Work train

[3] Trains are susceptible to issues related low rail traction as well as being immobilized by significant snowfalls.

The uncontrolled growth of weeds and other vegetation along railroad right-of-ways can cause significant issues with drainage, obstruct worker access and become a nuisance to adjacent property owners.

This is often older equipment that has either reached the age limit that prohibits it from interchange with other railroad, and is required to stay on the railroad that owns it, or equipment that has been rendered obsolete by newer, often higher capacity versions: tank cars, * flatcars, hoppers, gondola, boxcars as well as locomotives.

[10][2][3] Railroads have historical kept rail mounted cranes of various sizes, to assist with maintenance work, major construction projects as well as respond to derailments and natural disasters.

These have in large part been displaced by a mixture of road biased mobile cranes and sideboom bulldozers.