Oh man I see these dudes working every day out here. Thanks for another Helene highlight! It's been a struggle for sure but we are cleaning up one but at a time
I appreciate you showing the hardworking Americans working to rebuild after this disaster. With leadership and news cycles that drive division it is great to have a boots on the ground view of people coming together to rebuild. Great video!
Great to see this video showing how the Craggy Line was cleaned up. I live a block from the line and missed most of the action, but sure saw the damage on the day of the flood.
Have relatives in Franklin, NC 40 minutes just southwest of Asheville they are still finding bodies while cleaning out the rivers and removing tons of materials from mudslides on many of the rural roads. After the storm went through there were bodies 20 feet high caught on branches of large trees and other structures that remained standing. In 1 mile stretch of the river they were able to mark over 100 bodies buried under the mud they had rescue dogs that were able to locate them. They still do not have a final count of fatalities, absolutely devastating.
rail isnt super profitable in the USA. nobody is building new rail. The high speed rail is being built all over europe and china. They announced plans to rail across africa, but.... with every government getting coup'ed by wagner, it makes things difficutl
@@davidanalyst671BNSF owned by W. Buffet is one of the most profitable railways in the country and was 100% responsibly for the cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline project putting thousands of union workers and small businesses out of work. BNSF carries 98% of the crude from Canada to Texas and still is the most dangerous way to move billions of gallons of oil. Buffet is one of the largest billionaires who donate to the job killing dims!
So, storytime re: Railroads and weather .... Some years back I was part of a group of railroad speeders (small track inspection cars) heading along the track in NW Georgia. We get hit by a thunderstorm. Rain and wind so heavy, we have to stop; we can't see. The winds were so strong, these small vehicles were sliding slowly down the track, with full brakes applied. After it passes we set out again, and go around a curve. Tree across the tracks. So we cut it. And there's another tree. And another. And another. Turns out we'd almost gotten run over by a small tornado. And that small tornado dropped over a hundred trees we had to cut. A few years later, Hurricane Opal came through North Georgia. Didn't flood like Helene did, but the winds were certainly there. The small tourist line I worked with cut almost 10,000 trees on their 13 miles of track. Helene's damage was absolutely in a class by itself. My neighbor up the street works for Georgia Power, and he said they replaced over 10,000 poles, just in the Georgia region. They were getting inventory shipped in from *Oregon*.
I’ve been doing work for NS moving material from Newport Tn along the main from Newport to Asheville. Thanks for highlighting a portion of the recovery no one thinks about.try getting ahold of RJ Coreman as another rail contractor.
Great info Aaron, I have two grandsons that work for Kennedy Railroad Services in Ohio. Not sure if they are operating heavy equipment yet, but currently general laborers 🤗
Go hunt up the episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe replaces railroad ties in a Union Pacific railyard. He literally spends the entire day with hand tools getting the job done. One sleeper. Then the foreman he's working with points across the yard and goes "And Mike, that's how we do things today......" The machine there is going Chunk-Chunk-Chunk-Chunk, one sleeper every sixty seconds.
The dude setting plates at 16:09 is just asking to lose some fingers. It's simple to make a metal push bar with a couple of welded cut-off spikes, so not only does it line the plate up perfectly...hands/fingers never get near the pinch points.
That’s a huge operation 👍👍 and a great story of ingenuity, discipline, dedication and commitment of American Entrepreneurship 👍 Charles thanks for the reminder.
HG is a great company. They do some good environmental remediation work too, I just hired them for a job in GA. Those guys are some bad mofos man, killer video thanks dude
With so much stuff made of plastic, maybe someday they will make a "Tie" out of plastic.... your thoughts on would it work because that never seems to rot or go away... another good way to clean up all the crap floating in the ocean and use up all the walmart bags
I was a Railroad Track Laborer in two Copper Mines in Arizona in the early 80's, before getting promoted to Locomotive Engineer at the age of 19. The mines used full sized Locomotives, just like the ones used on the major railroads, to haul the ore and waste material out of the open pit mine. As a member of the Track Gang, as it was known, we would do repairs manually, replacing ties by hand, and driving in the spikes with a specialized hammer called a spiking maul. It was extremely physical work, especially in the scorching summers in Arizona. We used waste material known as slag, from the Smelter as ballast. It was extremely dense material consisting of mostly Iron. The mines that used rail haulage converted to Haul Trucks in the mid 80's, ending decades of rail haulage.
