http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2016/01/05/amtraks-southwest-chief-service-keeps-rolling-new-tracks/75670686/
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It's good to see a favorable report on a passenger train. I do have a question: Were 80 foot rails laid there years back? That seems to be a very odd length.
Johnny
Deggesty It's good to see a favorable report on a passenger train. I do have a question: Were 80 foot rails laid there years back? That seems to be a very odd length.
Most stick rail that I am aware of was manufactured in 39 foot lengths, however, I believe since welded rail has become commonplace that the manufacturers are rolling rail in 78 foot lenghts to minimize welding at railroad rail plants.
I believe I read an article where a manufacturer in Japan is now making 400+ foot rail lengths and has a specially designed ship to export them to the world.
Yes, there is an informative article on the subject of new rails in the February issue of Trains.
BaltACDMost stick rail that I am aware of was manufactured in 39 foot lengths, however, I believe since welded rail has become commonplace that the manufacturers are rolling rail in 78 foot lenghts to minimize welding at railroad rail plants. I believe I read an article where a manufacturer in Japan is now making 400+ foot rail lengths and has a specially designed ship to export them to the world.
I remember back in the 60's the CNW replaced some of their 39' 110 lb (?) rail with new 115 lb rail that had hald the number of joints. I assumed it was 2 pieces of 39' rail butt welded but now that I've read the above quote I was probably wrong on the welding.
Oh yah, this was on the old Wisconsin Division to Crystal Lake, et al.
The article was informative up to a point, but the SW Chief isn't 'out of the woods' yet.
BNSF got some pork flavored Federal bucks to restore higher speed passenger train running on the La Junta sub; note that it stlll has significant online freight traffic.
However, 260+ miles of the Raton and Glorieta subs between La Junta and Lamy, NM are in dire need of basic track maintenance that BNSF sees no need to invest in. Hopefully the state of Colorado can support its part of the line, as opposed to New Mexico that has to save up for the large NMRX balloon payment.
Links to my Google Maps ---> Sunset Route overview, SoCal metro, Yuma sub, Gila sub, SR east of Tucson, BNSF Northern Transcon and Southern Transcon *** Why you should support Ukraine! ***
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