I've Been Driving On The Railroad

Tom Berg • Senior Equipment Editor

Railroads, which both compete and partner with truck lines (i.e., intermodal and piggyback), use a lot of trucks to maintain their tracks and other components in their rights-of-way.

Among them are 3 / 4 - and 1-ton pickups outfitted with "hi-rail" equipment that lets them and their crews travel directly on rails to get to where work's being done. This GMC Sierra 2500 chassis, outfitted with a utility body, was set up by Auto Truck Group, a specialty upfitter in Fort Wayne, Ind., where executives explained its workings and let me take it for a spin.

Steel guide wheels front and rear bear little of the truck's weight, but keep its tires atop the rails so they can support and propel the truck fairly normally. The stock GM wheels are replaced with stronger steel disc wheels offset inward to allow tires to match the track's gauge (4 feet, 8.5 inches between the insides of the rails).

A simple lock on the steering wheel and column keeps the front wheels straight so they don't try to jump the rails.

To get a truck railborne, a worker drives to a crossing and positions it on the rails. Then he gets out and drops the steel wheels with a lever. Each set is mechanically sprung, so there's not much to deploying the wheels and locking them in place. After setting the steering wheel lock, the truck's good to depart.

There's no high-balling though, as 35 mph is the fastest speed recommended. The guide wheels are set so their flanges are just inboard of the rails, which reduces steel-to-steel friction. This allows some side-to-side sway in the truck, and the faster you go, the more there is. It surprised me (I thought the ride would be more steady, but maybe I've been on too many modern passenger trains); however, the swaying is not nearly enough to cause lateral instability. The truck moves as well in reverse as forward, though of course, not as fast.

Auto Truck Group has another facility in Bensenville, Ill., near Chicago, which converts medium- and heavy-duty trucks for hi-rail use. On these, the front guide wheels support the truck's front end, so the wheel sets there include hydraulic cylinders, which jack up the truck. The truck's rear wheels and suspensions support it at that end, with tires of inside duals resting on the rails. Still, the rear guide wheels support a small portion of the weight and are appropriately suspended.

Most high-rail pickup chassis carry various types of utility bodies. The medium and heavy trucks carry much more equipment, so their bodies are set up with racks to carry rails, fishplates, frogs and other paraphernalia peculiar to "maintenance of way" work. Some have hydraulic cranes to lift the heavy steel pieces, but there's still a lot of manual labor involved.