U.S. Army Yard Upgrades – Virginia

Ft. Eustis, Virginia

CivilSmith, LLC teamed up with Tar Heel Railroad Contractors to develop a plan for upgrades to Hanks Yard at the U. S. Army’s Marshalling Area at Ft. Eustis Virginia.  The challenge was put forth by the end-user in that they wanted to extend the body of two yard tracks through the switching ladder to access to proposed rail car ramps for the loading and unloading of U. S. Army equipment onto and off of flat cars during mobilization operations.

The U. S. Army and USACE suggested the possible use of slip switches to accomplish this unique type of rail movement and CivilSmith began to work the Tar Heel to find solutions and suppliers to solve this puzzle.  After CivilSmith confirmed that a No.8 single slip switch for two yard tracks would actually be a plausible solution, the next step was to find a vendor who was willing to provide quotes on such a rare request.  Cleveland Track Materials eventually was able to provide Tar Heel just exactly what the end-user was looking for and fabricated two No.8, 115#, single slip switches that were to be operated by hand-thrown switch stands.

Upon the completion of both tracks extending to newly installed ramps, the U. S. Army brought out their locomotive along with several flat-cars to test out the newly installed single slip switches.  The slip switches now allow the flexibility that the U. S. Army was looking for as they will be able to continue to use the ladder switches as usual, but will have the added dimension of being able to shove long, straight cuts of cars directly to rail ramps.

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