Photos of a Railroad track laying machine.

What I will attempt to describe all happens under 1 train. This train is backwards from normal, in that the engine is at the rear pushing the whole thing along. The new rail has already been laid in the area between the rails in preparation. The front of the train has flat cars that the old wood ties are stacked on, farther back are flat cars with the new concrete ties, there is a gantry lift that can travel the combined length of all the flat cars to transport old ties to the head end and concrete ties to a loading area. Guys riding in little cars under the train pull spikes from the tie plates. Magnets pick up the spikes and put them on conveyors for collection later. A plow blade moves the ballast away from the ties. The old rail starts to follow rollers that move it up and over to the side, out of the way of the ties and the new rail that will be following similar rollers to move it from the inside under the old rail and into position. At the position where the new and old rails cross over/under each other there are two big Grabber arms that pick up the old tie and put it on a conveyor and then grab a new tie off a different conveyor and place it onto the ballast, (2 foot on Center). The new rail guided by rollers is placed onto the new ties and retaining clips are installed. The pusher engine then rolls along on the new rail. This train moves at about 2 Miles a day if all goes well. There is a ballast cleaner, ballast train, graders, tampers, old rail pickup train and various other small clean up machines that follow in the next few miles.

I hope that’s not confusing.