First, the good:If you are headed to the EBT for the Reunion Weekend/Fall Spectacular, you will find that most of the most prized photo locations, including the Orby/Rockhill yard and the Runk Road bridge/overpass/fill, have just had a tremendous amount of weed-trimming and tree-grooming landscaping carried out by a masochistic band of weed whackers, including yours truly and other regulars of Franz follies. Certain members made hefty but unintended blood donat ions from the briars and thorns that had to be chomped through. With both 14 and 15 promised for the rest of the year, this may be your last chance to see multiple steamers in EBT service for a while, as 15 replaces the 14 (or is it the other way around?) for shopping.Now the bad:I hate to mention this lest some eagle-eyed FRA or other inspector take heed, but I walked several sections of the railroad today, including the Runk Road overpass. Sad to say, the condition of the EBT track is rapidly becoming potentially dangerous and irresponsible, with FAR too many ties literally compost piles and spikes held only by gravity or dirt, with way too many missing tie plates. I was having flashbacks to the worst days of late Penn Central and early Conrail in my hometown, where derailments were almost a weekly occurrence. And the fill itself needs perhaps another TRAINLOAD of fill material for proper reinforcement. Dare I mention the Runk Road overpass itself? One abutment is literally collapsing; the other (concrete) has unacceptable spalling.I would like to hear a response from both the FEBT and the readers here: If arrangements could be made, is it at all possible that a volunteer crew could pull a one-week tie-replacement campaign on the EBT? Work trains with the diesels and flats; ties loaded at Orby, run out and dropped at various locations; crews work Monday through Friday, with prep work the weekend before. I'd sign up; what about others here?

Count me in Sandy, if your able to pull it off!TJG

Such proposals are likely to go farther if made via a private communication to the FEBT than over this forum.

I can't go to them without a firm proposal (as opposed to a pie-in-the-sky dream or "telling them what to do") until I know what I have to offer them.As a result of the earlier post, I now have someone eagerly attempting to solve the tie-supply dilemma via an intriguing proposal. We might be able to get used ties free, or new ties cheap or at cost.One other note: My comments are only one person's opinions, and posting them here is not like, say, posting them in a flame-happy, rant-laden forum like others we've seen in our days. This is a thinking preservationist's forum. I made my comments in the tone of constructive criticism; I'm willing to put my sweat where my mouth is, so to speak, and probably talk others into helping as well.

Hi Alexander,I may not be able to help in body, but I will tell you something a group I was once invilved with did when faced with a shoestring budget and tie replacement. In the past new ties had been purchased, but the company was bought out, so then we started looking at relays and started purchasing them. We found another tie company in the area and inquired about switch ties, since we were needing them. We explained who we were and all and he invited us down and the company donated 10 kull switch ties to us and he said we could have as many 8 footers as we needed as long as he had some for the farmers. These ties weren't good enough for mainline, but they were perfect for us. All we had to do was call and ask if they had any go get them. I don't know if there are any tie companies in the area, but maybe there is a sympathetic manager somewhere that'll help out, or you could just tell him your a farmer and need some for fencing...who knows. Hope this helps.In this field there are to many naysayers and not enough doers. This board is a great help for people to learn and help others. In the interest of helping others, I believe that if a group needs help or an individual sees something that could be remedied with some planning and help from other members of this board, then he/she should be able to open a discussion about it and let the community know. There are many treasures in this country that if one person took an interest and devoted his time to it, then maybe it might have a brighter future. I own a locomotive, that right now is being stored for future restoration and operation. I bought it to save it from scrap and to help out a group. I'm not intending to make any money off of it, that's not the point, but if a group approached me about it, I would definitly listen to a proposal in the interest of preservation. I feel like I'm ranting, but I'm sure all of you know this. Anyway, Alexander, I hope you get the support you need to approach FEBT and EBT and yall work together to insure that the EBT is around for future generations.Stuart

