Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete ties.

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/metal...y=2 015-01-06

On 01/07/2015 06:07 PM, Leon wrote:
Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete ties.

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/metal...y=2 015-01-06


More cool machinery:

http://www.wimp.com/traintrack/


--
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure,the creed of ignorance, and the
gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery"
-Winston Churchill

Leon wrote:
Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete ties.

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/metal...y=2 015-01-06

I wonder how they allow for rail expansion on hot days.

--
 GW Ross 

 The way to a man's heart is through 
 his back. 

"G. Ross" wrote in message
...
Leon wrote:
Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete ties.

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/metal...y=2 015-01-06

I wonder how they allow for rail expansion on hot days.

--
 GW Ross 

 The way to a man's heart is through 
 his back. 







The end of the line stretches a couple feet.

Steve

On 01/08/2015 9:08 AM, SnA Higgins wrote:
"G. wrote in message
...
Leon wrote:
Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete ties.

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/metal...y=2 015-01-06

I wonder how they allow for rail expansion on hot days.
....

The end of the line stretches a couple feet.
....

chuckles...

--

On 01/08/2015 8:16 AM, G. Ross wrote:
Leon wrote:
Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete ties.

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/metal...y=2 015-01-06


I wonder how they allow for rail expansion on hot days.

They just count on enough strength to hold 'em...I wondered about that
and did some looking last time the subject came up a few months ago...

--

Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in
:

Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete
ties.

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/metal...e-welding-rail
road-track_o.aspx?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=jum p&utm_medium=ema
il&utm_campaign=TOTTU_010615&day=2015-01-06

Yeah, thermite welding is really cool to watch. But it's usually
just used for repairs. The normal way to weld rail is arc welding,
a process called "flash butt welding". It takes something like
a 600 amp welder to do it.

John

dpb wrote in :

On 01/08/2015 9:08 AM, SnA Higgins wrote:
"G. wrote in message
...
Leon wrote:
Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete
ties.

I wonder how they allow for rail expansion on hot days.
...

The end of the line stretches a couple feet.
...

chuckles...

He's serious - well, if he's not he should be :-)

Except the extra length goes in the middle somewhere, not
at the end. There'll be places where the track has a
gentle S-curve, and the track (rail, ties and all) will
shift over a tad (making the S more or less curved) to
accomodate the expansion and contraction.

John

"John McCoy" wrote in message
. ..
dpb wrote in :

On 01/08/2015 9:08 AM, SnA Higgins wrote:
"G. wrote in message
...
Leon wrote:
Railroads were being mentioned in an earlier thread. This is an
interesting video showing the welding of rails and the new concrete
ties.

I wonder how they allow for rail expansion on hot days.
...

The end of the line stretches a couple feet.
...

chuckles...

He's serious - well, if he's not he should be :-)

Except the extra length goes in the middle somewhere, not
at the end. There'll be places where the track has a
gentle S-curve, and the track (rail, ties and all) will
shift over a tad (making the S more or less curved) to
accomodate the expansion and contraction.

John

I worked on a section gang for a year(in the early 70's)then got bumped so I
worked on a large rail gang for a summer until I got bumped again. We worked
a branch line that used 68 and 75 pound rail. The rail had been made as
early as 1890 and as late as 1905. Most of it started out as 30' long. The
section gang would replace the 30' stuff with whatever we found in the lay
down pile. Usually we used a couple shorter pieces cutting one of them to
fit the two where the broken rail was.
The ballast when the track was laid was coal cinder. You could tamp that
stuff tight under the ties. Most of the track when I worked it had sod for
ballast. The rail was not straight in either an up/down plane or a
left/right. Those trains rocked and rolled so much that we would get up
against the right of way fence when they passed.
So when it got hot in the summer and you had to replace a rail, you had to
swing a mall against the web to get it to pop out of place. On especially
hot days the gap made by popping a rail out would shorten as much as two
inches. We routinely carried a rail saw and a rail drill ( for the bolt
holes to connect the angle bars) because we knew a standard size rail was
not going to fit back in. Sometimes, we would all grab a handle on the rail
tongs and try using the rail as a hammer against the rail in place on one
side of the gap to increase the gap til the replacement would fit.
We didn't like slamming one back in place because it almost always caused a
sun kink. That's a condition where the rails would not be parallel, where
the gage, or distance between the two would be more or less than tolerance
and could promote a derailment. We'd install some anchors trying to keep the
rails parallel but with just sod as ballast they pretty much went where they
wanted.

Steve

"SnA Higgins" wrote in
:

Those trains rocked and
rolled so much that we would get up against the right of way fence
when they passed.

LOL. Yeah, there's nothing quite like watching a high-cube
covered hopper full of plastic pellets rocking down some bad
track. I recall a couple of times we went back and looked,
and could see where a wheel had dropped down on the ties for
a bit, until it got to a good tie that held gauge and it
re-railed itself.

So when it got hot in the summer and you had to
replace a rail, you had to swing a mall against the web to get it to
pop out of place. On especially hot days the gap made by popping a
rail out would shorten as much as two inches.

Today with CWR it's normal to try and install it on the hottest
days, so that when the rail cools it'll be in tension. That
causes fewer problems.

John