Hi,
I'm going to be putting an RIP track in my 1954-era AT&SF yard layout, and I was wondering what material would be used around the track. At the moment, I'm thinking of the RIP rails embedded in a concrete slab, stained with oil & parts lying around. Would this be correct for a class 1 road in this time?
Thanks in advance,
tbdanny
The Location: Forests of the Pacific Northwest, OregonThe Year: 1948The Scale: On30The Blog: http://bvlcorr.tumblr.com
I don't think a RIP track would be embedded in concrete. They were usually a stub ended siding with gravel roadways along one or both sides to allow access for trucks with welding equipment and spare parts.
cacoleI don't think a RIP track would be embedded in concrete. They were usually a stub ended siding with gravel roadways along one or both sides to allow access for trucks with welding equipment and spare parts.
Depends on the size of the facility and where its located.
At a major yard a RIP track might not only have a concrete pad, but a shed or building over it.
A RIP track would have racks of sheet metal, angle iron and pipe. They would have a rack with spare doors, pallets of grab irons, brake shoes, air hoses and angle cocks. There would also be a "garden" of rails laid to hold both used and new wheelsets.
It would have a building for the offices and a tool shed. There would be an enclosure for the acetylene and oxygen tanks.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
tbdannyAt the moment, I'm thinking of the RIP rails embedded in a concrete slab, stained with oil & parts lying around. Would this be correct for a class 1 road in this time?
From what has been said by RR men on this forum before this would not be correct for most RR in most periods.
If you think about the real RR (as distinct from decades of model images) a large number of the parts that are going to be taken off of any car on a RIP track will be bulky, awkward, heavy or any combination. It would not be safe or sensible to have bits laying around. If you had to change out a brake cylinder would you want to be tripping over bits from previous jobs?
I may be taking your few words to an extreme but a common modellers' perception has become one of great chunks of stuff left where they landed.
There are pics of real RR scenes where there are mounds of brake shoes rusting in scruffy grass and other variations on the theme... however these "cameos" have rather been taken from their very occasional reality to being a "universal truth". The thing was that those piles of junk were more likely to be on the property of a struggling / failing RR in its worst times. They were also likely to be at times when the value of scrap was minimal... so the RR couldn't even help itself by getting a reasonable price for the junk.
Dave has pointed you toward the regularly needed spares being racked in an orderly way. While the parts taken off cars might not be ordered so neatly they would be organised. I can think of three clear groups:
Probably well into the 1970s a lot of materail that had no or too little value was burnt. For the 1950s this could include wood taken out of composite / war emergency cars. In fact whole cars were often burnt as the quickest way of getting rid of them and concentrating the scrap when they were finally written off.
Anything that was contaminated with oil, grease or an unwanted material - such as asbestos - could be dropped on a fire to burn off whatever wasn't wanted and improve the price of the concentrated scrap.
So one thing you might have in a safe position near your RIP track is a junk burning patch. This may be in its own blackened circle back in the weeds... with a well beaten path from the RIP track. This "off in the weeds" kind of location is where anything left "lying around" might be found.
If a weed patch is big enough and has been around long enough it might have had the burning ground migrate around it. This can leave big or small piles of very low/no value junk not just in the weeds but with the weeds growing through them... especially things like brambles and Japanese knot weed.
The possibility of a shed has been mentioned. You might like to look at my thread on small car repair works. Some of the material I was given there would apply to at least a larger RIP track... the issue is just one of size.
I don't know - it would be good to be enlightened - but I would suspect that the smallest RIP tracks would have practically no facilities at all... I would surmise that these tracks and any tracks that became impromptu RIP tracks because something broke/fell off that meant a car just couldn't be moved... I would surmise that there were arrangements for getting the necessary parts, tools and skilled labour to the car in need of repair as/when the need arose.
Tools are a significant question.
