Nancy Haun said that between the heat, the ash from the Canadian/Minnesota fires and the wind, it has been a crazy couple of weeks. But the second time the Herzog came into L’Anse, she was able to capture a few photos AND a video of it as it climbed the L’Anse Hill with an excavator on its bed moving back and forth as they traveled the tracks at 2 mph. It looks like it was picking up chunks of rail and discarded ties along the way with a hydraulic grappler. Watching the heavy machinery work was amazing and Nancy couldn’t figure out how the excavator is secured to the tracks, as it seemed to be rocking and constantly in motion, certainly not a job for the faint of heart to be operating that machine.

Google describes the Herzog as follows: “A Herzog train is a specialized maintenance-of-way work train built by the Herzog company to construct, repair, and care for railway tracks. These trains feature advanced setups like GPS-controlled ballast cars, automated conveyor systems, and multi-purpose machines to drop track rock, lay new rails, or clear brush safely and fast.”

Nancy’s video is just under 25 minutes and worth the watch, as it’s neat to see how the Herzog and the excavator on its bed work the sides of the tracks. She apologizes for the annoying wind in the video, as it grabbed her speaker muffs and ripped them right off her camera. She didn’t want to leave to fix them, for fear of missing the entire video. So if you find it too noisy, just turn your volume down. It’s definitely something you don’t see every day!

Nancy never misses
a thing when it comes
to the tracks. It’s like she
has ears for tracking.
And learned something
new today. Thanks Nancy!

Very interesting, Nancy. Your love of trains is so
evident. Nice shots.