Rail Marking Question

[rdamon]

Guru's

What is the meaning of the hash marks on these rails?

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/1/6/1/6161.1346320543.jpg

Thanks

Robert

[diningcar]

They are following the year the rail was made and each hash mark represents one month.

[rdamon]

Thank you!!

[mudchicken]

Brother DC - Just wait till he discovers what heat numbers are....

[Mookie]

OK - I will bite - gently - what are the heat numbers?

I haven't really figured out the hash marks yet.

[BaltACD]

Mookie

OK - I will bite - gently - what are the heat numbers?

I haven't really figured out the hash marks yet.

Near rail has 12 hash marks = December

Far rail has 6 has marks = June

[diningcar]

Your turn now Muddy friend, I took the easy one.

[diningcar]

I notice that this 136 lb rail made in 1979 is now on secondary track, or perhaps a siding, so it has probably been cascaded once or twice. My muddy friend can also explain "cascading" as I am too busy, ha!

[Mookie]

Well an ah ha on the hash marks.  But doubt the rest of the explanation from fuzzy will be quite as straight forward. 

[CShaveRR]

If anyone would like to hear my explanation of cascading, I hope they'll relay that to me...

[Deggesty]

It's been quite a while since I read anything about the making of steel, but I do know that the numbering of heats has to do with the manufacture of steel (if you had such a high temperature in your kitchen, your house would probably burn down).

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

  [ OK, "groan" . . . ] . . . "relay", huh ?!? 

[DwightBranch]

The caption on the photo says this track is in Colorado, the former MP line to Pueblo, which they started to tear up this summer.

[mudchicken]

DwightBranch

The caption on the photo says this track is in Colorado, the former MP line to Pueblo, which they started to tear up this summer.

Not torn up, still very much there. (Does have an STB discontinuance of service [mothballed] on it from NA Jcn, to Haswell since earlier this month. The shady outfit in Utah is trying to stay under the radar until they can yank it. Most of the line is 119# CWR.) Haswell to Towner is still in service.

Mooks: Heat numbesr are the indented numbers, on the opposite side of the rail from the raised brand, are the pedigree and serial numbers for the rail. They tell you things much like a car VIN number does, where in the bloom/ingot the steel came from, top or bottom of the bloom, manufacturing options, etc.... DC, PDN, Steve14 and I all used to have to keep track, by hand carried notes in books (before computers), of the rail heat numbers and where they were in track for purposes of looking for trends in rail and manufacturing defects.

Although it does not happen all the time, when the detector car orders out a rail or the section gang replaces a broken rail, somebody ought to be noting the heat number in the rail changeout paperwork. In more recent history (1990), this partially is what SP used to discover what a mill defect was that plagued them with new Bethlehem rail on Tehachapi Pass...

(and if I brought back some painful memories for diningcar of terminal boredom and long painful days of mind numbing book-keeping, I apologize.)

[WSOR 3801]

Eugene Lewis (author of 10,000 Days On The Northwestern Line) relates a similar tale from his time on the CNW about books with the heat numbers of the rails. If a rail was found defective, a few more rails with the same or similar heat numbers would get changed out as well. 

He also relates somebody (office cleaning staff, maybe) ended up throwing some of those books out...

[Mookie]

Sir C!  I understood every bit of that the first read thru! 

Details of railroading that most of us would never even think of, let alone look for marks!  Simple genius in railroading, again.

[mudchicken]

on those heat numbers, you will typically (but not always) see them like this:

X 123456 12 AB

X= top rail order out of the ingot with "A" being the first rail, usually going from about A to R (most railroads will automatically reject the A rail as it is more likely to have defects or air pocket occlusions in the rail

123456 = Ingot number (numbered in the order cast) and rail letter number

12 = Strand or Bloom number in conseutive order

AB Method of hydrogen elimination/ treatment code

[diningcar]

Thanks muddy friend. Now all of our hobbiest colleagues will have no problem educating their newby's.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Wonder if any of the model railroad-type hobbyists ever tried to more faithfully emulate the prototype by embossing the rail section 'brands' as shown in the photo in the Original Post, and/ or engraving the heat numbers on the inside of the webs of their rails . . . ?    Makes as much sense as some of the rivet detail and paint scheme obsessions, if you ask me !

- Paul North.