If a car gets a flat tyre so bad that it can't travel it either has to be lifted onto something that can take it to a repair location... or the replacement wheelset and the means of lifting the car to make the swap have to be brought to the car. This is why there are models of old time cars that are half boxcar and half gondola with a boom for lifting things (like wheelsets) on and off.
Getting the new wheelset to a car is only part of the job though... It's very era specific but once you have the parts you need to lift the car off of the damaged wheelset, shift it out, put in the new set and drop the car back onto it. You might do this by releasing the truck, wheeling it out from under the car and working on it out in the open. While it's being worked on you would tend to let the car down onto blocking of some kind (quite likely old ties or bits of them)... or at least put blocking in so that if a jack gave out or anything else went wrong you wouldn't end up with one end of the car on the floor. HOWEVER! If you're going to pull the truck out you have to release all the brake connections to the truck...
Now this is one reason that you don't want parts lying around... (I know this from bitter experience working on my own vehicles). You want to be able to set out the bits taken off so that they stay clean and don't get lost or mixed up.
If this working scenario applies you are going to want neat piles of blocking material stood ready. One reason for piles... you put the blocks close to where they will be wanted (like a pair of piles about 45 feet apart - the rough length of 40/50 foot cars) because you do not want to be carying the stuff around any more than you have to.
This brings in another era specific item... how are you handling the heavyier bits?
Replacing a brake shoe or triple valve involves some weight but a car door or wheelset is a whole different thing... In some eras they would use a lot of men and a chain hoist (where available), later they might use a forklift or front loader. More recently they will probably have a truck with a hydraulic boom.
For 1954 you might have a war surplus military crane available even at a fairly small site.
One thing that you will have anywhere you are doing this sort of work is wheel chocks/scotches/lumps of stuff to stop a car rolling about while it is being raised at one end. Again these would tend to be set close to where they will be used... unless the guy in charge is very fastidious meaning that he insists that everything is taken to/from centralised racks.
Hmm... Central racking... expensive gear that needs to be regulated for safe condition - like jacks and lifting chains/straps - is likely to be stored securely and should be moved in/out specifically to be used. For a long time secure storagse was provided by old boxcars - still on their trucks or grounded. More recently IM containers get used... or the kit rides on the maintenance trucks in locked compartments or boxes.
So, if it's big enough, your RIP track would want an old, secure, boxcar. This might double as an office... I'm sure that a lot of those ideas are well established.
I'm wondering how much security was applied to some of the smaller old RIP tracks? I would expect that modern tracks of any size would be secured... apart from the value of materials and equipment there is now an issue of vandals getting in and not just damaging things but getting themselves injured and then claiming compensation. (I had a case where kids cut a steel palisade fence, got in, vandalised and one of them managed to get himself killed... so the parents sued for compensation).
I will post this to not lose it and then come back with more...
tbdanny I'm thinking of the RIP rails embedded in a concrete slab, stained with oil...
The most important things are good drainage and as level as possible. Think about working on your auto and then scale it up some. You don't want to be working in/under/around a car in a puddle.
The next thing you don't want is dust... especially if you are working with brake components - again, it's just like your auto.
So you will get good concrete laid with a slight fall away from the track or to the ends in the 4foot if you can. Better than this you will get it all nicely set out with slight slopes to good drains laid below the concrete. You want the drains to have rodding points.
If you can't have concrete you want any good solid aggregate material; that will either drain off or through BUT that will not dust.
You could use old ties...
You might have a mix of hardbase types. They may also have different ages.
In 1954 I would expect such a hard base to have been laid like a house base rather than slip paved. This will mean that, if it is any size, it will probably have been laid in several sections. If there are large weather variations the formwork may have been left in between sections until it became useless. Then it would be picked out and replaced with bitumen... done properly the wood would be pulled early and the joints sealed with bitumen. All this could be done by the local MOW crew or a contractor depending on the line, urgency and resources.
You probably want your hard surface right up to rail head inside and outside the track. this makes getting materials in/out from under and across the ends a lot easier... you also don't have to keep hauling yourself over a protruding rail head and/or avoiding tripping over it.
