I came across this track way out in the countryside. It was on the approach to a bridge over a river. There were quite a few loose spikes–this one stuck up the most. One of the ties was so loose that as I stepped on one end, the other end moved upwards. I thought that track this bad would be abandoned, but the railheads looked too shiny for that. I asked the locals and they told me that 3 or 4 trains a week used the track. I forgot to ask if they were CNR or CPR trains. I think that if I were an engineer, I’d not be too crazy about going over the bridge on that track.
I’ve seen areas where spikes have worked so loose that they have fallen completely out along the UP’s Sunset Route through SE Arizona. That may be one of the reasons that the UP is in the process of replacing all of their wooden crossties with concrete.
One of our club members was telling us of his expierences on the Milw up around the Reedsburg-Hillsboro area of Wisconsin. After those stories, of railhead that needed to be replaced after the caboose passed, of crews because of poor track conditions planning where to stop for breakfast, lunch and dinner on a 40 mile stretch of track, I don’t doubt that there is much of anything that we can imagine that hasn’t happened on a real railroad.
Of course Im only looking at a picture and probably looked worse in person, but from here it dont look to bad, the ball of both rails is straight and it appears to be level. I have seen some old spurs that makes me wonder how the wheels stayed on the track as the switcher and consist rocked down the line…
What is really courious to me is the bridge gaurd rail. It appears to have a narrower set then most guard rails at the ends and then jogs out closer to the main line rail at the actual bridge. The Railroad I worked for didnt do that and it would be very interesting to model, I have a small wooden bridge and I will redo it like your picture shows, would be a quick easy thing to do…Thanks for sharing…John
You think this is bad?!? Ever see a car cut off at the crest of a hump, roll part way down the hump, and then start back “up”? I saw this happen in the former PRR yard in Richmond, IN right after the merger that formed Penn Central.
Here is a link to some photos on another forum (not sure how this will go over). Scroll down to look at the condition of the rails. According to the text in the post - the tracks are used daily.
Even the best mainlines will have a few loose spikes, that may be why the new ones have those curly Q things. Remember also that spikes aren’t the main thing holding the tracks in place, they are there to secure the tie plates which might not necessarily need them to be down all the way.
About the worst I ever saw was on the former Bethlehem Branch of the Reading near Hatfield. There was a siding there that, unless you looked closely, was pretty much just rails, no ties to speak of anymore. Every time a load was shoved back there, the track would sink down into the mud. One day while coming home from work, I saw a train there but not moving. I walked over to see what was happening - it seems the loaded car leaned over so bad on the poor track that it was leaning on the cars left standing ont he main. The crew tried a few things, and eventually gave up, shut town the north-side loco, climbed into the south end one, and headed back to the yard in Lansdale. Next morning there were a couple of cranes (road-going) fixing things up.
My father in law tells me of the bad days of the Penn Central, he worked in the yard at Thorndale, PA, and would have to send taxis out to relieve crews who couldn’t make it from Morrisville PA to Thorndale in the (then) 14 hour limit. It’s less than 60 miles! That’s some BAD track.
The CSX main that runs near my house is just as bad, and it sees 4 or more trains a day at 40 mph. There are some spots where the tie plates have come lose and are just laying along side the rails. Underneath highway bridges you can find huge piles of spikes that people have pulled up. (Or picked up really, since half the spikes are already falling out.) Is it normal for a tie plate to only have one spike in it when there’s room for 3 more? I would think a class 1 railroad would do a little better job, especially since Amtrak runs through twice a day.
Yes, it did look much worse in person than in the picture. Pictures just can’t do justice to something like that. Most of the ties had loose spikes and quite a few of the ties were loose. I would have liked to watch the rail as a train passed over it. I’ve seen track and ties sink down in one spot as each set of wheels passed over it.
Probably the worst track I’ve seen, and it was not caused by poor maintenance, but by Mother Nture, was in northern Manitoba where the track was laid on permafrost. If any of you are familiar with permafrost, you’ll know that building on permafrost is a frustrating experience in the least. As soon as you disturb the top layer, it melts and sinks and moves in the summer, and freezes solid in the winter. The gravel on roads sinks almost faster than it can be replenished. They have to constantly grade it to pull the gravel back up onto the centre of the road. I had the thrill of riding in the cab over about 130 miles of track laid on permafrost many years ago. Looking out the window, the rails ahead of the locomotive looked like two strands of wet spaghetti thrown on the ground. The engineer told me that the speed limit was set at 30 mph and they all felt that was too fast. The 130 mile trip took 8 hours, but that included a number of station stops. It was a rough ride, but one I wouldn’t have missed for anything in the world. [:D]
North Americas answer to High speed rail travel, " O.K. Bill, the track looks alright, now lets see if we can get this baby up to 250 kilometres per hour ! !"
Are you talking about the siding into Hatfield Public Warehouse? I cringed everytime I went in there.
Let’t not forget Penn Central’s famous - infamous? - standing derailments. My old man told me that the track was in such poor shape, the rail would spread under standing trains. And standing cars would simply drop to the ground.
In New Oxford, Pa, the crossing over route 30 (the main east/west road between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh except for the turnpike) the CSX crossing was so bad that you could see the rail move when the trains ran over them and caused cars and trucks to slow to 5 MPH to cross in order not to brake an axle. Finally fixed last year with the help of state Representative Nichols.
Having worked for PC and seen a lot of what the former PRR called track, I don’t doubt this. Of course, we never had such problem on the former NYC. (Guess which side of the merger I came from. [}:)] )
Didn’t John Barriger document standing derailments on the Katy before he moved to the P&LE in the Sixties?
Another PC track horror story: The superintendent of the Monongahela Ry (a jointly owned PRR-NYC subsidiary inherited by PC) used to keep a section of U-rail on his desk; claiming that he had found it in service on the MRY with 100-ton hoppers rolling over it. That’s right, rail shaped like an inverted U; leading edge technology during the Civil War.
