Ever wonder what the glorius Jew Cat did before becoming a fulltime net dork?
 

Can't believe this shit is on Youtube...



That's my old baby right there. Rolled her off the truck new. Still looking good ya old yellow bitch...

i have buddies up there.

Up where? Fort Crack? Or with A & B?

damn there's a machine for everything

who paid you to do that? i don't even know who owns railroad tracks - are they privately owned or government owns and maintains railroad tracks?

fort crack and a bunch of godforsaken places i can't remember.

There literally is a machine for fucking everything on the railroad. I sank 3 1/2 years of my youth into working tie gang in Northern Alberta and I've ran every machine they got. Became somewhat of an expert spiker though, and I put many many an hour in on that exact machine in the video. We figured it out once, I drove over 3 million spikes in my railroad carrier. Funny thing is that they have an entire tour of the tie replacement process.

The tracks up there are just about exclusively owned by Canadian National. A & B is one of the biggest contract railroad maintenance companies in Canada, they grew huge over a period of a few years and ate up most of the maintenance industry in the west. So CN was footing the bill.

I you really have nothing better to do for an hour, you can take a ground level tour of the entire process thanks to buddy. The kid who shot these videos is actually an old drinking buddy. Hell, a few of these guys are. When I first met him he had train tracks buzzed into his head like a mohawk. :1orglaugh







That shit really deserves an episode of "Dirty Jobs", but we'll all have to settle for Mark's rendition.

I almost miss it.

My little bro is up in Fort Crack right now. I never been up there. But I've done the whole Peace Country tour, Grande Prairie, Grande Cache, Hinton, High Level, Peace River, and everything in between. Probably have a few illegitimate metis children kicking around...

HOW is your HEARING these days?

Very interesting. On an average day how many miles of ties are replaced? Do you have switch backs to get the repair equipment off of the main line so a train can pass through? Are the machines kept out on the line and resupplied and if so where do the men quarter themselves? Also...how often do ties have to be replaced?

My hearing is fucked. I used to put my earbuds under my muffs, and crank them to the max all day to drown out the rattling from the work heads. That machine was loud as fuck. Had my share of injuries on it too, got a nice gash in my wrist once. Missed a plate hole and the spike came flying up between the chutes and lodged itself sharp end first right below my thumb. Also have a slightly wonky index finger that got smashed between the top of the rail and the hydraulic hammer sleeve while dislodging a stuck stick from the claws. had a laborer slip an get his thumb stuck in the tools, cut it off at the first joint. All sorts of good times on the spiker. Lots of bumping and banging between machines too. Not too bad considering the majority of the crew is either high as fuck or still half pissed from the night before most days. I probably smoked my way through pounds hotboxing that cab with people. The foreman used to come jump on my machine and roll gaggers when he got stressed out. The tracks bring out quite the collection of people. :1orglaugh

Another question what is done with the old ties...plates and spikes?

Is that you in the first video, jew cat?

The don't measure progress in miles because different areas obviously have different wear. The contracts lay out certain densities for different mile points along the track. Progress is measured by the tie, and the contracts are agreed upon on per tie basis. I worked that exact crew in the videos for about a year, 1200 ties a day was about standard with them. As you can imagine, they like to work you for long hours with the whip cracking. I have heard rumor of some foreman's yearly production bonuses crossing $40k. So they like to keep things hopping. So I've seen that crew with that number of machines do as many as 1800 on a good day without breakdowns.

Daily progress of the entire crew depends upon the performance of only a few though. The TRIPP operators (the removal & insertion machine) and the CX Spiker. Those are your two primo positions if you want to make money and are good at keeping that machine cruising. I hate to admit it, but I was making way more fucking money running that machine than I do online now. :1orglaugh Just too fucking stressful.

You can increase productivity by adding more machine sat any point, especially cranes, inserters, and spikers. I worked on crews that average 600 ties a day, and crews that averaged 2400 ties a die. For a while I was working with what CN calls the super tie program, which has a crew about 3 times that size. The sole purpose of the gang is to do fucking massive production. Everyone has their own very specific task. Sweeping one plate, or loading spike kegs. You do that one task 14-15 hours a day all day. Those crews can crank out 4000-5000 ties a day.

With contracts ranging from $80+/tie, you can imagine these companies are making a fairly tidy income.

There's fucktons of money in railroad maintenance, and there is no shortage of work. Alberta railroads alone are TEN YEARS BEHIND on maintenance. There are not enough companies to keep up right now.

I was actually offered the opportunity to buy out a small utility crew. Which is what got me thinking about the railroad again today. Part of me still really does love that stupid fucking job. It's just too hard physically and mentally on a guy to be ran like that all the time. It is kind o tempting though. Wouldn't be bad coming back as the bossman. :1orglaugh

again, this all depends on contracts. There is huge money around that scrap metal. Sometimes the railroad wants it back. Sometimes the contractor wants it for scrap money and that goes into the contract. One thing I can tell you though, is that shit gets reused until it is absolutely no longer functional. Every piece of steel in the tracks has been marked with a date since day one. it's not uncommon to find rail from as far back as the 20's on active track today. I'd say a vast majority of the rail in alberta railways has been in use from the 40's to 50's. If it is still functional, it goes right back into the tracks.

Plates last forever. I've worked on single hole plates marked like 1850's. Spikes and anchors have a tendency to go into the ditch because laborers HATE picking that shit up. So did I, I just chucked it all in the ditch never to be seen again, and pretty much all the highers ups look the other way.

It is really sickening what that stuff costs. To build a one mile stretch of brand new track is a big money project. Think of it this way. most rails are 39 feet long. a 115lb rail for one strand i've been quoted anywhere from $4000-8000 depending on ages. One set of joint bars is over $100, the bolts to do them up (4-6 per joint) run as much as $4 per bolt. A keg of spike that holds enough to spike a dozen or so ties are upwards of $80. Ties themselves $60-120 (roughly 3000 per mile). Start adding that shit up. you haven't even worked in specialty parts yet.

Multimillion dollar companies that operate in nothing but railroad reclamation.

Ties get stacked in enormous piles, and are later loaded onto a train and shipped to special burning locations to be properly disposed of. They are afterall soaked in creosote. The farmers snatch the odd few up when they can, but when you're pulling hundreds of thousands, you can't get rid of them all.

Nah, I was done with working on the tie gang about a year before that video was shot. I do know a lot of those guys very well though.

One of my favorite track machines ever. The Potato Digger :1orglaugh

This thing is sick when it rolls through.



more of a fucking work train than a single machine really. An impressive show if you're into that sort of thing.

One of the all-time scariest jobs I've ever worked. Dropping 1/4 Mile welded rail strands. Beautiful relaxed view from the catwalk though...

Can we go back to work please.