First, you set up the mold and pre heat the rail.
Then you set up the crucrible with the charge in place and fire it up with the torch.
Then you step back because this rascle is hot!
Note the overflow of molten steel falling into the catch pan.
After it cools some, you take your neat little machine and shear off the sprues and excess.
What is left after the shear is done.
Note the side sprues still there....
The finished weld, prior to grinding.
Total time, including set up, about 25 minutes.
We are replacing the rails on my switching lead, had the chance to shoot them MOW guys doing this, thought you folks would like to see.
The term is Boudette welding, although I am not all that sure I spelled Boudette right!
23 17 46 11
Boutet
Keep moisture away from that rascal. Moisture, even a little bit results in a very catastrophic, explosive problem with boutet/thermite welds.
Gee - didn't stay around to watch all the fun with the sledge hammer and hot cut wedge (chisel)?
You just watched about $1200+ disappear from PTRA's budget.....
New (grey w/ millscale & rust) 115# CWR? Buy new rail anchors too?
Rusty Feathers
I saw a demonstration of this on The Science Channel when they did a bit about building the new football stadium out in Phoenix. They are using rails for the roof and also a moveable field.
Being technologically ignorant, I can't imagine the railroads spending this kind of time doing these kinds of welds on their main lines. Why did they do it here?
Ed.
Thanks for showing us, I have always wondered what the fire on the rail was for when the IHB MOW guys were working on the sidings behind my apartment building when I lived in LaGrange Park. I thought it was to expand the rail for some reason... (Don't know why I would think that....but.... there it is...)
Cool photos..
Muddy one,
End of the budget year, spend it or lose it!
You should see the stack of ties they have horded up behind the MOW buildings!
Yup, new rail, both sides, but on wood ties, they dont move around like the steel ones do.
Too cheap to buy/rent the right tamper, but they did install steel ties every 4th one to hold the gauge.
Erik, because that is my switching lead, it is on a curve...about every three years, we have to transpose the rail, (swap out the left one with the right one and vice versa) so it wears evenly...this little cut of track sees use 24/7 in flat yard switching.
On a normal day, it must see a thousand wheels pass over it.
Back and forth, back and forth, it can wear the ball off the rail in a year.
This is what it leads too, my switching tracks are from the two blue motors MUed nose to nose, with the empty track dead ahead, all the way to the right is nothing but switch tracks...everything from the empty tracks to the left are trains I built up, then swung over and spotted for ground air, they are all out bound trains for our industries.
Everything in the photo passes over that section of track, often several times, and this is only one shift.
Because the lead is curved, if they used jointed rail, it would flex more than they want, and the joint bars would need constant attention.
There is already enough work with all the switches and frogs, snuging up joint bars daily would cost more than the welding.
This is what leads to that section of track...one Class 1 mailine and our tracks coming up out of the docks, plus all the traffic from the North Shore of the Houston Ship Channel passes over it.
The train you see with the coil cars is having to cross over to our west track to go around, you can see the MOW guys at the other end of the curve, they replaced about 100 yards.
They are doing the weld in the photo directly to the right of where I am standing when I took this shot...although I am up in the tower goofing off right then!
Just noticed, if you look just behind the BN boxcar, you can see the stack of pylons for the windmills that GE/Seimens run out of here.
Twenty-five minutes?? Up this way it's about an hour minimum because of the time it takes to get the ends of the rails hot enough for a proper bond.
He had the big torch in there about 3 minutes, took them about 30 seconds to set the cast up, and light it...and were carrying it away in two or three minutes...
Trust me, that was hot, real hot.
A guess was it took about a minute for the stuff to melt the steel in the casting, it was flowing out the overflow hole and into the catch pan in a flash.
I drank a cup of coffee while shooting this, they were breaking the firebrick/mould off before I finished it, thats how short a time it took.
Maybe the muddy one can explain the reason for the time difference....
Since welded rails come in approximately 1/4 mile lengths, the 1/4 mile strings have to be field welded to get them all together.
They're even welding frogs and switch points, now.
Ol' Ed
Thanks for the photos, Ed. If I read your response correctly, the reason the weld is so heavy is because of the extreme amount of use the rails are getting. That makes sense.
I wonder if it would not make sense to replace the wooden ties with concrete ones? Would the concrete last longer? Does it withstand the heavy use your yard see better or worse than wood? Thanks-
The real problem is derailments.
Yards have them all the time.
Even though they are slow speed derailments, they still drop tons of weight on the tie...and depend on what type of derailment, say I kick a few cars and they get on the ground, they can roll a few car lengths...wood ties can flex and absorb that, steel ones don't.
Either a carman misses a sharp flange and we pick a switch, or a knuckle gives in the curve, maybe a dumb switchman lines a switch under a car, lots of things can cause yard derailments...but the point is a wood tie will withstand a tremendous amount of punishment, plus you can flip it over and reused it.