I don't recall ever seeing a pic of a RIP track with a pit...
Again (I've not looked closely) but you might get hard concrete strips or large concrete blocks where jacks will regularly stand... I don't know... but I'll be paying more attention to the evidence...
How good or poor the facility is depends on revenue, frequency of use and the size of jobs handles. It can all be perfect concrete or it may have concrete at the most important places, hardbase elsewhere and a tie road off to the burning patch in the weeds... every site would have its own history and logic.
Do you like to walk/kneel/lay on oily concrete when you work on your auto?
Next ? is where has the oil come from?
Yes the older yards did get horribly contaminated with time... but, as an example, the floor in a loco maintenance shed would be kept as clean as possible. Any spills would be mopped up so that the risk of slips was minimised and - as above - people didn't have to keep wotking in the mess. This would be less easy outdoors but no sane car repairer would want to be paddling in mess. You get filthy enough working on rolling stock.
Hmm... back in '54 they probably had minimal "personal needs" facilities and they probably didn't include significant washing facilities at very small places. The question would be at what levels of size and busy-ness would a RIP track start to get a solid structure and how soon would this start to grow into somewhere with a mess room, bathroom, locker room and so on?
At some point there is going to be a need to provide parking for road vehicles...
Back in '54 staff parking for the yard may have been some way from the RIP track. these days there would almost certainly be a solid road right through top it so that trucks (instead of rail cars) can deliver direct to where materials are needed... so the workers. cars can get through as well. "Back then" unofficial dirt/cinder tracks, including some dirt grade crossings, may have been "achieved" so that the car repair workers didn't have to hike the length of the yard.
Blue flags! You're gonna need at least one!
Hmmm... if you plan on having a junk burning point... don't have it next to the gas cylinder cage! PLEASE!... and if you're burning out in the weeds keep the weeds cut back around the cylinder cage as well.
Meanwhile, back at the concrete/whatever. It may have chunks knocked out of it or be patched... because if someone drops a wheelset it makes a bit of a dent. I would expect a dropped knuckle or coupler shank to do a bit of damage as well.
If the area is oily I would put a large doormat in a porch outside the office/messroom.
About the only source of oil I can think of from cars (apart from lading - which isn't supposed to leak) would be grease in bearings and in cushion frames... Any other places? Brake wheel gearboxes I suppose...
So - I suspect - not too much grease about and, unlike a loco yard/maintenance facility, there aren't gallons of sump oil to be changed... so I would look for small kegs of grease and/or 40 gallon drums,,, maybe on some sort of cart with a delivery system to push the grease into where it's supposed to be... Hmmm? I wonder just how this is done? Shouldn't be much spillage though.
The only time I can think that grease would be taken out would be when a whole bearing was changed... and the grease should go with the bearing... keeping things clean... and be drained out before the bearing is stored for repair or scrapping. I would guess that a bearing could be set on a 40 gallon drum to drain... or dunked in one with a dregreaser??? I would figure that a changed out bearing would have some damage so that the grease (assuming any was left) would be contaminated/damaged... so there would have to be a means of disposal... which in '54 could be dumping it off in the remote weeds or burning it.
What was the next question?
tbdanny Hi, I'm going to be putting an RIP track in my 1954-era AT&SF yard layout, and I was wondering what material would be used around the track. At the moment, I'm thinking of the RIP rails embedded in a concrete slab, stained with oil & parts lying around. Would this be correct for a class 1 road in this time? Thanks in advance, tbdanny
Where to start?
First,parts laying about creates a safety hazard so,there will no parts laying about for carmen to trip and fall over..
You will see car jacks in designated areas.A rack of blue flags, stored freight car wheels and complete trucks and dumpsters or in some cases a company gon for scrap.You will see carts with cutting torches,mobile welders,oil and grease drums,ladders,step ladders and other such items.
As for parts (other then wheels or trucks) those would come from the stores building.
