Life on the steel

[plonq]

I returned from my long weekend back home to face two fairly heavy 10-hour days back on the site. The weather yesterday was actually quite pleasant for the first time in almost two weeks, and I wish I'd had my camera along. I think the best photo op would have been when we stopped the hi-rail to rescue some baby ducks caught between the rails. The sight of four people in full PPE gear chasing down little yellow ducklings would have made a great shot (well, three people since one of us would have had to hold the camera).

There were no ducklings today, but we did encounter one interloper early this morning.

If I had been a little faster digging out my camera I'd have caught him trucking nonchalantly down the centre of the track.


I snuck my camera out of the truck again to catch a shot of us lifting a rail onto the truck. We cut a 20' section out of this to replace a battered joint a few miles up the track. I'm going to go into more length a bit later about the state of the track in this area, but suffice to say that just replacing a short stretch of rail is quite an ordeal.

Comments

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, are the tracks still spiked down into wooden timbers or is there some more labor saving method in use nowadays?

I'm curious because last year at the National Folk Festival I helped setup a ten foot section of railroad track for a demonstration of railroad work songs. I'm middle aged, and a bit out of shape, but did my share of lugging of timbers and then the whole gang of us picked up the rails from the truck and laid it onto the timbers.
It was a little embarrassing to see this 70 or so year old litle black man, who probably only weighed a hundred pounds, drove in four railroad spikes into the timber while I only succeeded in getting the first. spike about halfway into the timber. He handled that sledgehammer as easily as I handle a regular carpenter's claw hammer. Wow.

[plonq.livejournal.com]

It's still steel on wood. With the exception of things like CWR, very little has changed since the first rails were set down. On the other hand, a number of the tools have been updated. When we're working on a stretch of track we're using hydraulic spike pullers and hydraulic impact drivers to put them back in again.

On the other hand, when those tools break down on you it's right back to the manual claws and spike mauls.

It's a ranther humbling experience to see somebody half again as old as you (or even double your age) driving in spikes with 2-3 hits. For myself, I found that I prefer a spike maul over a sledge hammer for driving in spikes. You have to be a bit tighter with your aim, but they work better in tighter spaces around joint bars and the like.

[kfops.livejournal.com]

That's one stylin' vulpine!

Thanks for sharing pictures of your work, too. I know it isn't the best circumstances, but I do like seeing some of the logistics of keeping things together.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder what you do with the warped rails. Do they get melted down back at teh steel plant again?

[plonq.livejournal.com]

In the short term we just leave them by the side of the track. Ultimately I believe they are sold as scrap. The rails are made from high-grade steel -- especially the older ones -- so they fetch a pretty good price as scrap steel.

The line I am working on has fairly old steel on it. Yesterday we cut sections out of rails that were originally rolled in 1958 and 1960 and fitted in a piece of rail that was rolled out in 1949. The foreman has told me that many sections of the track are using rails manufactured in 1912 and earlier.

The mainline to the south is in considerably better shape. Most of the stretch that we work on has a 25mph speed restriction on it.

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

Track is actually recycled quite a bit. When it's new it goes on the high speed main lines. When it gets worn a bit, it gets taken up and used on lower speed lower traffic lines. Next it goes to places like sidings and yards, then it goes to the scrap dealer.
Of course, with the slow motion implosion of the US rail system , with wholesale removal of all sorts lower revenue rail routes, that started in the 1960s and seems to have stabilized now, the whole rail reuse program has gotten really messed up.
My friend, the blacksmith, has a couple of hunks of old rail that he uses as anvils for things that might mess up one of his good anvils.