MoW: Georgetown Slot Trains

GREX SPS

GREX Slot Machine

I learned of a Slot Machine from a Facebook posting. GREX (Georgetown Rail Equipment) makes a SPS (Self Propelled Slot) train that appears to be a competitor to the Herzog MPM (Multi-Purpose Machine). A video has some detailed shots of a SPS parked at the Greystone Station on the Harlem Line. It is parked during the day because it can work only during the night. A railroad can also buy just the articulated gondola car (Slot Machine) if they want to provide their own locomotive. Unlike the Herzog MPM where a special excavator runs on the gondola's sides, a regular tracked excavator runs on the floor.

The advantage of paying extra for a SPS is labor reduction. The operator of the excavator can control the engine wirelessly so that only one worker is needed to operate the SPS. Not only is the expense of an engineer+conductor saved, but the delays for waiting for two different crews to report to work before a train can leave a yard is also avoided.

A slot machine would be used for about any bulk material except aggregates such as ballast. GREX makes a special DumpTrain to haul and unload aggregates.

(new window) It was the sound of the trucks over the diamond that made me realized that this train is several long articulated cars. I replayed it and counted four cars with 11 units apiece. So it has four cars, but only one excavator. I wonder how they get the excavator from one car to the next. I also noted that all of the gaps seem to be closed even during transit.



A 0:40 video of a slot train pushing a jordan spreader

Bruce Moore: On the KCS they use the trackhoe to clean out the ditches around the signals and places that the ditcher could not get !