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Railgrinder

If you haven't seen a train like this one before, it is a Loram rail grinder.
High rates of speed, traffic, and weight can damage rails. The burrs and cracks created can damage train wheels, slow traffic, and cause rails to degrade faster. Grinding rails in place helps to avoid these problems and lengthen rail life.

Grinding carries with it a significant risk of fire, as sparks from the grinding process can ignite nearby vegetation. Loram's first grinders carried a caboose equipped with extensive firefighting equipment, and its crews were trained firefighters. The company later introduced an automatic firefighting system to its grinding vehicles, which eliminated the need for the firefighting caboose.
About 1986, Loram introduced the SX-16, which could grind railroad switches (including switch points, frogs, and wing rails) as well as track.

By 1992, Loram had more than a dozen grinders in operation in the United States. In the late 1990s, working with KLD Labs, Loram developed the VISion Transverse Analyzer (VISTA), a computer guided grinding system. The VISTA system employs lasers to identify the rail profile and any defects. The computer then chooses an optimal solution, and guides the vehicle as it grinds the rail to this profile.

The system captures removed metal and places it into a waste storage compartment rather than leaving it on the track. In the mid 2000s, Loram introduced the RG400 rail grinder, which doubled efficiency to roughly 60 miles per day, was lower-emission, and had markedly improved safety features.

The Loram railgrinder shown here is a model RG 416.

Expand the photo for a closer look.....