RR 2014 capacity expansion limitations ?

[mudchicken]

blue streak 1

mudchicken

. NS is running out of backtracks to put the secondhand CWR into, especially without suitable sized OTM (especially tie plates) to work with.

MC:::  how many different dimensions of tie plates are there ?s Way too many to count, esp secondhand sections 90# and below. Everybody had a different idea of the optimal solution (and thought ASCE was not realistic) Part of the problem was the number of different rail mills with different manufacturing parameters. (heavy steel manufacturing was in its infancy)

1.  Guess it will depend on rail base width ? Oversimplified, but yes

2.  Tie plate length and width  ? Long toe or short toe, cut spike or elastic fastener?

3.  thickness ? MGT? age? corrosion? cant?, friction? local temp range?

[blue streak 1]

mudchicken

blue streak 1

mudchicken

. NS is running out of backtracks to put the secondhand CWR into, especially without suitable sized OTM (especially tie plates) to work with.

MC:::  how many different dimensions of tie plates are there ?s Way too many to count, esp secondhand sections 90# and below. Everybody had a different idea of the optimal solution (and thought ASCE was not realistic) Part of the problem was the number of different rail mills with different manufacturing parameters. (heavy steel manufacturing was in its infancy)

 

That is what I suspected.  Is that still the case today ?  guess  it is a real engineering challenge to know what size plates to use on relay ?  Is it fairly standard for each RR to use certain sizes for each size bottom of the rail ?

[mudchicken]

That is what I suspected.  Is that still the case today ?  guess  it is a real engineering challenge to know what size plates to use on relay ?  Is it fairly standard for each RR to use certain sizes for each size bottom of the rail ?

Any more, the industry is pretty much standardized on 115-136-141 (3rd Mod)....since the 1990's. Again, it's efficiency of the scale of manufacture/ economy of scale and marketplace forces in play. (one of the casualties was UP's obsession with 133# rail and the head-free rail sections favored before the last big batch of mergers)...Secondhand plates were often unable to be cascaded forward (along with the anchors failing to hold during wear.) Supply and demand often create struggles that the engineering manager was often hard pressed to deal with (thus the comments about wasted money spent on "shiny toys", usually caused by the track department being forced to eat the cost over-runs of the mechanical side of the family -  ever seen the comment about the "railroad operating budgets being balanced on the back of the track department?") For whatever reason, when cascading rail, the OTM fails to match the footage of rail re-used. Purchasing agents frequently could not make up the difference buying new to replace lost or damaged salvageable SH material. Not quite looked at the same way as joint bars and spikes (bolts are one and done, generally torched during salvage)

It's an FRA major bozo-no no to use the wrong OTM for the wrong size rail, It can get pretty nitpicky when barring 112/115# rail. (source of controversy to this day, the differences in fishing are virtually nil. PDN has also witnessed this) Punching extra holes in 110# single shoulder plates to be used on 90# rail (5 1/2"base to 5 3/16" base plates caused problems with my ChEng and FRA more than once.)

I'm working on a Chicago area project where the railroad abandoned by 2003 and there is track still out there, not salvaged (and no this is not the ex CR Ft Wayne line and that lesson in the whims of operating logic -it's not abandoned and about to have new life)for 9+ miles (mostly 105 and 110# rail that has no future... and now the trees are taking it over. Cost of actually salvaging the track steel exceeds its worth even at $600-$900 a ton. Had to survey that with a chain saw and a machete.(GPS hates trees)