Real life railroad track

[marlboro]

I always wondered how much 1 section of rail weighs, and its composure, steel, or other metallic substance, or variances. Also, when it comes to bending the rails to curve, Do they do that on site, or is it measured beforehand.I d love to see that track bending machine, know it exists in modelling, although never ben there yet, still learning. I m taking a chance that someone, out there maybe knows and works in this field, and finally, rail grinding polishing trains, never seen one, read about it, and seen pictures in mags, would be a sight to behold, and how often do they practice this polishings.

[cacole]

I can answer some of your questions --

Prototype rail is rated according to its weight per 3-foot section; i.e., 100 pound, 110 pound, 90 pound, etc. Union Pacific uses 110 to 130 pound rail on their Sunset Route mainline through Arizona, but this was actually built by the SP. The SP's original single-track line used 110 pound rail, but when they added a second track to this line in 1995, they used 130 pound rail.

Today's welded rail is made of steel that is relatively flexible and can be bent around a curve by the track-laying crew without the need for any special tools.

I have seen some areas on an old, abandoned line that used jointed rail, where they just cut the rail into shorter sections and put kinks at the rail joints instead of trying to bend the rail itself. A shoddy construction practice used by a shortline that could not afford to hire a professional track laying company to do the work, and didn't have the people or tools to bend the rail.

I've seen a special work train that can pull spikes, lift and move welded rail to the side, pick up the old wooden crossties, lay down new concrete crossties, put the rail onto the new crossties, and clamp the rail in place, all in a continuous operation as the train moves down the track at approximately five miles per hour.

Pentrex released a video tape a few years ago called, "Working on the Railroad" that shows one of these trains in action.

[Anonymous]

For large welded lenghts of rail around long curve they can pull the into shape. For example if you get a 1"x2" piece of wood thats 1 foot long you can't put a bend in it. But if you get a length thats 18 foot long, you can pul it into a shallow bend. Rail is like that.

For short sections in the yard, there is a bender that has 2 claws and a head that screws out in the middle (much the same as the wheels on a G scale rail bender screw out to make the curve).

Grinding: The only time rail grinding is usually necessary is on sections where wheel slip has occured which damage the rail head. Sand applied to stop wheelslip also damages the rail head, causing pitting in the surface. Or where a new welded section has just been done, and you need to grind the excess welds off. The majority of a network should never need grinding if it is good quality steel on a level grade.

Glen.

[Rastun]

Marlboro,

I have seen one of the grinding trains before, but it has been a few years since then. But since it was night time when I drove by it, it was a sight to behold as the sparks coming from underneath it could be seen very well. Other than that I don't know anything about them.

Good luck in your search,

Jack

[SteelMonsters]

The reason griding is done is to remove microcracks and pits in the railhead. Rail is just like paper, if it has a small rip in it, the sheet is much easier to rip. Grinding rail is like cutting out the rip with scissors. It removes the rip and restores full strength.

It's suprsing how quickly a small crack can cause the whole rail to shatter. Proper maintenance is actually cheaper in the long run. Especially if it's a mainline that is cutoff for repair.

[Curmudgeon]

Not just wheel slip and microcracks, but up here in the Cascades on the old GN main I see the rail wear on curves.
They re-grind once due to taper wear (sometimes catching the surrounding forest on fire), sometimes swap right and left running rails to shift the wear.
We're not talking wheel slip, but you should see the taper on the railheads...

TOC

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I forgot about the curve wear. I've seen one tight curve here that had so much taken off that the wear line was half way across the top of the rail head.

Do they use any form of track greasing in USA? Over here there use to be grease pots near tight curves. The wheel would trigger a little button by the rail head and a pick up a small amount of grease as it passed over which would get smeared around the curve and reduce rail wear. It was surprising how far that grease travelled, and what a good job it did.
When they cut back on track staff the grease pots didn't get filled any more. Now they send someone around once a week in a jeep on wheels that spays it on (and the next train following usually has problems with wheel slip!!), and the rail still wears out.

The old system did a better job and saved on rail wear long term. But everyone now is into short term tresults. If you can cut 1 guys wage bill you save money (doesn't matter that you have to employ 2 more to fix all the long term effects from not having him, that comes from a different budget).

Glen.

[cacole]

I think environmental concerns had more to do with the elimination of track greasers than the wages of people to refill them. I have seen an area of an old, abandoned line where there used to be a track greaser, and the ground is saturated for about 100 yards beyond the curve in both directions. This is alongside a river that is in a riparian area. At the time the greaser was in use from possibly the late 1800's until around 1970, there were no environmental laws against ground polution, but things are now much different..

[marlboro]

Thanks for the great replys guys, sure aswered alot of my questions on this topic. Would love to see one of those grinding beasties polishing up the track though!!! I think I ve seen a picture of one though either in GRR or Trains mag just last year, it ll be on my to do list this weekend.

[Rastun]

Marlboro,

I sent you an email through the web site here don't know if you got it but will post the links in it here. thay are http://www.northeast.railfan.net/mow9.html for a broad listing of thumbnails and http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/tr_pj_rms1c.jpg The second one is more of a specific picture of what about what I saw that night and trust me at night it's something else to see.

Take care,

Jack

[Anonymous]

On to a related subject and one of my own personal hobby horses Electrolysis and I will share this with you. Back to a bygone era when i was a young Telecommunications Engineer and Sydney had trams.

In many places the telephone cables which were lead covered in those days run adjacent to the tram lines and i think the trams run on DC. Whenever you came to a bend the return path would leave the rail on a bend pick up the lead of the cable and then leave it again for the tram line at the end of the bend.

the result was spectacular and horriific with huge hunks of the cable ripped out on one side and with smaller but hard deposits on the other side all caused by electrolysis.

Then years later when I became a yachtmaster I had some incredible experiences caused by electrolysis, ie the effect of electric current on dissimilar materials and the presence of moisture particularly salty water erk,

This is a problem in model railways but it is so insideous and cumulative ( mother in law like) that you don't know you have it. I'm sure evryone has problems and I mean everyone to some extent.

I am talking about strange deep seated problems that you cannot explain and you have had them for years or they come and go inexplicably and i would like to hear from anyone one who has any such problems.


regards


Ian