Concrete ties can take a pretty good pounding, but if they break all the way through, they have to be replaced depending on how many broke and how close together they are.
Steel ties bend, and pull the track out of gauge.
If you break a steel tie, and weld it back together, it will break again, right next to the weld.
Steel is cheaper, and easier to install rail on, but require a specialized tamper to work the rock up under the ties, which are hollow plus the ballast required is larger than what you want on a walkway/toepath, which we have to have.
In the photo showing the yard proper, I walk between all of those tracks all day long, and up and down the lead, if you look close, you can see the "paths" we end up walking in the rock...I might get in 4 miles a day.
So we have to have a layer of small ballast to keep the knee/foot injuries down.
You cant tell in the photo, but the yard curves away in the background, towards the right about another ¼ mile.
This place is pretty big, the empty track in the photo is track 33, there are 32 more tracks to the left, plus two run through tracks.
The rock that works best with steel ties is too big, and with the size of this yard, it is cost prohibitive to put down the right rock for steel ties, then a layer of walkway rock on top of it.
Plus, this is a old yard, built in 1924, on the edge of a bayou, you really dont want to distrub the subsoil much, as it has settled and compacted.
Digging too deep would cause more problems that steel ties would solve.
They did an experiment a few years ago, when we transposed the rails last time around.
They installed a concrete tie, then ten ties later, a steel one, ten ties later, a composite one.
Keep in mind this is in a curve, with a lot of heavy, slow speed traffic, and a lot of punishment from the starting and stopping our locomotives have to do...I kick em, then drag back, kick em, drag back, so there are a lot of forces to the track structure you don't see in a mainline service.
It truly gets pounded all day long, you get the idea.
And keep in mind tracks are supposed to flex some, if it was rigid, it would fatigue and break.
The concrete tie failed in a year, just "crumbled" at the attachment points...the steel tie has managed to pump up and down enough that it has dug a hole under itself, the track is now holding the tie up in the air, off the ground completely, makes a nice mouse house though.
The composite tie has done pretty good, nothing to really complain about, although I was told they are more expensive than wood, they are supposed to last twice as long.
Mudchicken can fill in all I missed, plus give you a professional point of view from the guys who design and build tracks.
TimChgo9 wrote: Ed. Thanks for showing us, I have always wondered what the fire on the rail was for when the IHB MOW guys were working on the sidings behind my apartment building when I lived in LaGrange Park. I thought it was to expand the rail for some reason... (Don't know why I would think that....but.... there it is...) Cool photos.. If you saw fire they probably were heating the rail to expand it. We have to do that if we have a pull apart at a joint. You burn the rail with diesel-soaked saw dust. When the rail expands you bolt the joint bars back together and then you prolly head off to the next pull apart. I prefer pulling the rail with hydraulics since it's much easier, cleaner, and less work.
If you saw fire they probably were heating the rail to expand it. We have to do that if we have a pull apart at a joint. You burn the rail with diesel-soaked saw dust. When the rail expands you bolt the joint bars back together and then you prolly head off to the next pull apart. I prefer pulling the rail with hydraulics since it's much easier, cleaner, and less work.
edblysard,
You forgot to mention that it's a good idea to stand upwind. A lot of guys have problems with the "aroma" when the weld is burning. I kind of like the smell myself. In winter they're nice to be around when they're burning but in summer...
We had to switch on the track next to it, they worked under traffic...but made us stop while they did this.
The stuff smells, to me at least, like burnibg electrical wires, very bitter and sharp.
But your right, it makes a nice space heater!
edblysard wrote: We had to switch on the track next to it, they worked under traffic...but made us stop while they did this.The stuff smells, to me at least, like burnibg electrical wires, very bitter and sharp.But your right, it makes a nice space heater!
Ed: when they pull open the plug on the crucible and pour, you do not want any vibration of any kind. That clay moulding around the form that the molten thermite charge pours into is no fun when it leaks (the welder will go ballistic and will be frustrated with the failed weld because there is nada to do that will save it and a ton of work required to cut out and redo the failed weld). Older question response is that without the preheater (air fed flame akin to a bellows in a blacksmith shop) or torch heating the rail ends, you risk occlusions (voids & air bubbles) and impurities from the rail ends causing a potential failed weld. Those risks diminish with shiny new rail ends, but a good guess is low speed and low impact on the lead was an acceptable risk for the welder using an improved/hotter thermite charge that still severely heats the rail ends.
Cool photo's, thanks for sharing. There must be an enormous lot of heat involved in it.
First to get the rail ends up to the correct temperature and than trigger the chemical reaction to do the actual weld.
I have done some cad welding on 70 mm² copper substation earths, similar principle and sure, very important that the clay sealant doesn't fall off the crucible otherwise a redo and lots of grinding.
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