Yes some RIP tracks was embedded in concrete while others was embedded in rolled gravel-this gives a smoother surface to walk or stand on while working.Some had wooden walk/work area between the RIP tracks.Some was rolled cinders that was black from oil...
Safety was and reminds a top priority for shop men working a RIP track.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Its more than that. A contract repair shop will be doing refurbishment jobs. Upgrading cars, replacing things. Recoating interiors, repainting entire cars. A RIP track typically won't be doing that, just running repairs. They will patch or replace in kind.
If a car gets a flat tyre so bad that it can't travel it either has to be lifted onto something that can take it to a repair location.
A flat tire????????????? Give me a break. Flat spots, OK, flat tire???????
A wheelset can have flat spots, a thin tread or flange, broken wheel, tread or flange, a worn or gouged bearing surface and very rarely, a loose wheel.
.. or the replacement wheelset and the means of lifting the car to make the swap have to be brought to the car.
An experienced crew on a wheel truck can change out a wheelset on the main track at a grade crossing in less than 30 minutes. A modern "pit crew" at N Platte NE, can change out a wheelset of an empty car in a coal train in a yard track in less than 15 minutes.
While it's being worked on you would tend to let the car down onto blocking of some kind (quite likely old ties or bits of them)... or at least put blocking in so that if a jack gave out or anything else went wrong you wouldn't end up with one end of the car on the floor. HOWEVER! If you're going to pull the truck out you have to release all the brake connections to the truck...
You would only block it up if you needed to use the jacks someplace else. Otherwise the car would sit on the jacks. Disconnecting the brakes is a quick job, not a big deal. Remove one cotter pin or keeper, remove one clevis pin and you are done.
One thing that you will find is that American rail equipment is very rugged and very simple in construction. Replacing stuff is very, very simple and can be done easily under very primative conditions. Replace a brake shoe on a car? Pull one keeper pin on the back of the shoe, pull the old shoe off, put the new shoe on, replace the keeper and you are done. How do you find a worn bearing? When you open the journal box lid to check the oil, you carry a piece of brass rod (like a brazing rod) with the end bent over and sharpened to a point. You stick that into the journal box and drag the point along the bearing surface of the axle. If the surface is worn or gouged you can feel it with the brass rod. Very, very, very low tech.
For a long time secure storagse was provided by old boxcars - still on their trucks or grounded. More recently IM containers get used... or the kit rides on the maintenance trucks in locked compartments or boxes.
On their trucks, for small parts maybe. If you want to use a boxcar for a shed, it will be on the ground with the underframe buried up so it is level or close to level with the ground.
In 1954 there would be minimal security. The only things locked up would be the tools and the bearing brasses. In 1979 a railroad decided that it was going to shut down 12 hrs for the Christmas holiday. They discovered that many smaller rural depots didn't have locks on the doors. They had essentially been continously occupied for 50-75 years, so never had locks on the buildings. If you are modeling 1994, then everything would be behind a chain link fence. 1954, no.
dehusman A flat tire????????????? Give me a break. Flat spots, OK, flat tire??????? A wheelset can have flat spots, a thin tread or flange, broken wheel, tread or flange, a worn or gouged bearing surface and very rarely, a loose wheel.
Perhaps a difference in language again?
Yes a "flat tyre". I'll ask Nick to post a pic of a 9" flat I took last year. Loco was DIT but hadn't had the straight air released so the wheelset did ten miles or so without turning. The other three wheelsets turned occasionally so they had massive burns in them - right though the tyre into the body of the wheel.
As to calling it a "tyre" - that may not be US usage but it's what we call the distinct ring of metal that includes the flange and tread of rail wheels except monobloc wheels. Extremely rarely a tyre seperates from the rest of the wheel.
During the Blitz my Father was returning to Epsom through Waterloo Station when the tyre of a wheel under a SUB unit (EMU) broke in platform 1. The break must have been very low on the wheel. The result was that the steel straightened itself out cutting upwards through the floor of the brakevan/guard's compartment... while the guard (conductor) was sitting in it. Apparently he wasn't very happy about it.
