I took a mental health day from work yesterday, and decided to drive to the Illinois Central Railroad Historical Society headquarters in Paxton, IL (bad day to take a drive, many bad accidents due to icy roads).
Anyway, the Paxton depot is actually located on the old Nickle Platte line to Peoria. I heard some interesting things about this line while there.
I was told that this line was taken up by NS in 1990, put on a train to Georgia, the ends of the jointed rail were bobbed off (not sure what that means), and the rail was welded together, and the rail is currently on the NS main between Gibson City, Il and Peoria.
Although the gentleman who told me this was very believable and knowledgeable, I find this to be very interesting. Can the concerns associated with old rail be mitigated simply by welding the rail together? Wouldn’t rail fatigue be rail fatigue regardless of the welding (much of the rail was 90lb original to the Nickle Platte)? Will not NS just have to replace this rail relatively soon anyway? Especially considering that this rail will have to be replaced much more quickly than new rail, is NS really saving that much money by taking it up in a special way, hauling it to Georgia, bobbing it, welding it together, and hauling it back to Illinios (especially considering that it could have sold the old rail for scrap)? This is all very interesting to me.
The gentleman also told me about the last days of this Nickle Platte line in the late 1980s, before the Gibson City - Indiana State Line segment was pulled in 1990. Was this NS’ only access to Peoria, or did the Wabash go to Peoria, and I am just forgetting about it? How did NS get to Peoria in the late 80s and early 90s?
Gabe
P.S. I think I am a freak when it comes to rail fanning. Watching mainlin
Don’t worry, Gabe. You’re not crazy just because your railfanning has a slightly different orientation than most others. I still enjoy railfanning the Belt Railway of Chicago even after the Alcos were sold.
As far as relay of old rail, it’s not that unusual for older rail to have the ends cut off and the remaining lengths welded together for relay on a line with lighter traffic. Most of the damage to jointed rail is around the joints.
Yes, as Paul confirms, taking up old stick rail, “cropping” it (the term used around here) to cut off the holes for the joint bars and the area where the top of the rail is worn down from joint batter etc., and then welding it into CWR length strings is common enough.
You’re right, that if fatigue - or any other actual or potential rail defect - is an issue in the body of the rail between the joints, that’s not going to go away merely by cropping off and welding the joints - the latent problem will still be there. So if that was the case, I doubt that rail went back into mainline service, esp. if it was a 90 lb. section.
Actually, I’ve never heard of this being done to 90 lb. rails - 100 lb. yes, but not 90. Doesn’t mean it isn’t done, but it has to be uncommon. If so, that rail most likely went into a lightly used yard or branch line, not a main line, and where the gross car weights are not expected to often approach the current limits of 286,000 or 315,000 lbs. (143 to 157.5 tons), such as an empty car storage yard or the like (see other threads about that).
But if it was 100 lb. or heavier, that’s more likely. As long as the defects are still in the “tolerable” range, the rail could give good service on sidings, in general yard service, light branch lines, etc. If it’s not worn too badly, it may still have several hundred million gross ton-miles of service life left in it, particularly for on tangent track where the wear is mainly on the top. And as long as the head has at least 1 side that is not too badly curve-worn, the lighter rails could be placed in curves where such wear is high, and the remaining service life used up or sacrificed to that action, instead of using (and losing) a newer or heavier rail there which could better be used elsewhere. So no, this “recycled” - more accurately, relaid or "cas
Many years ago, I went through the then Southern Railway rail reclaim facility in Atlanta, which is probably what NS uses now. Complete trains of rail released from a relay project would come in, be taken apart, rail sorted for conditon and the better stuff cropped and welded and pushed right back on a rail train for delivery to the next relay site.
They would have had a complete history of internal defect testing for the rail, so they could make a judgement about whether it was showing too many defects to be re-used or not, etc.
This basic philosophy of getting all the life out of what is the single largest assest of your physical plant only makes sense.
They keep on building more and bigger machines to maintain the property and improve the life of rail and everything else. Main line rail, 20 years ago or so, would probably be replaced when it got to the 500 MGT range of traffic over it. With improvements in metallurgy of rail steel, better maintenance practices such a grinding, etc, this has been pushed to close to or over 1000 MGT.
Just at Plasser’s plant in VA looking at a new machine we will be receiving shortly and saw a new machine for the UP for making factory level rail welds in track. Impressive machine to follow a rail gang and put in higher quality flash butt welds instead of thermite field welds.
I have seen rails being welded together, some of it newer rail. I know welded rail is generally in long strips but I assume it also depends on yhe circumstance of where it is being put down. Sometimes the holes where the former rail joiner was are left, at least from what I have observed.
