Erskine Tramway

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Erskine Tramway
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by Erskine Tramway »

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?
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.

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
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by rkcarguy »

Ah I see, it kind of pinches the ballast together under the tie.
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 2:05 pm Ah I see, it kind of pinches the ballast together under the tie.
Yup, that's what it does. Between the pinching and the vibration, the ballast 'consolidates' under the ties. And, it consolidates where you want it, under the rails, leaving the centers less 'solid' to keep the ties from 'rocking' on their centers.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by NP317 »

The full-sized ballast compactors all tend to raise the ties as they work. I've been aboard one watching this happen.
So modern tamper systems utilize laser aligners to indicate when "level" has been reached.
Pretty cool.
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by DBauer2250 »

Mike,

Yup, we are in Prescott Valley, AZ. Elevation at the house is just 10' short of 5000. Been kinda hunkered down with this virus thing, but i still get out somewhere most days. Wife says I can't stay still. She's probably right. Wishing it was a bit warmer so I would feel a little more comfortable working in the garage.
Thanks for posting the picture. I don't think we've seen each other since the R&GN days. I remember so well when Norm had the Tom Thumb fired up and it was time to shut down for the day. He told dad and I to take her for a ride. The line was so cool in the early evening, with just the little engine and us. What fun. As I write this I begin to realize how old we are all getting. Norm and Elmer are both long passed. Mom and dad are gone. I guess I had better get out there and finish that critter .

Later,
Don
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by rkcarguy »

NP317 wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 8:07 pm The full-sized ballast compactors all tend to raise the ties as they work. I've been aboard one watching this happen.
So modern tamper systems utilize laser aligners to indicate when "level" has been reached.
Pretty cool.
RussN
Ah here's good video of one of these at work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP_HLVlx2tE

Wouldn't a pair of "V" shaped rams that just vibrated straight down be sufficient for large scale model track?
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote: Tue Apr 21, 2020 1:45 am Wouldn't a pair of "V" shaped rams that just vibrated straight down be sufficient for large scale model track?
It might, but I suspect that the Live Steam version would be easier to build. I've been using an old spading fork, driven in at an angle from each side, to tamp so far. That achieves the same result, packed together under the rails. But...doing lots of ties in the sun gets old pretty quick :shock:

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by rkcarguy »

Erskine Tramway wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 11:00 am
rkcarguy wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2020 12:27 pm Would it make sense to add a ballast spur that was ran subgrade into a pit of some sort, so that the JD's bucket would clear the top of a hopper?
My lower back doesn't like digging and shoveling/tamping either, I wonder if some kind of air powered "tamping attachment" could be made for a piece of rolling stock?
The machine from Live Steam is still the simplest arrangement. Here's somebody's version that I snagged off the innertubes.

13325570_10209333963691039_60895906340562571_n.jpg

Mike
Mike, my thought was to make something quite similar, but use the eccentrics to vibrate a pair of pair of thick flat bar pads up and down with 8 "rams" on them. Simply rest the weight of the machine on the rams and let the vibration push the ballast down. I'd make the rams thread into the bar so I could play with their shape and replace them easily.
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote: Thu Apr 23, 2020 11:56 am Mike, my thought was to make something quite similar, but use the eccentrics to vibrate a pair of pair of thick flat bar pads up and down with 8 "rams" on them. Simply rest the weight of the machine on the rams and let the vibration push the ballast down. I'd make the rams thread into the bar so I could play with their shape and replace them easily.
You want the ballast 'squeezed' together under the ties, not pushed down next to them. Someplace, there is a video of that LS machine working. The guy running it just sets it down straddling a tie, and it digs its' way down until the wooden cross member hits the top of the rail, and it stops going down. Then he picks it up and moves to the next tie.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by Pontiacguy1 »

Those guys who came up with the ballast tamper design did a lot of research and experimentation to arrive at the design they published. I wouldn't waste my time re-doing their work. Just take the design, scale it up for your railroad gauge, and build it. If I recall, they tried something similar to what you describe and it didn't work very well.
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by rkcarguy »

Pontiacguy1 wrote: Fri Apr 24, 2020 7:24 am Those guys who came up with the ballast tamper design did a lot of research and experimentation to arrive at the design they published. I wouldn't waste my time re-doing their work. Just take the design, scale it up for your railroad gauge, and build it. If I recall, they tried something similar to what you describe and it didn't work very well.
So from what I'm seeing in the picture, they have the eccentrics move the fingers in a "pincher" fashion back and forth, but not up and down. Then the fingers are angled and shaped so that they force the ballast under the tie?
I have a 212cc predator still in the box on the shelf from the $90 super sale coupon, so mine is going to have a bit more power:)
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Re: Erskine Tramway

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote: Fri Apr 24, 2020 10:35 am So from what I'm seeing in the picture, they have the eccentrics move the fingers in a "pincher" fashion back and forth, but not up and down. Then the fingers are angled and shaped so that they force the ballast under the tie?
I have a 212cc predator still in the box on the shelf from the $90 super sale coupon, so mine is going to have a bit more power:)
You've got the idea.

As I recall, without being able to find my scans of the article, the 'fingers' are straight, with a short piece of bar stock welded to the inside face at the bottom. They are straight pieces of round stock, with a flat machined near the top, like the top of an end mill, with its' face parallel with the bar stock 'working' face. The flat is for a set screw that comes in from the side of the finger bar. It serves two purposes, to hold the finger in, but allow replacement, and to keep the working face of the finger lined up parallel with the tie.

The fellow who wrote the article had designed, or modified the finger bar spacing, to work for 2x4' s lying on their 'flat sides. Since that's the way my ties are laid, I was particularly interested in that.

I'll keep looking for the article.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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