In thirty years I had heard plenty of flat spots / flat tyres thumping along the rail(s) but I had not seen one until last year. The loco was later dragged away at 3mph on wheel skates. i don't know if you use skates in the US?
For 1954 I would expect wheels to have tyres... when did monobloc wheels start to be common?
With regard simplicity and time taken for jobs on a RIP track I'm sure that expereinced crew can whiz through jobs. My points are that they do not want the safety risks (as Brakie confirms), they don't want to be working in puddles or oil spill and some of the parts are awkward if not large and heavy. The comparison would be DIY inexperienced repairing an auto in a back yard or a proffessional shop job with experience and all the right equipment.
Like a lot of these discussions much depends on date and location specifics.
Over here they are known as flat wheels.
A tire could be found on the steam locomotive drivers( wheels)..
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And from railroad to railroad to include merged railroads or railroads controlled by other railroads.
BRAKIE And from railroad to railroad to include merged railroads or railroads controlled by other railroads.
I have learnt that!
the PRR at E St Louis did light repairs to cars while they were still on the interchange receiving tracks while the blue flags were still in place. just light running repairs, no heavy work or repacking journals or c.o.t.s. etc. the 3 i/c tracks were spaced far enough apart to get down between them with a cushman 3 wheeler that had a small welding outfit and a few basic tools on it. the most common repair done on the interchange tracks was replacing brake shoes.
an assortment of new brake shoes was distributed along the tracks laid face down near the outside of the rails where they could be easily reached. that way the needed brake shoe was close at hand anywhere along either side of each track. the worn out ones were usually just pitched up between the rails and once in a while these were collected using a motor car and trailer.
meanwhile back over at the old NYC yard at Brooklyn Illinois, i never saw a car knocker fix anything other than maybe tighten up a train line if there was a bad leak. there was an old tank car set up at that location with oil for the journals but when the bosses checked the level in the tank after several months, it was still nearly full. result of this was the oiler jobs were cut off. i think the only oil that ever left that tank was when the guys from the GM&O next door would come over and mooch a can full to save walking back to their own supply. you would think those big four car pecks would have had enough sense to at least waste a bit of oil on the ground or something to make it look like they were doing their jobs.
grizlump
Dave-the-Train For 1954 I would expect wheels to have tyres... when did monobloc wheels start to be common?
Mid to late 1800's. US freight cars used one piece cast iron or steel wheels almost exclusively since the late 1800's. It would be extreeeeeeemely rare to find a wheel (other than a steam engine driver) with a tire after 1900 in the US.
The RIP track should be on concrete since when you jack a rail car you want a solid surface for your jacks , You don't want your jacks falling over .
You would need a couple of buidings , a compressor building for air test , a tool building , a supply building . Larger parts like couplers and brake beams and wheels would be out side , Your Air parts must be kept in doors . Also there would be racks of angle iron and pipe , most rips won't have sheet steel or doors , that work is generally done in a car shop . A damaged door would be worked on but generally there would not be new doors sitting around .
There should be dumpsters around and generally every thing is fairly neat and organized .
And don't for get the blue flags .
dehusmanDave-the-Train For 1954 I would expect wheels to have tyres... when did monobloc wheels start to be common? Mid to late 1800's. US freight cars used one piece cast iron or steel wheels almost exclusively since the late 1800's. It would be extreeeeeeemely rare to find a wheel (other than a steam engine driver) with a tire after 1900 in the US.
Very careful how I word this... I don't know and I don't have my source material to hand at present... but... UK and as far as I know most/all of Europe have kept trying monobloc rail wheels and have always gone back to tyred wheels.
IIRC there was a really nasty ICE type high speed train crash in Germany that was due to a wheel failure. So it's not just us.
As far as I'm aware there are advantages to both monobloc and tyred wheels. It may be a commercial decision rather than a safety one. I don't know.
