The weather here gets hotter and hotter. Today was 27 degrees, and it's supposed to be 29, 30, 32 and 34 for the next 4 days. Since the track expands when it gets hot, you can image that trying to cut segments out with a big circular saw would lead to the rail just pinching the blade near the end of the cut. So, we have to work before it gets too hot. Yesterday and today, we got picked up at 5:00 am. Tomorrow, our call is for 4:30. At this pace, by next week, we'll be getting picked up half and hour before we go to sleep. (ba da boom) We managed two segments of rail changed yesterday, by 11:00am, and today did two rail changes before 8:15. So we're getting better at what we do. Here's one of the cres just finishing up a rail change on a curve.
This is a picture as we were setting up for the first change, just before 6:00 am. The track bed sits up a ways as it passes through this field, and the sun just came over the mountains and cast this amazing long shadow of the truck on the high-rail.
And these are frogs. they're the crossover of rail that always exists just up from a switch. Called a frog because if you use your imagination, they look sort of like a frog that is laid out, with his little legs sticking up and down. Probably about a hundred other more reasonable names for such a piece of track, but the Railway has its traditions.
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