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Tamping machine

from National Library of Ireland on The Commons

• 21 older comments, and then…
• Niall McAuley said:

  Barretstown (or Barrettstown) is in Kildare?

• O Mac said:

  The machine would have held the track up while a series of vibrating prongs were lowered to rattled the ballast/stones under the sleepers. And if its not too early here's a YouTube of the going's on. youtu.be/j60braEk5c8?t=1m15s

• Niall McAuley said:

  The line is still twin tracked, and still very straight near Barretstown, Co. Kildare, if that is where we are.

• Carol Maddock said:

  Apparently for packing stones under railway sleepers. A ganger in the signal maintenance department of the then C.I.E. was killed at Dundrum Station in Tipperary when a tamping machine was reversing, and the man was inspecting pins in the sleepers. (Nenagh Guardian, 21 April 1962) In 1966, British Railways planned to save £5 million every year by replacing pick-and-shovel gangs (reducing line maintenance staff from 23,000 to 16,000) with Tamping Machines. They were made by Rolls-Royce at their Shrewsbury factory. Theirs was called the Duomatic Levelling and Tamping Machine. (Irish Press, 1 September 1966) Could ours be a Rolls-Royce model?

• derangedlemur said:

  I think the device might be following it, not preceeding it. I'd guess from the three optical instruments on it that it's checking the camber.