 13:31 by RNP47.