Last Friday in Waxhaw, NC at the SG318.4, I saw a CSX worker putting something from a five gallon bucket that look like mud on the tie plates. He covered the plates, spikes on one side of the rail from the frog back to switch. It looked like he may have set this on fire. What was the purpose of this?
Sounds like he was applying heat to the rail, so it would expand and close up the distance to the rail joint so he could apply the rail joint bars and fix a condition known as a ‘pull-apart’ where the contracting force of cold weather on the rail has caused it to shear the bolts on the rail joint bar.
Secondarily there may have been a broken rail from the same cause ‘cold rail contraction’ and he was expanding the rail to allow the application of joint bars as a temporary fix.
Rail length will contract when cold and expand when heated…when the rail is not secured by rail anchors and the tie structure - you would be amazed at how much expansion and contraction a rail is capable of.
Sure he wasn’t using grease to lubricate the switch plates under the switch points? Probably some kind of organic slip plate lubricant…red in color and gloppy in consistency? (from the heel block to the tip of the points - the moving part)
They were back today and replaced a bolt in the frog. The bolt may have been missing or broke off.
Sounds like a rail snake… Fire is cool !