Hi, first time posting. As background, I am a retired railroader with track work and train crew experience. I thought I could fill out some of what you see in this video.
1: You will note that the flats being loaded by the shovel have no ends. Once the train of cars is loaded, it has a car on each end switched in to it. One end is the Lidgerwood plow and the other the Lidgerwood unloader. A cable is stretched between them and pulls the plow through the cars, which have side doors which open at the bottom to dump the dirt or rock. There are aprons placed between the cars so the load goes out to the side. This was a useful method in those days for filling in trestles and widening embankments.
2: At 0:59 you see a man stopping the ties on the conveyor. This is probably to allow joint ties to be dropped in the string, as they were selected for better quality. The tools the men are using are called tie picks.
3: Beginning at 1:52, the man in the middle on the near side of the tie conveyor is placing bridle rods between the ties, every five or six ties. Bridle rods are installed under the rails and clamp the outside of the rail base, thus holding the rails to gauge ahead of the machine. Thus, no temporary spiking. You will see them being installed ahead of the machine with two men, one using a bar to slide the rail into the bridle rod.
4: At 2:08 you will note a man in the left background getting a drink of water. He is holding a "tie fiddle" in his left hand, a board with a cleat across the end, to fit on the end of each tie. It is cut to length to mark the tie with chalk to indicate the outside edge of the rail base. This, along with the bridle rods, centers the track on the ties and to gauge. You can see this man chalking the tie ends.
5: At 2:34, on the rail car, you can see the drive shafting for the conveyor rollers beneath the man's left foot, who is rolling the rail into the conveyor. There is another driveshaft on the opposite side for the tie conveyor. Also note the steam line beneath the drive shaft. There is usually a flagman atop the track layer to signal the locomotive engineer, not noticeable here; maybe they are using some other means to communicate.
6: At 3:24 you will note the man on the far side of the tie chute pulling bridle rods from their rack.
7: At 3:46 note the chalkline at the tie ends to keep the ties in alignment.
8: At 4:10 you can see the bridle man throwing the bridle between the ties. At 4:22 the man with a bar is sliding the rail into the bridle rod. At 4:38 the man by the tie chute with the large light hat hooks the bridle rod to the rail.
9: At 7:09 the bridle rods can be plainly seen on the rail base.
10: At 7:18 the men are moving the rails to allow the bridles to drop off behind the machine and putting the ties and one rail to final alignment. The spikers behind spike this rail first and bring the second rail to gauge.
Rich, I must comment that the lining bar gangs were not usually seen until the track was ballasted, after the initial raise.
MikeCT, the 10 men referred to are only the men placing the ties, not the other members.
WB47, fun to watch; all day on a spike maul, not so much!
Situational awareness and quick reactions were a must on these machines, and on most track work.
Don Francis
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