328 LOGGING 
crossties and rails and a full crew is necessary to work to advantage. 
In order to reduce the amount of heavy work involved in track 
laying and lifting and to make it possible to work efficiently with 
a smaller crew of average strength men, several tj^pes of track 
laying and lifting machines have been devised. These are of 
two general types: (1) those that handle the rails and ties in sec- 
tions or panels one rail length long; (2) those that handle rails 
and ties separately. 
The first method is best adapted to flat lands where there are 
few curves and turnouts on the line, for where these occur the 
track sections must be broken up before they can be relaid. 
The rails are laid with ''even joints." The equipment includes 
a locomotive, several flat cars and a locomotive crane mounted 
on a flat car. The train is backed out to the end of the line 
that is to be taken up, the bolts on one end of the fish plates 
are removed, and chains are attached to each corner of a 30- 
foot section, which is then elevated several feet by means of a 
cable on the track mover. The latter is then revolved in an arc of 
180 degrees and the section deposited on the flat car directly 
behind it. The train is then run forward a rail length and the 
process repeated. When ten sections, or 300 feet of track, have 
been placed on a flat car, it is switched out by the locomotive and 
an empty substituted. After loading several flat cars, the train 
proceeds to a new line where with the track mover ahead the 
process is reversed and the track laid. On one operation a track 
foreman, who ran the machine, one laborer on the flat car to 
fasten and loosen chains, and three or four laborers on the ground 
to handle the sections and to bolt up and unbolt fish plates have 
laid 2000 feet of track daily, in addition to clearing the right-of-way 
and cutting wood for fuel. 
When there are many curves in the track it is cheaper to break 
up the panels and to handle the crossties and rails separately. 
Two general types of machines adapted to this work are on the 
market. One of them, the so-called Norbj^ track-lajdng and lifting 
machine^ is mounted on a 42-foot flat car and has a skeleton steel 
hollow framework 12 feet high, 10^ feet wide and from 34 to 
40 feet long. An over-head I-beam track is bolted to the frame- 
work over the center of the car and extends 26 feet beyond both 
ends of the framework. A four-wheeled trolley travels along 
1 See Fig. 110. 
