I saw the oddest thing when I was waiting to shoot the Canadian on Monday (March 29). In the siding at mile 10.1 or so of the Rivers sub was a Plasser unit, CN 619-28.
There's a photo of the same unit in British Columbia in late 2004 here, with a plows on the front and back. He was apparently trying to find out what it was with not much success. There is reference to it being a tamper.
It turns out that it is a Plasser PTS-62, a "dynamic track stabilizer" which I guess is kind of like a tamper. From this site and others, what it appears to do is vibrate the heck out of the track horizontally while putting a vertical load on it.
The data sheet on the side of the unit has been modified to include metric units, as well as an increased weight. You can see the PTS-62 label at the bottom.
The Plasser site says this puppy can roll along at 50 MPH, although when working it crawls along at 1 MPH.
1 comment:
Hi Steve,
This month, 12 years ago, I photographed unit 619-25 on the Counter Street team track here in Kingston. It was not enclosed like 619-28, instead having an open deck and enclosed bi-directional cabs similar to the unit shown on your link to the Plasser website.
Thanks for sharing those photos,
Eric
Post a Comment