How come, given the amount of destruction and so on, there are resourcrs allocated to rebuilding these tracks, that seemingly, if I understood correctly, are exclusively for a tourism service?
The nonprofit group which owns the line is likely paying for this themselves. Without the rail line, they have no income stream to keep the operation going.
It's also possible the line itself is owned by a municipality or the state, which is paying for the repairs. In many cases, tourist lines operate on public owned lines via leases. It's a win-win. The tourist operation gets their railroad, and the municipality/state keeps the rail active and in operation. The bonus is the tax revenue from the passengers. 🙂
@@litz13 How popular are these tourist tours? I'm not from the US, but my perception was the appalachians were kind of a remote are, nowadays a bit poor, and mostly driven by mining. Think these are profitable at all?
@julio_7526 there's an awful lot of mountain there, and just as many small mountain towns. They support a very thriving tourist industry, and one of the most popular things to do are train trips on lesser used rail lines. With coal production winding down, especially so.
No disrespect intended, but this is nothing compared to CSX Railroads reconstruction in the Nolichucky River Gorge on the NC/TN border! Check out the videos by “Off Road Viking” and “Designs In Orbit” to see a really massive rebuilding effort!
not really, my guy. This is a tourist rail, and this shtt isn't a starbucks or a mcdonalds or something like that. You can only rebuild as fast as you get materials and money
I really hope the people in Ashville and the surrounding areas actually get assistance they deserve from FEMA now that Trump is back in office. Cause the POS that was our last president barely did a thing for them. And they're suffering a lot more than they have to because of that.
Wooden ties are much cheaper and more readily available. You can get relay ties for $50 a piece, new ones for less than $100. For a tourist railroad like this it makes sense. Concrete ties are about $200+ per tie, the big downside is they have much more hardware and it takes a lot to change them by hand if you need to. A lot of the bigger railroads use concrete ties in North America, but for branches and on smaller railroads wooden ties are the way to go.
@ concrete ties have a ton of downsides, more expensive to buy, maintain and install. Additionally, most of the time with wooden ties, you can reuse them after a derailment. Concrete ties bust apart and loose the correct shape after a derailment, which requires a complete replacement. They also take stress such as vibrations from the trains better than concrete or steel ties.
If you like vodka and borsht, they are building the ten10 through lithuania, latvia and estonia, and africa has tons of rail projects, but they have coups and a LOT of problems as wagner is there trying to fck up france's ex colonies. if you want an adventure, India has a shttton of development projects as Modi wants to become the next China.
concrete ties and shot rock beneath the coarse and screened ballast - some even use wet screened washed chrushed rock to increase friction and drainage - thats how a proper rail line is supposed to be built alternatively thick concrete and shock absorbing rubber beneath the ties for a ballast free high speed line
Id like you to rebuild north carolina yourself. but as soon as you are done, another hurricane gonna hit florida, so you gotta go rebuild florida again. and if that ends before florida rebuilds, I want you to rebuild LA. LA needs 3 years of paperwork before they can do anything. So Id like to see you donate 3 years of your life doing paperwork in California for a fire that was completely preventable and has been prevented in the past when they werent trying to cut the firefighter budget.
I’m not exactly a fan of Trump, but this area was destroyed long before he retook office, and he’s now been in office less than a month. Where exactly is this supposed to land on his list of priorities when he’s trying to establish his new admin while running the entire rest of the country? What did the Biden admin do to help this area while they were still in power?
@@wildewaffle9790 Certainly higher on his list than renaming the gulf of mexico and literally abolishing FEMA (The same FEMA that has given out 1.3 billion in relief since the hurricane.). People piled on Biden for the Afghanistan thing when that fell on the previous admin, so we can do it here.
I sure hope they get everything rebuilt soon, because Im tired of hearing everyone from North Carolina bishing that the federal government didn't just come in and pay for everything to get built again. (with my taxes)
@ they are ties… The companies which produce them, call them ties. The railroads that use them call them ties. The contractors which install them, call them ties. They are ties, this isn’t Europe.
So this is really not a train track. It’s kind of a joyride track. I don’t understand why they’re spending so much money on this when that money could be spent on things that really really need to be fixed.
