Communications and Signals

History of railroad Communications and Signal systems from Norfolk Southern Corp. Lots of vintage video.

Gandy Dancers

I was watching the video Chickenmom posted for Friday Night Steam and the condition of some of the track made me think they needed Gandy Dancers. I thought that would make a good post so here are a couple of videos from You Tube.

There are other videos out there worth watching. Gandy comes from the company that made the tools. The dancing part is obvious. :)

A couple of things I found interesting in the first video. Note the shape of the hammers used to drive the spikes. The head is much longer than a normal sledge hammer. Made that way to clear the rail if the spike is on the other side.
Also look at the expressions on the faces as they watch the machine drive spikes. They are watching automation replace them.

This one from 1929 is interesting also.

My best friend's grandfather was a section foreman on the Apalachicola Northern Railroad in the Florida Panhandle. His grandmother was a station agent in Greensboro, Fl. That was in the 1930's and 40's.

Ballast Cleaning

Ballast cleaning between Stuart and Hobe Sound. Fla. Dec. 19, 2009
Sorry for the low quality of the photos. Had seen the machine in Jensen Beach a couple of days earlier and went looking for them.
Ran into the same crew in downtown Stuart in April 2015. They were waiting on permission to start work. The gentleman I talked to remembered talking to me in Jensen Beach before. 

Not sure who makes the equipment. Loram is one manufacturer but the machine on YouTube looks slightly different.

A British company with divisions all over the world.

Another view.

Edited to add a link to the Wikipedia article about ballast cleaners in case you wondered why it is done.