Not only are we seeing the streets getting the once over CN has been busy redoing the ballast along its line through town. Putting down high quality crushed rock is a ,major undertaking and mechanised work crews have been working their way past town these past few days.
On Wednesday afternoon they had moved through the Tisdale yard and were heading east with lining, lifting and ballast machines. As they did this work they redid this East crossing near TMSS. The completely re-did the crossing installing new timber as well as sorting out the ballast.
In the back ground in this picture you can see the ballast machine moving the crushed rock into place and sweeping out the centre area between the rails.
To support a crossing properly rail crews have traditionally laid rails in beside the road rails to give the crossing stability and reduce damage to the alignment with heavy vehicles passing over the crossing. The use of a back hoe certainly improves the way this task used to be done
when
railway crews did all oftheir work with hand tools.
However, one thing about working men does not change and that is the ratio between supervision and actual workers. When I worked on the trail at age 14 it was pretty much the same then, I did the work and five guys told me what to do. In this picture we have six guys deciding what to do while the back hoe operater stands by ready to accomplish the work. For those of you not familiar with the uniforms, white hats are foremen or supervisors yellow hats are "dozers" and the other suspicious guys with out hard hats are out of uniform.
Below is the ballast machine making another sweep.