Oh man I see these dudes working every day out here. Thanks for another Helene highlight! It's been a struggle for sure but we are cleaning up one but at a time
I appreciate you showing the hardworking Americans working to rebuild after this disaster. With leadership and news cycles that drive division it is great to have a boots on the ground view of people coming together to rebuild. Great video!
thanks for watching!
Some of those guys might not be American.
Always wondered how that all works. Thanks to HG for letting us take a peek.
thanks for watching
HG railroad contractors are some of the best in the business. They clear our line in Florida quickly after helene.
Great to see this video showing how the Craggy Line was cleaned up. I live a block from the line and missed most of the action, but sure saw the damage on the day of the flood.
That was awesome I've never seen that done before. Thank you for sharing!!
thanks for watching
Hey I’m the local Asheville railfan they put the track together nice! did a great job thanks for this video
You have an amazing job! Seeing how they repair/rebuild rails is a treat to watch.
I have seen our local railway line replacing ties, nice to know how the equipment is used. Thanks for your visit. Jerome Manhattan Ks.
Have relatives in Franklin, NC 40 minutes just southwest of Asheville they are still finding bodies while cleaning out the rivers and removing tons of materials from mudslides on many of the rural roads. After the storm went through there were bodies 20 feet high caught on branches of large trees and other structures that remained standing. In 1 mile stretch of the river they were able to mark over 100 bodies buried under the mud they had rescue dogs that were able to locate them. They still do not have a final count of fatalities, absolutely devastating.
as a rail road fan this is a cool video
Really Cool videos . Keep'm coming .
Aaron- another great job explaining the process. Thanks for the video!
I work for MacAllister !!! This was so cool to see!!
right on!!
14:12 WILDEST dump truck I've ever seen. It's like a triaxle had a baby with a concrete buggy. Epic.
We need more rail vids.
working on it! Our first try
rail isnt super profitable in the USA. nobody is building new rail. The high speed rail is being built all over europe and china. They announced plans to rail across africa, but.... with every government getting coup'ed by wagner, it makes things difficutl
YES
@@davidanalyst671BNSF owned by W. Buffet is one of the most profitable railways in the country and was 100% responsibly for the cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline project putting thousands of union workers and small businesses out of work. BNSF carries 98% of the crude from Canada to Texas and still is the most dangerous way to move billions of gallons of oil. Buffet is one of the largest billionaires who donate to the job killing dims!
@@davidanalyst671 The US is one of the few places where rail is profitable
So, storytime re: Railroads and weather ....
Some years back I was part of a group of railroad speeders (small track inspection cars) heading along the track in NW Georgia. We get hit by a thunderstorm. Rain and wind so heavy, we have to stop; we can't see. The winds were so strong, these small vehicles were sliding slowly down the track, with full brakes applied.
After it passes we set out again, and go around a curve.
Tree across the tracks. So we cut it. And there's another tree. And another. And another.
Turns out we'd almost gotten run over by a small tornado. And that small tornado dropped over a hundred trees we had to cut.
A few years later, Hurricane Opal came through North Georgia. Didn't flood like Helene did, but the winds were certainly there. The small tourist line I worked with cut almost 10,000 trees on their 13 miles of track.
Helene's damage was absolutely in a class by itself. My neighbor up the street works for Georgia Power, and he said they replaced over 10,000 poles, just in the Georgia region. They were getting inventory shipped in from *Oregon*.
I’ve been doing work for NS moving material from Newport Tn along the main from Newport to Asheville. Thanks for highlighting a portion of the recovery no one thinks about.try getting ahold of RJ Coreman as another rail contractor.
I really enjoy post storm recovery videos.
always grim but a reality of what it takes to get everything back to functional!
There are tons of videos out there now. There is a lot to cleanup here 😢
Great info Aaron, I have two grandsons that work for Kennedy Railroad Services in Ohio. Not sure if they are operating heavy equipment yet, but currently general laborers 🤗
awesome!!
That dump truck is so cool 😎
Repairing that roadbed retaining wall looks challenging too.
Great video!
ole Craggy Line getting some lovin!
It is open the trolley. Kids road on it for christmas trolley with their school.