On the other hand,if monoblocs are far superior one would have thought that Wisconsin Central / EWS would have started to switch all cars, at least new cars, to them as soon as they got into the UK and Europe. As far as I know they haven't.
Maybe it's just like some countries use centre frames and draftgear while others use side buffers. Neither way is sufficiently better than the other for one to replace the other universally.
I'm pretty sure that locos had tyred wheels in part so that the worn tyres could be taken off the wheel and replaced with new ones.
Another thing I have seen (twice) is a train passing with a brake shoe dragging and causing the wheel it was on to run with a white hot tyre. This showed in the dark as a bright white circle proceeding with the train. I had both trains pulled up fast on the next signals... I didn't want either tyre breking and de-railing the train.
Hmmm... that makes me wonder. I've seen lots of pics of US freights piled up - often seem to be coal trains - I wonder whether some at least are caused by wheel failures?
Dave-the-Train Maybe it's just like some countries use centre frames and draftgear while others use side buffers. Neither way is sufficiently better than the other for one to replace the other universally.
There is also a difference in axles. The French tried to put hollow axles on the Acela, but Amtrak had to change them to solid axles, because hollow axles are banned in the US.
Its also a matter of the size of the train and the operation. Countries that use side buffers tend to run small trains of small cars.countries that use center sills tend to run large trains of large car cars. I'm sure there is a point where the "drawbar" force exceeds what the chain in a side buffer can stand and the "buff" force exceeds what a draftgear mounted in the sideframe can handle (or that you would have to install two or four side buffers vs. one or two center draft gear).
Some derailments are caused by broken wheels, but they are a relatively small compared to other causes. If you wanted to data dive through the FRA's files you probably could figure out how small. Human failure is typically number 1 and track failure is typically number 2 in ranking of general cause. Most time a chunk of the tread breaks out. Worst case scenario is that the chunk breaks out of the tread and it DOESN'T derail. Then the train runs for miles and miles knicking the rail every 9 ft or so. With a derailment you just pile up a dozen cars in one spot. With knicked rail you stand the chance of a broken rail with every car of every following train. That rail then has to be slow ordered and replaced. Replacing 25 miles of rail can be way more expensive than a derailment.
a few low budget rip track operations i have seen pretty much work right off the block truck. that would be one good detail to add to your scene. also an air test cart might be found sitting around.
i never knew anybody who would work under a car that was not protected by jack stands and blocking, but that may differ from road to road and depend upon the era. in an emergency, i guess anything is possible.
if you disconnect the brake rigging first, you can roll a truck out from under a car without getting under it. that was more common back in the days of friction bearings. actually, you can pull the brass and wedges out of the journal box with the car still sitting on the truck. that's how thieves stole so much brass years ago. all you need is a tie stub for a fulcrum and something to use for a long lever. a hook to pull the journal pad and a large pair of tongs come in handy for safety reasons and this works easily on empty cars. (don't ask me how it know)
flat spots are not so common as they used to be. just listen to a train when it goes by. dynamic braking has resulted in fewer overheated wheels and slid flat wheels like we use to see. also equipment detectors on the main line call attention to defects that were previously overlooked.
most repair facilities keep a few wheel sets on hand and send any defective ones back to the company's wheel shop on the same car the replacements come in on.
trueing wheels in place is more common on locomotives if the flat areas are not too large. the device is called a ledgerwood and is intstalled in place of the brake shoe where it car shave or cut the wheel down a bit untill it is round again. i have never seen this done on a car, just on engines.
i would imagine that the main reason separate tires were not used in the USA is because they must be heated and then shrunk on to the wheel. heavy braking heats wheels up to the point that the tires would come loose. that is why it was important to bail the independent on the locomotive, (and to keep the train stretched out) especially with steam engines. they did have separate tires on the drivers. probably not a factor with modern dynamic braking and the later style passenger equipment that uses disc brakes but, i have no experince there.
About the only diesels with tires would be the BRC GP7s. Also the only GP7s with plain bearings, as every other GP7 had roller bearings.
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