Are models of track stabilizers or track layers, operating or not, available? How about plans or detailed photos so to design and build one.
Wally
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A start.
That could be a whole lot of machine to model. It might take years as a detailed static unit, let alone operating.
Youtube has some video of modern ones. One cuts, lifts, removes, stacks, pulls ballast, replaces huge section with ties, welds rail, and reballasts....it has its own track and "trolley" on it's back, lol.
A RR logger named Con Culhane once moved his whole operation over Michigan's Upper Peninsula's cedar swamps in the dead of winter, because the ground was frozen hard, by picking up the rails from behind the train, and laying them down in front of the engine then moving forward, over and over again.
Inspirational?
Check out "Herzog Track Laying Machine" Herzog has modernized the track laying and maintenance aspects of today's railroads immensely. From laying new ballast, replacing rails, ties and ballast, some nice innovations are now performed every day. And, I have seen MOW consists full of flats with graders, backhoes, dozers all fitted with track wheels to perform their same functions as designed, but for use in maintaining right-of-ways. As for the multi-purpose track machines... they are many and varied in type and purposes. One could pretty much pick any you prefer, or perhaps design your own and be close to what is prototypical.
Jesse TCA