This is by no means any sort of official response, just some input from someone who's spent some time laying ties and seen others do it.FEBT has many projects competing for volunteers' time, and this year the track crew has been redirected to restoration of a side dump hopper (specifically to enable work on the railroad's fills as was brought up in this thread too). The preceding manual track work by FEBT proceeds at about 3 ties (complete install) per person-day, about 100 ties/year total. Visits by the good folks of the Bucksgahuda&Western RR yielded about the same output (though less strenuous with their use of machinery, and with better effect since they can do it all at once, not spread out over a year).The main/wyes are roughly 5 miles, so replacing every 5th tie is 3000 ties. That's 1000 person-days even with some mechanical help. If a week (5 days) per year were scheduled, that'd take 200 people. OK, well maybe do a mile a year (still at every 5th tie), then you need 40 people.FEBT work has been underway since 2002, and we don't have that many people at any session, much less to direct all at track, for an entire week, and do it 5 years in a row. (I'll note here that this very thing *is* being done by the WW&F... not with replacement on an active line, but new construction).So maybe that does happen, and at the the end of 5 years every 5th tie has been replaced, now it's time to go at the other 4 ties, so it'll be 25 years to replace them all. And when done, the first ones you did are 25 years old, about at the end of life for a relay. Bummer. Inevitably the bug comes up to want to extend track. That one's bit me for sure, and I think most everyone. And that will take every tie, not just the 5th. So to add a mile a year, multiply the above by a factor of 6.So either the number of volunteers needs to go WAY up, for protracted sessions and over many years, or some very efficient mechanization is needed. I have no doubt the FEBT's Rockhill Restoration Coordinator and the EBT's General Manager would be interested in hearing some well thought out proposals.www.febt.org - Friends of the East Broad Topwww.ebtrr.com - East Broad Top Railroad and Coal Co.

I am more than well aware, having helped out with track repair and building on such places as Baltimore Streetcar Museum, Wilmington & Western, and Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington (the latter building anew), that tie replacement is not an easy task. Nonetheless, three ties a man-day is excruciatingly slow. Does that include walking back to Orbisonia from McMullen's Summit for the ties?The above made the case for volunteer replacement of the EBT's track seem hopeless--like "repainting the Forth Bridge", a perpetual task. But this is something that CANNOT be put off. I, a seasoned veteran of "bad track", have literally been reduced to boycotting riding the line for safety reasons. One at-speed derailment, and we can call in the scrappers for all we can do for it. I can't realistically fathom the current ownership forming and sending out a work train/crew to replace ties in serious quantity. So what do we do--give up and go home for good, offer to throw lots of money, offer to throw lots of manpower, or offer to create a labor-saving technique? Or the latter three combined? There are places to steal lessons from. Look at WW&F, who used steamer # 10 to run its work trains because it was capable of much faster speeds than the diesel/gas locos between the end of track and the ballast loading point.Mechanization is a must. Someone out there could build or jury-rig a tie tamper and rail jack. The ties to be replaced are so badly rotted that there's little to shovel aside. They need replacement tie plates and spikes. May be a backhoe or two could work. Convert a flat/open car to drop ties? A section car, maybe home-built, to haul a compressor and air spike driver? A tie truck delivering pre-arranged bundles of trimmed used ties to lineside spots?There are two other alternatives at the moment: expect the EBT's management to handle it themselves, or just give the heck up and walk away. I find neither quite palatable.So: Who's got a line on thousands of decent used ties? And three-foot track equipment we can rent or borrow?

Yes it is slow. That figure includes digging out the remains of the old tie, moving the replacement tie, inserting, spiking, and tamping. Admittedly this is in the yard, where long trenches need dug, often in slag. Out in the open things might be a bit easier. They are some realisitic numbers based on actual experience, with some of the mechanization you suggest. I don't know what the solution is, or what you should pursue, but those numbers are what it's up against.It's impossible to work on the property and not think about such things. But you've given me an idea.

I have some thoughts on the EBT problem. Is there equipment available for fully mechanized tie replacement on a 3-foot-gage track just as there is for standard gage? Considering the scope of the problem, it would seem that if the equipment is available, using it would be more cost effective than doing the work manually, assuming that the equipment could be rented or leased rather than purchasing it outright. If such equipment is not available, it does raise the possibility of building some special machines for the purpose. Mr. Mitchell mentioned that most of the ties are rotted to the point where they disintegrate upon removal. That suggests that any special equipment might be somewhat less sophisticated than what would normally be needed to handle the removal function inherent with heavy use track where the ties are not allowed to entirely deteriorate before being replaced. Deteriorated ties would greatly reduce the labor of tie and spike removal. One mini-excavator could scoop out the old tie and spikes, and a second one equipped with a rotatable grapple could insert the new tie.Assuming you could get new ties or new reject ties, would they be drilled for 3-foot-gage or would that need to be done as a second operation by EBT? Would you re-use the spikes and tie plates? If you acquired good used standard gage ties, would you re-drill them for 3-foot-gage? Would you shorten them?

