Saw this on a UP rail siding yard.
I've seen one of those out my way, on the UP line thru Nevada. What does it do/what's it for? I've never see one working, it looks like a small rail crane, but only a small one.
Never seen one, but they do have a good lift capacity http://www.swingmastercorp.com/index.html
Looks like it would be used to load/unload items from one set of tracks to either an adjacent set of tracks or trucks on the shoulder of the tracks.
i ran one for kiewit rebuilding the cta blue line in chicago. handy as hell with a great chart. kinda scary to run on the elevated sections of line, but i never got one too tippy.
Pettibone made those since the 60s.iv never seen a swingmaster but its the exact same machine. they are used to move rail or ties or you can even put a loader bucket on them and side dump.they are very good machines and very easy and fast to put on and off track.every one iv seen or worked with had a GM detroit for a engine. they have 2 or 4 wheel drive and streer also crab walk. in my opinion the pettibone speedswing is the machine that kept pettibone in the machinery buisness for all this time. they also make a 360 degree spin one.
looks great
A lot of these machines are originally a Pettibone speedswings ( http://www.gopettibone.com/products/speed-swing/ ), Swingmaster will buy old pettibones and do a complete revamp and upgrade on them, then rebadge and resell them. It does look like Swingmaster has some models that either they build completely themselves or are a collection of old machines that no longer show up on Pettibone's site. These machines are the do all of a rail road crew, they pull, push, carry, move, they are a set on/off anywhere machine. They have 2 and 4 wheel steer, crab, and rear wheel only steer. They come through now with either a Cummins or Deere engines in them now. Video of mine pulling a 300' string of rail across a crossing: http://www.viddler.com/v/fd25918c Some photos of it at work: http://s1121.photobucket.com/user/Ray_Nadeau/slideshow/Railroad Equipment/Speedswing That's a slideshow link for photobucket.
CN and CP still use them heavily on their maintenance of way crews all the time I saw several on my way across the prairies.
The one here gets used everyday, we've got at least 2 more that I know of and we're probably going to have even more then that in the next couple of months.
here is one I passed by last week at work. I don't think its moved in awhile.
here is a few more I seen at work last cycle.
A newer one recently appeared, looks like a small engine w generator is also included.