Chapman Rail Photography
Taking a Dump
With MC-2's conductor and a road foreman walking the end of the dumping car, the train slowly crawls betwenn 2.4 MpH to allow the foreman (who operates the flow control doors on the bottom of the car to regulate the flow of ballast, which are powered by the solar panel on each car) to dump ballast along the ends and in the middle of the laid railroad right-of-way.
This fresh ballast that is being dumped is used in order to keep the tracks steady and in place. The train, when dumping, has to operate at slow speeds in order not to dump to little or too much ballast alongside the rails. All this is being done to insure that the Mass Coastal's Cape Main is ready for seasonal commuter traffic for the summers' CapeFLYER train ran by the MBTA, a summer train running from Boston to Hyannis with intermediate stops along the way.
Taking a Dump
With MC-2's conductor and a road foreman walking the end of the dumping car, the train slowly crawls betwenn 2.4 MpH to allow the foreman (who operates the flow control doors on the bottom of the car to regulate the flow of ballast, which are powered by the solar panel on each car) to dump ballast along the ends and in the middle of the laid railroad right-of-way.
This fresh ballast that is being dumped is used in order to keep the tracks steady and in place. The train, when dumping, has to operate at slow speeds in order not to dump to little or too much ballast alongside the rails. All this is being done to insure that the Mass Coastal's Cape Main is ready for seasonal commuter traffic for the summers' CapeFLYER train ran by the MBTA, a summer train running from Boston to Hyannis with intermediate stops along the way.