60 Photos included after text.

Rail Grinders are a fasinating piece of railroad equipment.  Some railroads have a smaller vehical that would be used for very small repair work, and are owned by them, but for larger projects, they might need an entire train.  That is all fine and dandy, but because the equipment is so complex and expensive to operate and maintain, most railroads are more than happy to hire an outside company to do the required work for them. 

These photos are of a rail grinding train that I happened to see around the Las Vegas area on two seperate occasions in 2004.  In the following series of photos, you will see some roster shots, some detail shots, and a couple of "entire" train photos.  I included all of them without regard to whether I personally liked them or not, because even if the photo is not centered properly, it might still contain some useful visual information to the viewer.

The train was made up of a rebuilt (to say the least), F40PH engine, two passenger cars for the crew, two tank cars, a generator or "power" car, three to four cars that do the actual grinding, an equipment storage car, another two tank cars, and finally another rebuilt F40PH engine.  I can only guess that having two engines, one at each end of the train, made it easy to operate because it would not have to be turned around. 

I do hope that you enjoy this collection.