| Posted by Tom on March 10, 2013 | |
Okay, fellow viewers... help out those of us that don't know what a "clearance car" is ???? Not good to see them deteriorating, but at least they are still around.
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It was used to checking clearances in tunnels.
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They are used for checking clearance of obstructions around the railroad. I found info at Wikipedia.com for the clearance cars.
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OK, Tom...I seem to be the first to take your challenge. A "clearance car" was used to determine the clearance above the track-- mostly in tunnels, but in tight siding, platforms, and under anything that might hang down and foul a car or locomotive. Before approaching any obstruction, the pivoting spines (bars at the far end of the car) were turned outward like a porcupine. As the car rolled through, anything hanging down (such as the rocks in the ceiling of a tunnel) would fold the spines backward, allowing a physical measurement profile of the clearances. These were particularly important in the early 20th C as steam locomotives became larger and more difficult to squeeze through older tunnels.
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Um am I the only person to notice the size and condition of the rail under these cars, OMG! These cars are just shy of being parked in the dirt. They certainly do deserve some attention, granted I am very happy to see that they are still with us. Thanks for sharing.
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The only thing that is "Reading" about that caboose is the lettering applied to the sides of it. Thats clearly an ex Pennsylvania Railroad Cabin Car. Im glad these relics still exsist even though I am wondering what happened to the Clearance Car's original trucks as it is sitting on freight car trucks in this picture. Still a very nice find and it would be nice to these two preerved.
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| Posted by Tom on March 13, 2013 | |
Thanks, guys. I appreciate answers here and I am sure others do also.
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| Posted by KTH on January 25, 2015 | |
As far as I know, I am the only surviving crew member on the Clearance Car. I started on the Penn Central 7/1/75 as a Draftsman on the Clearance Car and then Assistant Clearance Engineer. To my fading memory there were 103 rods. There were legs under the main rods that came down to measure side structure such as Dwarf signals starting at 6" above top of rail. The Radius section would lift about 5 of 6 feet for overhead structures such as bridges and tunnels to about 20 feet. Anything higher than that and I would have to climb up on the roof through a hatch and measure with an expanding measuring rod to 25 feet......which was ok until the night we were measuring the overhead walkway at Sing Sing Prison and as I was there at 2 AM all of the Prison lights came on and I had about 10 guards with machine guns pointed at me.....All I could do at that point was a little tap dance in the spotlights and then go change my shorts. At that time we had a 3 man crew: Jim Ormsby, Clearance Engineer, Myself and Fred Smith. The Clearance Car pretty much finished it's run late 1977 as Conrail was in the process of trying out Hi-Rail Clearance cars. I drew up the concept of what we would need for a Hi-Rail Clearance Truck and that was in use for several years before they went to a laser measuring Hi-Rail Car. It is possible that the Hi-Rail Clearance Truck is parked in a MW yard in Easton PA. It was fun seeing pictures of this after almost 40 years and it brought back many memories of all of the Cities and small towns that we passed through, some of which we stayed in for in some cases weeks at a time.
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