Crop and weld is very common. It is often done in-face (on the track). A self-propelled hi-rail flash-butt welding truck is the most common tool. Holland Corp., if I recall correctly what they said at AREMA, now has eight flash-butt welding trucks at work in the U.S. Usually they’re paired with another truck that carries a 150-ton hydraulic rail puller to advance long strings of rail into the flash-butt welding head. When enough rail is removed, a section ga
The Wabash never made it to Peoria. Around 1960 they took a look at buying the C&IM which would have given them access, but they took a pass. They probably knew the NKP/Wabash/N&W combination was down the road and, since the NKP already went to Peoria, a second way in would have been redundant.
Gibson City must have been quite the place for trains in its day. NKP’s Peoria line went through. So did the Wabash Chicago-Decatur line. So did the IC’s Chicago-Springfield line. My '56 Official Guide shows 12 passenger trains a day through Gibson City, six on the Wabash and six on the IC. They were competitive schedules between Chicago and St. Louis. The IC trains stopped in Gibson City. Most of the Wabash trains didn’t.
Dome cars on the Wabash and Berkshires on the NKP.! With the IC thrown in! (Unless the NKP’s Peoria line was dieselized before Wabash added the domes.)
As part of the Great Rationalization the old NKP line east of Gibson City was torn up. Access to Peoria was retained by running Peoria traffic off a connectiion with the old Wabash line. (Now part of the same company.) Additionally, the Wabash line north of Gibson City was abandoned in favor of trackage rights on the IC. (Now CN) There was no sense in two parallel tracks between Gibson City and Chicago.
Part of the old Wabash line near Chicago has been retained and is used by Metra for commuter service.
There is a hierarchy of the life of rail on the railroads (at least the Class I carriers)
New rail will be installed first on the Main Line routes that carry the highest tonnage at the highest speeds.
Records are kept concerning when the rail was installed, when tie and surfacing has taken place, how much tonnage rail on a line segment has handled, how many ‘broken rail’ or other defects have been discovered under each line segments periodic testing. When the thresholds of failures or tonnage handled exceed the carriers limit, the old rail will be pulled up and new rail installed.
The rail that was pulled up will be either sent back to the rail welding plant (where jointed rail have the joint ends cropped and the contiguous rail welded - and where CWR that has too many testing defects to be continued in ANY service is cut and loaded out for scrap)
After New CWR has completed its service life in it’s High Speed/High Tonnage first home it will be reinstalled in a branch line that has lower speeds and lower tonnage than the original installation. Records are also kept for the branch line just as they are for the main line and when the life expectancy of the rail in it’s branch line home has been exceeded it will be removed and will then end up being used in yard trackage where speeds are low and use may be erratic.
Railroads endeavor to get every last use out of the rail they purchase.
In high curvature areas, rail will be transposed…the high side rail becomes the low side rail and vice versa. This transposition gets the maximum
Herewith some random or ranting observations regarding “cascaded” rail – rail that has beeen taken up, cropped or otherwise processed, then welded into (sometimes new) ribbons of CWR and relaid.
An advantage of recycling “used” rail is that it invariably has become head-hardened by usage, meaning the surface that come in contact with rolling stock wheels for years and years and, subjected to years of use, is therefore better able to withstand the wear and tear of its secondary use [parenthetic note: metallurgically speaking, that’s good. Among western roads, UP and (here, I admit I’m guessing, but I read somewhere that the two roads order a common mainline rail standard and joint purchasing) BNSF both specify head-hardened rail for their heaviest tonnage main lines, because it withstands better than otherwise new rail the battering and pounding of millions of gross tons miles of wear. They don’y use head-hardened rail for, say, yars, because it is a kind of luxury product that commands a hefty price premium over normal rail. So why lay it? 'Cause it lasts longer, longer enough before it must be relayed to justify the added expense, that’s why].
Back in the mid to late 1970s, I was told [cannot vouch whether this story is true or apocryphal, only relaying (pun intended) it] that CNW heavily lobbied – or pushed – pushed then-RTA (now Metra) to lay welded rail on its Northwest Line, which saw CNW’s heaviest commuter service, and when CRW was set in place, CNW took the old rail, cropped the ends, and, lacking the resources to buy new CWR, laid the “used” head-hardened rail out on their Iowa Division, between Chicago and Council Bluffs specifically for main line service.
While waiting for an excursion to pass several years ago on the now-CSX Montreal Secondary, I was checking out the plant in general and found that the CWR was indeed stick rail welded together - a concept new to me at that time. Much of the rail I looked at was rolled in the 40’s, and still had the bolt holes.