In one of the derailment of the day threads, one of the railroaders mentioned that it’s fairly easy to rerail a train that is simply off the rails-something about oak wedges and jacks(?). How do they re-rail a train car?
Thanks
Drag 'em, wedge 'em & frog 'em back up to good track…and if you invite Hulcher to the party, expect 3 times the damage you started with.[V][V][V]
When I worked for the WSOR, there was no such thing as good track, you had bad track and worse track!!
Seriously, Mudchicken is right, lots of oak blocking, wedges, a rerailing frog or two, a patient crew, and a decent engineer can get the minor stuff back on the rails. Now, when the cars are on their sides or piled up like an accordian, it’s time to call in the cranes (Hulcher, Maggio, and others). Then pull out all the track in the area and put new (or in the WSOR’s case, well used) in.
Randy
Since railroad cars can weigh up to 80,000# per axle when they derail they tend to make grooves in the ground unless it is frozen. It is fairly easy to just back it up and let the wheels follow the grooves back to the rail then build up the area with the oak and wedges so it can ride back over the rails.
it is absolutely amazing what you can do with “the ditch” the car made going in and a couple of 2X4’s - hemlock or fir work great. I have drug cars back over 100 feet using their “ditch” and right up onto the track.
What happens is really simple (in theory anyway)- When a car comes off, you need to get the car moved up and over the rail to get the flange on the right side of the rail. Simply drag the car back in the grooved the flanges plowed through the soil around the ties, and when you get the car to the place you want to re-rail it, make a ramp of large timbers, and drag the car up the timbers (riding on the flage), and then when the flange is at/slightly above the railhead, give it a nudge toward the center of the tracks, and with a loud crash, it “falls back in”, with the flanges between the rails, and the wheel treads sitting on the rail head again.
The same thing works with old trolleys, except they are light enough to simply lift, then place 1/4 inch thick greased steel plates under the flanges, and let em slide back between the rails.
Raising the car back up to the height of the rails using wedges makes sense. How do they move them over to the rails once again? Is re-railing done by the road crew,yard crew, or…who?
Murphy,
You let the leading edge of the leading wheel’s flange run off the wedge and catch the inside of the rail, it will “guide” the rest of the truck, just like it was designed to, right back onto the rail.
As a note, under $6800.00 damage to the car and track, it is a non FRA reportable, over that, you gotta let the feds know.
Sounds cheap, but I have seen cars “on the ground” that suffered zero damage, other than needing their wheels looked over really well, they went back in service that same shift.
Ed
Get out the chain and come-a-longs to steer the truck. Get a health length of cable to pull with a locomotive back on decent track and start pulling.
As far as the crew, anyone qualified will do. Rerailed many a car with me, a trainmaster and a mechanical guy after the train crew went dead on the law. The sooner the cars got re-railed, the sooner my track forces could fix the track damage and get things back closer to normal.
Replacers work real good too. They are heavy though. FRA reportable derailments occur at $6700.00. Next year it goes up to $7700.00.
David
that all depends on how deep the trench is that the wheels make… i know of an engineer that had a train derail…and he didnt know it…he ended up plowing a trench that was a few hundered feet long and the cars where buried up to the sterup step… thier was no pulling it back along the trench to rerail it… they had to bring in the sidewinders to clean up that mess…
csx engineer
We’re lucky. WIth a trolley, all you need to do to nudge it over is give the truck a slight shove with a track bar, and over it goes.
I watched Cubres & Toltec rerail a narrow gage coach using a payloader and a rubber-tired backhoe. The payloader pulled the coach using a chain because it was in the yard throat and the locomotive had other cars and damaged track between it and the coach. The backhoe used the bucket to nudge the trucks over to the rail where a re-railer did the rest. I was riding in the coach behind the one that derailed. It was weird watching up the aisle as that car suddenly wasn’t vertical any more (dumped passernger’s coats and stuff off of the overhead racks) and shook hard as the wheels rode the ties for about a hundred feet.
We had a car derail not to long ago, and all we did is use the frogs. Basically what that is, is a steel ‘ramp’ if you will, quite the opposite of a derail. It fits over the rail, and has a steel ramp on both sides to lift the derailed wheel up, and back on the track. You need to be able to get this thing underneath the truck of course, and like others allready said, when you derail a car, it can dig itself in pretty good. If it is deep in there, forget the frogs, you simply can not get the frog underneath your truck.
Once you get the frog in place, you pull the car right over it, but you gotta be careful doing that. You can’t just take off like crazy, and expect it to work.
Of course this will only work for minor derails. You put a car on the ground way of to the side, it’s time to call in the big stuff …
Can anybody post a picture of a re-railing frog? Thanks
http://www.mnjrhs.org/44_tonner.html Its hanging on the side of the engine to the left. There is a better view half way down the page. It the thing that looks like an arrowhead or big letter A. ENJOY [;)]
I’ve seen the easiest way to rerail a derailed car. Light the torches, and cut-um up [:P] !
that will work to…but a bit much for just a wheel on the ground…lol
csx engineer
Hmmm Mackb4,
I’ll suggest that next time we put one on the ground …then again, let’s hope that won’t happen to begin with …LOL.