Department of Prototypes for Anything Department

LOL. Ingenious stupidity in action. But then we have to have folks that can qualify for administration appointments. Bruce

Wow! I saw a backhoe on top of a cut of hopper cars in Moorhead, MN a few weeks ago. I wondered how the heck they got it up there - no ramp or crane in sight and it was gone 8 hours later. Now I know!

Kevin Rhodes

most of those other ones are pretty stupid (I've seen that forklift off the end of a loading ramp photo before). But the backhoe one up on the ballast hopper, that's standard procedure for something like that. How else are you going to get it up there out in the middle of nowhere.

It's not only prototypical, it's also patented! Here's a link to a contractor that provides the service, where there is also a link to a "commercial" of theirs showing it in action. It even shows it loading and unloading ties and other materials while the train is moving.

"me" wrote in news:g4C9e.9643$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

I saw this thing in action about 15 years ago on the BN (former Frisco) line that runs through Rolla, MO. They were doing major maintenence on the line and the first thing to go throug was this work train that looked pretty much like what you see in the photo. The train crawled along at notch 1 and the back hoe droped the bundles of cross ties onto the right of way at regular intervals. Many weeks later the track gang came through and yanked out every