Can someone help with terminology? What do you call the braided wire that connects the ends of two sections of bolted rail?
My old memory thanks you!
What I call it, and what we're supposed to call it may be different, and my memory's not necessarilly any younger than yours, but we live in such wonderous times that http://www.google.com/patents/US2834550 confirms that it's called a "bond"
"This invention relates to a rail bond or track circuit connector and more particularly to a rail bond which passes behind or above a splice bar'connecting two rail ends. The type of rail bond usually used for this purpose consists of two terminal fittings at the end of a flexible stranded wire structure, which is required to resist the heavy vibrational stresses induced in the bond due to the passing of a train"
Note that it's stranded, and usually twisted, not braided.
Patrick Boylan
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Our signal maintainers call them bond wires.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
On electric railroads the bond wires are larger than signal bonds but vital to the electric lines. One clever way to tell of a rail came from an electric line is the size of the wire and the manner of attachment.
Bonding wire..
23 17 46 11
Bond wire - connection by drilling posts in the out(field) side of the ball now discouraged. posts are drilled or thermite soldered to the web.
Randy Stahl On electric railroads the bond wires are larger than signal bonds but vital to the electric lines. One clever way to tell of a rail came from an electric line is the size of the wire and the manner of attachment.
*Test track on the northwestern side of CSX at Twin Oaks, PA, about 0.3 mile east of the US 322 overpass.
- Paul North.
mudchicken Bond wire - connection by drilling posts in the out(field) side of the ball now discouraged. posts are drilled or thermite soldered to the web.
All of the ground connections for a radio tower site I'm familiar with were thermite bonded. I'm pretty sure the one for the LP tank (backup power) was done before the tank was filled....
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
tree68 I'm pretty sure the one for the LP tank (backup power) was done before the tank was filled....
I'm pretty sure the one for the LP tank (backup power) was done before the tank was filled....
Randy Stahl One clever way to tell of a rail came from an electric line is the size of the wire and the manner of attachment.
A case in point (also showing older ideas on where the bond goes):
This is ex-Pacific Electric.
Quoting CSSHegewisch:
"Not nearly as bad as several years ago when a crew outlawed and tied us up for about two hours."
Were the outlaws caught and prosecuted for tying you up?
Johnny
Wizlish Randy Stahl One clever way to tell of a rail came from an electric line is the size of the wire and the manner of attachment. A case in point (also showing older ideas on where the bond goes): This is ex-Pacific Electric.
Was this a somewhat recent photo?
Deggesty Quoting CSSHegewisch: "Not nearly as bad as several years ago when a crew outlawed and tied us up for about two hours." Were the outlaws caught and prosecuted for tying you up?
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
CShaveRR Deggesty Quoting CSSHegewisch: "Not nearly as bad as several years ago when a crew outlawed and tied us up for about two hours." Were the outlaws caught and prosecuted for tying you up? Johnny, this basically means that the crew on Paul's train was "dead on the law".Being dead made them easy to catch and unnecessary to prosecute.And I assume that once the law got out from under them, they proceeded to untie Paul and company.
Johnny, this basically means that the crew on Paul's train was "dead on the law".Being dead made them easy to catch and unnecessary to prosecute.And I assume that once the law got out from under them, they proceeded to untie Paul and company.
We were untied after a new crew was sent. I heard later that the dispatcher and other responsible parties were called on the carpet and fed to the terminal super for lunch.
It must have worked. A few months later, a similar situation came up and the freight was stopped short of Belt Junction before the crew outlawed.
Randy StahlWas this a somewhat recent photo?
There was a fairly recent thread somewhere that discussed ex-PE track, still in use for freight service at that time, which still displayed the heavy rail bonding from electric days. A photograph -- either this one or one very like it -- was in that thread. Instead of looking up the thread, I took the lazy way out, googled for the image, and just tinkered with the search terms until I saw a picture that illustrated what I wanted to show.
IIRC, there is still quite a bit of trackage 'here and there' in Southern California that has these bonds in place.
I think thats a neat bit of RR archeology.
The bonding wires on the Iowa Traction in Mason City Iowa are also of that significantly heavier nature -- and that line is still under wire, although the actual area of rail service is evidently cut back for the rails are very rusty on the west end of the line.
Dave Nelson
Our trolley museum had heavy bonds installed and copper thieves helped themselves to them. We replaced them with signal bonds to reduce the temptation and so far so good. We live with the voltage drop. but we only go 2 miles. What made us mad was the thieves migt get a few bucks for the copper but we had all the labor to replace them. At least they didn't touch the 600V. I was told by a utility man about some thieves that stole copper from a live substation and later, a burned body was found a couple of blocks away. No honor among thieves.
Electroliner 1935 Our trolley museum had heavy bonds installed and copper thieves helped themselves to them. We replaced them with signal bonds to reduce the temptation and so far so good. We live with the voltage drop. but we only go 2 miles. What made us mad was the thieves migt get a few bucks for the copper but we had all the labor to replace them. At least they didn't touch the 600V. I was told by a utility man about some thieves that stole copper from a live substation and later, a burned body was found a couple of blocks away. No honor among thieves.
Rough justice. Same thing occasionally happens when thieves attempt to steal from live power lines or substations. Tough luck - no sympathy from me. See also this webpage for "Galvanized Theft Deterrent Cable" for this (and other) applications:
http://www.erico.com/category.asp?category=R1341&applications=rail
ERICO - apparently originally "Electric Railway Improvement Company" - is a major supplier of this type of thing, both signal and power bonds. See these other webpages and documents:
http://www.erico.com/category.asp?category=R2462&applications=rail
http://www.erico.com/category.asp?category=R1332&applications=rail
https://www.erico.com/public/library/Rail/LT0099.pdf (60 pages, 1.23 MB file size).
ChuckAllen, TX
Electroliner 1935 I was told by a utility man about some thieves that stole copper from a live substation and later, a burned body was found a couple of blocks away. No honor among thieves.
Or the stories about people discovering thieves in their basements, stealing the copper pipe even as the residents were sitting upstairs watching TV...
Here is a new ‘bond wire’ attachment that resulted after a shoofly was eliminated in Ontario, CA, with the Vineyard Ave. underpass construction.
Ontario is in Southern California on Union Pacific’s Sunset Route, with Vineyard Ave. in the neighborhood of M.P. 522. The photo was taken June 29, 2015, a day after the shoofly was eliminated.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
tree68Recently saw a story about a couple of ne'er-do-wells who thought they'd make off with some wire that was carrying 13,200V at the time. They didn't get two feet, never mind two blocks...
I'll bet some part of them by weight got more than two feet...
K. P. Harrier Here is a new ‘bond wire’ attachment that resulted after a shoofly was eliminated in Ontario, CA, with the Vineyard Ave. underpass construction. Ontario is in Southern California on Union Pacific’s Sunset Route, with Vineyard Ave. in the neighborhood of M.P. 522. The photo was taken June 29, 2015, a day after the shoofly was eliminated.
The picture looks similar to those I helped install on the PRR in the late fifty's except that the ones we installed were drilled and hammered in. We used a hand drill rig and I don't thing the rail head was hardend. Thank goodness! While the bits we had were very dull, it still took a lot of lube oil and time (15 min) to drill the holes. Then the easy part of pounding the bonds into the hole. Wished we had had thermite back then.
Article on rail joint bars
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/mechanical/freight-cars/dont-let-your-joint-bars-get-out-of-joint.html?channel=
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