[mudchicken]

diningcar

Thanks muddy friend. Now all of our hobbiest colleagues will have no problem educating their newby's.

May have created a monster - Have visions of people running around on hands and knees looking under the mill scale for heat numbers or calling the railroads that some of their heat numbers are missing (they got rooked and bought counterfeit rail?).

[Mookie]

MC - you know how hard it is to find places here to even observe trains, w/o trying to look at the rails and not get into trouble.  So the first thing I thought of is some secluded country rails with the Driver holding my ankles while I hang upside down trying to see the rail markings. 

Think I will just take your word for it that they are on the rails. 

But I did learn several new things, which is why I am here.

 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

I'm pretty sure I've got a decent photo of a heat number - if not I can arrange to get one in the near future - and then post it here, with a little more time and less yardwork calling for me right now ("Yes, I'm coming, honey !")  . . .

[tdmidget]

I think Mud's description of heat numbers would apply to old rail. New is all about continuous casting and continuous rolling. I wonder how the numbering process has changed?

[mudchicken]

unchanged - at least from what is seen coming out of Ervaz RMSM-Pueblo and a mill tour a few months back.

[aar_man]

The month in the year.

[tdmidget]

"

on those heat numbers, you will typically (but not always) see them like this:

X 123456 12 AB

X= top rail order out of the ingot with "A" being the first rail, usually going from about A to R (most railroads will automatically reject the A rail as it is more likely to have defects or air pocket occlusions in the rail

123456 = Ingot number (numbered in the order cast) and rail letter number

12 = Strand or Bloom number in conseutive order

AB Method of hydrogen elimination/ treatment code"

With continuous casting there are no ingots and no blooms. Its bottom poured into the caster which produces the billet which is rolled to the finished shape. CF&I developed the continuous rolling  process.

[rdamon]

Found a link to a machine to stamp the rails ...

http://www.railstamping.com/index.php?id=72

Is it common practice to have the rails placed in the same direction so that the date or heat marks from both rails can be seen from one side?

Thanks again!!  

Robert

[cefinkjr]

Paul_D_North_Jr

Wonder if any of the model railroad-type hobbyists ever tried to more faithfully emulate the prototype by embossing the rail section 'brands' as shown in the photo in the Original Post, and/ or engraving the heat numbers on the inside of the webs of their rails . . . ?    Makes as much sense as some of the rivet detail and paint scheme obsessions, if you ask me !

- Paul North.

Last time I tried this, the ants did a nice job of etching but couldn't get the hang of the raised letters.  I don't think their welding machines had enough juice.  Then a gecko moved in and took out my labor force.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

rdamon

Found a link to a machine to stamp the rails ...

http://www.railstamping.com/index.php?id=72

Is it common practice to have the rails placed in the same direction so that the date or heat marks from both rails can be seen from one side?

Thanks again!!  

Robert

  Thanks for that link ! 

No - that result is usually just coincidental, from when both rails are replaced at the same time from the same rail train that has all its rails loaded facing in the same direction; or, if only 1 rail is being replaced, then it just happens that the replacement rail is also facing in the same direction as it comes off the rail train.  If the rail train is coming directly from the CWR welding plant, that might still occur fairly often when the track is 'fairly close' to the plant, as there will be less opportunity for the train to get turned end-for-end via various routings as it travels to the site.

Finally, above is a recent photo of mine of a "heat number" - as can be seen, they're much harder to see than the raised 'brands' for the mill and rail section, etc. as in the Original Post above: 

- Paul North.     

[BaltACD]

Rails get further jumbled during maintenance.  My carrier uses 'Curve Patch' gangs.  These gangs work on curves, obviously.  In curved territory, rails do not get equal wear.  Depending upon the amount of superelevation and the normal traffic on that traverses the territory either the high rail or low rail will get measurably more wear, and thus need to be changed out earlier than it's partner.  In most cases, the high rail will receive more wear and all this wear will occur on the gauge side of the rail.  Normal practice will be to transpose the rails through the curve - low to high and high to low - thereby putting a new gauge face on each rail.  If the high rail is worn and the low rail has been previously transposed to become the low rail - but is still serviceable, a new string of rail will be installed on the high side.  The various permutations that will occurr over time will fully jumble the history of the rails that are in place on either rail.