On 2014-08-20, David Billington wrote:
On 20/08/14 14:45, dpb wrote:
On 08/19/2014 9:03 PM, Ignoramus26736 wrote:
...

My expectation is that the ties are very rotten due to decades of
neglect and being under the soil, so that the spikes no longer hold in
the ties. I hope that as I pull the rails up, they will separate from
the ties and come out of the ground, at which point I can torch cut
them.

My question is, will 30 tons be enough force to pull rails up like
that? Assuming that the ties are rotten? Just pull up enough to torch
cut them? Or will the ground kind of hold them in? Any experience?
...

My guess would be that unless the "decades" are approach 10 or more
the likelihood that the spikes will come free in large numbers is very
low.

What's your lifter working against-- the ground surface or against the
tie plate you think? That is, are you thinking of trying to pull the
rail from the tie/plate or lift the whole section?

--



May depend on the quality of maintenance the rails had. When my dad
worked at Boeing in Wichita a work colleague had a rail spike on his
desk and when asked where it came from was told from a local active main
line and he had just pulled it out by hand. I can remember thinking some
of the sleepers looked in a poor state in the area but didn't think
spikes would actually be loose.

I walked to a disused section of rail near my warehouse -- which I do
not own -- and tried pulling nails. One pulled right away by hand and
another one, did not.

i