Photo of the Week: Work Train

If you follow our Facebook page, you may have seen this one already, but I thought it would share it on here too.  Actually, it came out better than I had expected.

For the last few weeks, I have been on a regular assignment, working on a ballast train to support undercutters working in the area.  Every day we go out with ten to fifteen cars loaded with ballast, and dump it in the areas they cut with the undercutter.  Some days it seems like they only cut a few feet, other days they cut over a mile.  It just depends on what needs to be done, and how long they can go before the machine breaks down!

A few days ago we had pulled our train out of the siding in Marsh, MT, and headed west, following the undercutter and a surfacing crew.  They were cutting just east of Terry, MT, and we had several hours to kill before they had made enough progress cutting for us to come in and start dumping ballast.  While we were waiting, I decided to step off the engine and take a few pictures.  I was riding the rear because I have been working as a brakeman.  We like to have someone on the rear of the train so that if we have to back up, there is someone who can protect the shoving movement.  This is one of the photos I took on my little walk.

We had about 15 cars, with one engine on the west end and two on the east end.  Normally we operate with an engine on each end and have them linked as distributed power.  Earlier in the week, we had had problems getting the units to link up properly, so a third one was sent out.  That one would not link either, and so mechanical decided it was not worth sending a fourth locomotive out to a 15 car train!  They told us to just release the brakes, cut out the valves, and just pull the engines like they were any other rail car.  When we had to change directions, we just switched which engine got towed.