The CSX lines that run through my town have been undergoing some maintance work the last couple of day. In two separate spots within 20 feet of a crossing they did some work adding what appeared to be blue rail joining plates and then lite a fire along the rails. What is the fire for?
that is a pull apart…when the rail gets cold…it contracks… and can shear off the bolts on angle bars… what you saw was just that…a pull apart…the joint you saw was a tempory angle bars to hold the track together…and the fire is used to heat the rail back up to cuase it to expaind so they can fit new bolts into the hols…
csx engineer