Thankyou
Go hunt up the episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike Rowe replaces railroad ties in a Union Pacific railyard.
He literally spends the entire day with hand tools getting the job done. One sleeper.
Then the foreman he's working with points across the yard and goes "And Mike, that's how we do things today......"
The machine there is going Chunk-Chunk-Chunk-Chunk, one sleeper every sixty seconds.
The dude setting plates at 16:09 is just asking to lose some fingers. It's simple to make a metal push bar with a couple of welded cut-off spikes, so not only does it line the plate up perfectly...hands/fingers never get near the pinch points.
That excavator doing 20 mph must be a sight!!!
Need to see RJ corman here in Ky…big rail contractors.
hopefully one day!!
That’s a huge operation 👍👍 and a great story of ingenuity, discipline, dedication and commitment of American Entrepreneurship 👍 Charles thanks for the reminder.
Interesting. 👍
And "dig18" did his bit too !!
I drive past that area of tracks every couple of days 😳
It’s a grapple, not a grabber😎
The high rail truck has a knuckle boom with a grapple to remove the debris 😂
Ooh yeah, that’s the snuff
I worked in railroad construction… that’s a good representation of it
HG is a great company. They do some good environmental remediation work too, I just hired them for a job in GA. Those guys are some bad mofos man, killer video thanks dude
they're standup dudes!!
With so much stuff made of plastic, maybe someday they will make a "Tie" out of plastic.... your thoughts on would it work because that never seems to rot or go away... another good way to clean up all the crap floating in the ocean and use up all the walmart bags
Core protein milk needs to give you a sponsor lol
seriously
No problem whatsoever. So you’re in an emergency restoration of the toonerville trolley?
This might be a stupid question, but why don't we see cement railroad ties here in the states?
Cost and supply of lumber is my guess.
They need a large wood chipper to shred and clean up the brush.
I was a Railroad Track Laborer in two Copper Mines in Arizona in the early 80's, before getting promoted to Locomotive Engineer at the age of 19. The mines used full sized Locomotives, just like the ones used on the major railroads, to haul the ore and waste material out of the open pit mine. As a member of the Track Gang, as it was known, we would do repairs manually, replacing ties by hand, and driving in the spikes with a specialized hammer called a spiking maul. It was extremely physical work, especially in the scorching summers in Arizona. We used waste material known as slag, from the Smelter as ballast. It was extremely dense material consisting of mostly Iron. The mines that used rail haulage converted to Haul Trucks in the mid 80's, ending decades of rail haulage.
that is amazing -- must've been character building
Did they say why they switched to trucks for hauling the ore and waste materials?
How come, given the amount of destruction and so on, there are resourcrs allocated to rebuilding these tracks, that seemingly, if I understood correctly, are exclusively for a tourism service?
The nonprofit group which owns the line is likely paying for this themselves. Without the rail line, they have no income stream to keep the operation going.
@Maine_Railfan Ah I see. Thanks for the reply.
It's also possible the line itself is owned by a municipality or the state, which is paying for the repairs.
In many cases, tourist lines operate on public owned lines via leases. It's a win-win. The tourist operation gets their railroad, and the municipality/state keeps the rail active and in operation. The bonus is the tax revenue from the passengers. 🙂
@@litz13 How popular are these tourist tours? I'm not from the US, but my perception was the appalachians were kind of a remote are, nowadays a bit poor, and mostly driven by mining. Think these are profitable at all?
@julio_7526 there's an awful lot of mountain there, and just as many small mountain towns.
They support a very thriving tourist industry, and one of the most popular things to do are train trips on lesser used rail lines.
With coal production winding down, especially so.
No disrespect intended, but this is nothing compared to CSX Railroads reconstruction in the Nolichucky River Gorge on the NC/TN border! Check out the videos by “Off Road Viking” and “Designs In Orbit” to see a really massive rebuilding effort!
Dude why are there so many bots in the comments
the train is so close to the road, some car is going to hit the train
Cute
I'm surprised that a tourist railroad can afford to rebuild.
It’s crazy that it has taken this long to rebuild at this point.
not really, my guy. This is a tourist rail, and this shtt isn't a starbucks or a mcdonalds or something like that. You can only rebuild as fast as you get materials and money
I really hope the people in Ashville and the surrounding areas actually get assistance they deserve from FEMA now that Trump is back in office. Cause the POS that was our last president barely did a thing for them. And they're suffering a lot more than they have to because of that.
