For any of us who have odd bits of rail left over from custom-fitting track, I found a potential use for it. I was going through some old photos I took while railfanning at Iona Island and found one that shows fencing made from it.
The rails are welded foot to foot. The gate in the photo could be made from stryene. This seems like it would be and easy and inexpensive way to add a neat detail to a layout.
That’s great. RRs have always been good at recycling/saving resources.
Richard
i have seen it driven into the ground like pilings and used with old crossties and bridge timbers to make low retaining walls. the thing about rail is the shorter the lengths, the easier it is to steal.
charlie
I love pics like that. The picture below is the old “Big Four” (NYC) Grafton Tower in Grafton, OH:
They used rail for the stilts:
I have to get back out there and do some measurements sometime. I want to kitbash a AMB Interlocking tower kit to make a similar version of this.
Tom
Someone has to say it, rail makes very poor structural material. Welds crack easily and the structures fail suddenly and sometimes catistrophically.
That all depends on how it’s done. On the welds you get out what you put in. My grandfather used rail for building stuff a lot, including the frame of his shop. Welding was his business and he was a pro at it. It was a large structure. 120 feet long, 65 wide and stood as high as a two story house. Full penetration welds, steel to steel. Truss design. sixty+ years later when it was taken down it was as solid as the day it was built.
The JNR had innumerable pedestrian bridges that were essentially trusses made of ancient, worn-out rail. If any ever failed, I never heard about it - and I lived in Japan for quite a while and have subscribed to Japanese railfan publications for decades.
As JW said, the key is proper fabrication. Also, nothing takes kindly to structural overload. More than one sudden, catastrophic failure was the result of applying stress that the structure was never designed to take. Even more result from no/poor maintenance. A poorly-done, porous weld in a rainy environment is an invitation for Murphy to come and play…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with lots of old rail in use)
rails and ties, my grandpa makes great use of both actually all of the railroad ties he acquired are probably ones that belonged to the BN. you can still see the ballast marks in the wood.
My Grand father and Dad used old rails to build the cattle yards on the farm.
Cheers, the Bear.
Tom,
I too want make a model of the Grafton Tower for my BRVRR. One day I’m going to take some measurements so that construction can begin.
I’m just grateful that the powers that be decided to save the tower, rather than destroy it.
Thanks for the photo. Its one of the best ones I’ve seen.
The Chicago & North Western used to make its train order board masts out of very old and very small rail (and it was fun trying to see if a rolling date had been captured). You also see rail embedded into the ground to protect things like fire hydrants or the ends of depots from being backed into. I have also seen trackside fences made from old rail.
Old rail was also used at some railroad crossings - I have seen photos but never in person – so the entire crossing between the active rail would be lengths of old rail. Not pleasant to bike over or walk over I suppose but it would hold up well to truck tires.
In Jamaica (the island, not the neighborhood in Queens NY) there was old rail along the road to Negril, almost like telephone poles but it was not supporting anything. Our cab driver told us it was put there to stop small planes from landing at night to pick up marijuana shipments.
Dave Nelson
A local industry used discarded rail to make a fence separating their property from the CSX right away.
I adopted the idea for the following.
Bob
Railroads use old rail for marking property corners as well, particularly large tracts of land; yards, facility land, etc… When I was surveying for the L&N in the seventies, the L&N would furnish use precut lengths of rail, at least 48" in length, to mark property corners. Similarly in the nineties, CSXT furnished precut rail for marking property corners of newly acquired property for several new yard facilities and high speed interchange connections that I designed.
Thanks, Allan. Here’s a couple more for you:
And here’s a of couple of the interior, taken through the glass of the entry door. I love the “Armstrong” levers:
Both the Grafton and Marion “AC” towers were moved from their original locations. The AC tower is still right at the tracks but on the other side. The Grafton Tower is just NE of it’s original location and back from the tracks a little.
Yea, I’m glad they decided to preserve them, as well. Somebody had some foresight. Wish the NYC had had that same foresight when they were scrapping all those Hudsons and Niagaras back in the late 50s. [|(]
Tom
Another use I have seen was making storage racks for spare rail, back in the “olden days” before continuous welded rail, and those fancy automatic track maintenence machines. They would weld old rail in a T, L or H shape to make a rack, install the post in the ground, and store replacement rails on it for the section crew to use if a problem was found. This would be easy to model for steam and early diesel era scenes.
