The Live Steam article is really detailed, and explains how it works. The only real difference between it and a big one, is that the big ones' 'fingers' rotate a little, and a cylinder pushes them down, and another 'squeezes' them together under the tie. In the LS machine, the weight, and the eccentrics, do the job.rkcarguy wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 12:10 pm I watched a video of one of the full size track maintenance machines running along, and it had these vibrating sprung "feet" that pressed down between the ties to compact the ballast on each side of the rails. Appears to be different than the way that tamping machine works?
Here's the live steam article: LS&OR May-June 2010 I've got a .pdf of it, but it's too large to add here.
Mike