Do they still use wooden railroad ties? Why don’t they use concrete like rest of the world, stronger and cheaper
Wooden ties are much cheaper and more readily available. You can get relay ties for $50 a piece, new ones for less than $100. For a tourist railroad like this it makes sense. Concrete ties are about $200+ per tie, the big downside is they have much more hardware and it takes a lot to change them by hand if you need to. A lot of the bigger railroads use concrete ties in North America, but for branches and on smaller railroads wooden ties are the way to go.
Thank you for the info
wood ties are more comfortable
Wooden ties are garbage. Proper railways are built with concrete ties and last for decades. Its just mindless penny pinching.
@ concrete ties have a ton of downsides, more expensive to buy, maintain and install. Additionally, most of the time with wooden ties, you can reuse them after a derailment. Concrete ties bust apart and loose the correct shape after a derailment, which requires a complete replacement. They also take stress such as vibrations from the trains better than concrete or steel ties.
I just love watching a video about heavy equipment in a Right To Work state. It is what it is.
And what does RTW have to do with anything related to the video? NOTHING!
Who is paying the cost to repair a tourist railroad?
the group that owns it
i like how American infrastructure will never learn from past and they will rebuild it to the same shit standards as before :D
If you like vodka and borsht, they are building the ten10 through lithuania, latvia and estonia, and africa has tons of rail projects, but they have coups and a LOT of problems as wagner is there trying to fck up france's ex colonies. if you want an adventure, India has a shttton of development projects as Modi wants to become the next China.
concrete ties and shot rock beneath the coarse and screened ballast - some even use wet screened washed chrushed rock to increase friction and drainage - thats how a proper rail line is supposed to be built
alternatively thick concrete and shock absorbing rubber beneath the ties for a ballast free high speed line
I'd like to see you donate some of the YT $$$ back into North Carolina.
Id like you to rebuild north carolina yourself. but as soon as you are done, another hurricane gonna hit florida, so you gotta go rebuild florida again. and if that ends before florida rebuilds, I want you to rebuild LA. LA needs 3 years of paperwork before they can do anything. So Id like to see you donate 3 years of your life doing paperwork in California for a fire that was completely preventable and has been prevented in the past when they werent trying to cut the firefighter budget.
This area is destroyed and trump hasn't done shit. When will America be about the people again?
Bro you sound dumb 😂
I’m not exactly a fan of Trump, but this area was destroyed long before he retook office, and he’s now been in office less than a month. Where exactly is this supposed to land on his list of priorities when he’s trying to establish his new admin while running the entire rest of the country? What did the Biden admin do to help this area while they were still in power?
He’s only been in office for under 2 weeks. You can’t be that dumb!!
@@wildewaffle9790 Certainly higher on his list than renaming the gulf of mexico and literally abolishing FEMA (The same FEMA that has given out 1.3 billion in relief since the hurricane.). People piled on Biden for the Afghanistan thing when that fell on the previous admin, so we can do it here.
He’s been there 3 times already how many times has swalla Kamala or slow joe
Goofy american logging truck :D
Well biden didn't help
First!
I think its time to move away from wood and steel and switch to concrete and steel tracks.
It’s a tourist railroad, concrete ties are completely overkill. Even with freight railroads, concrete ties are an unneeded expense in most areas.
I sure hope they get everything rebuilt soon, because Im tired of hearing everyone from North Carolina bishing that the federal government didn't just come in and pay for everything to get built again. (with my taxes)
They are not ties they are sleepers
They are ties…
@ no sleepers
@ they are ties… The companies which produce them, call them ties. The railroads that use them call them ties. The contractors which install them, call them ties. They are ties, this isn’t Europe.
you're a sleeper
@@AaronWitt what ever muppet
But they never really say the true cause of these destructive hurricanes
Seasonal weather patterns just like blizzard snow storms, tornadoes, etc. No it’s not the phony cc scam.
So this is really not a train track. It’s kind of a joyride track. I don’t understand why they’re spending so much money on this when that money could be spent on things that really really need to be fixed.
Paid for by the group that owns it, could be an insurance claim that needs to be fixed in a timely manner.