Rough Track

[George Harris]

Anyone else ever notice that on the CP portion of the EB, every grade crossing seems to have a sharp bump at each side of the crossing? It is enough to jam your head...it sucks!

Illinois Central and L&N used to both be bad for this. Southern almost never was. The reason is relatively simple. Crossings get mud in the ballast on each side fairly quickly and track in the crossing itself can get muddy and "pump" (that is, movve up and down) more than the track on either side, OR, when the mud dries out be stiffer than the adjacent track. Also, many times when tamping and lining the track the crossings are skipped because it requires removing the road panels to tamp the track through the crossing, thus sometimes the track on either side of the crossing may be a couple inches higer than the track through the crossing with a rather short ramp down qnd ramp up, making for a significant bump if the train is running at any speed.