There are three-foot gauge tie cranes, tie inserter-removers and even tampers, but they are few and far between. Used three-foot gauge track machinery is not often available. That being said, in a situation such as the East Broad Top's, in which the ties are so badly deteriorated, keeping the track machines on the track is difficult since the machine must push horizontally against the rails, which tends to spread the gauge with the expected result. Some sort of portable gauge-maintaining device would be necessary to replace ties under that sort of circumstance. The rule of thumb for manual tie replacement is two ties per man per hour. However, adding a machine like a Section Gang tie inserter-remover can increase productivity markedly. On one railroad I worked on, it was not unusual to replace 125 ties a day with a six-man crew. With advance preparation, such as pulling the old spikes ahead of time, placing the new ties adjacent to where they would be installed, and having an air compressor with spike driver following behind, even an all volunteer crew should be able to put in 100 a day. In the case of the EBT, it would most advantageous to perform this kind of work during the off season when no trains are running. The biggest problem would be tamping the ties to maintain adequate track surface for the passage of the steam locomotives. Diesels can run over poor surface much more easily than a 2-8-2.

Hi,Just a thought, but has anyone thought about asking the Cumbres & Toltec or D&SNG about the possibility of borrowing some track equipment. I'm sure they have equipment and if all arrangements could be made, then maybe that would help.Just a thought.Stuart

Having done a lot of short line track work in my younger days, I can identify with the many challenges described in this thread. One thing that worked well for us was some home-made hi-rail gear for the front wheels of a backhoe. It was basically a simple axle with 2 small flanges wheels attached to the front bucket. The rear wheels rode up opn the rails, but in 3 ft guage I guess they could just bump along the shoulder. The backhoe made the extraction and insertion parts of tie replacement a lot easier, and is also handy for digging out the shoulder where necessary.

Question, Doses Fairmont track cars come in 3 foot gage if so you can do alot with thoses little speeders. Fairmont also made track m&w equipment too. Just a throught.Len.

The SVRy's C.M.O, General Manager and I visited the EBT this June and were amazed at how many bad ties there are.Our thoughts were to remove a length of rail, remove the old ties and replace all of them under that length. I would hope that using a single backhoe you could relay at least four sections per day with a four man crew, using the backhoe and rail clamps to move and reset the rail.One thing is for certain, work needs to be done soon, before the track becomes unusable.Jerry Huck, Manager of operations,Sumpter Valley Rywww.svry.com

Some questions, and some random thoughts---What is the tie size and spacing? These should be smaller than standard gage ties-- would a 5' long 6 x 8 be right? What size spikes were used-- I suspect the 9/16" x 5" size would be right. Rail weight and length? What is the ballast (I remember mostly cinder ballast) like?If the ties are dust (or what we call "memory ties"), then spike pulling and tie removal is real easy. Are there plates to replace any missing ones?One procedure would be to first mark the ties to be replaced. Figure at least 8-9 per 39-foot segment of track (gets you to FRA class 1)-- use a 39-foot string, some cans of spray paint, and a handheld "clicker" counting device to keep track (!) of your tie count. Or just set an average of X amount per mile. I would suspect that figure is going to be about 800-1200 per mile. We're looking at five miles, right? So, 5000-6000 ties would be needed.What are the replacement ties to be? Have there been any bought recently that are the "current standard" and should be matched, or is that not a factor? Are the plans to simply use standard-gage relays?Then, spread out the replacement ties in advance (if they won't grow legs and walk off); the speeders and carts method is good here. To put them in with no equipment-- we have borrowed a tip from WMSR, and use "potato rakes" to scrape out the tie bed; it's faster and easier than shovelling. The lack of heavy stone ballast will make tie removal/insertion easier for hand work. Use an air compressor mounted on a track cart for gun tamping and spike driving.There are a couple of nice, small, relatively portable hydraulic tie machines around; one is the EPP machine made in Canada (it looks really good from the video they send you, at least!!). It can be towed behind a pickup truck, and is easily set up and pushed on track. They are custom-made, and are not cheap (about $14,000), and I think a 36" gage version could be made with little difficulty. Another similar one is made and sold by RR Construction Co of New Jersey; they displayed one at the ARM-TRAIN meet at Spencer in Nov 2001. Again, custom-made, and can be modified to your specs-- which could include 36" gage. With one of those things, a 4-6 man crew could do 100-150 narrow-gage ties a day easily. The production improvements would be worth it, I think. Tamping and spike driving could still be air guns run off an on-track-cart compressor.In my opinion, completely opening up the track (removing rail, etc) would create the possibility of adversely affecting the overall track geometry-- creating more work to put things back together in good line and surface. I have never been involved with using a backhoe to change ties; I know it's done, but have heard that it can create a real mess if one is not very careful in using it thusly.