After the B&O-C&O “merger” the B&O was getting CWR on the C&O rail train. High-side gondolas w/rail racks and the “anchor car” was a flat car in the middle of the train. Each length of rail was clamped to the rack on the anchor car with bolted down steel plates with rubber pads between the plates and the rail. There was a long “T” wrench to reach down and turn the nuts that secured the plates. (They didn’t always pull from the top down) The racks in the gons had rollers to make it easier to pull the train out from under the rail. Sometimes the rail would get turned on its side in the racks and it would be a lot of fun to get it twisted back upright. The loaded CWR train always moved with a hopper car full of ballast at each end in case a rail started to slide lengthwise.
Hope I’ve got this right-thats been 45 years ago now.
You’re right on that, of course. Wasn’t it John Armstrong who defined a long train as being too long to be viewed all at once? The extreme of that definition — a five car train on a 4x8 with lonnnnnng tunnnnnels — is a little ridiculous but it still has merit. I know of a railroad that runs large Mallets, even Big Boys, on 14-car trains. They look silly where a 20- or 30-car train could be seen all at once but not so bad where curves and tunnels hide “the awful truth”.
Thinking about this whole subject led me to the beginning of the rail replacement process and the question of loading a rail train. I’ve participated in the unloading and that’s awesome enough but what is the loading like? I grew up around steel mills and have an appreciation of the handling of very large, very HOT pieces of steel but I still have trouble imagining the process (and cost) of getting from a billet to a 1/4 mile rail on the rail train, ready to be moved out the gate.
This company sells N scale ribbonrail and bunks to mount on flat cars. There is a video (unfortunately low quality) of a N Scale ribbonrail train in operation.
They have a lot of interesting products. I bought some Clejan spline cars and some Autocarrier trailers from them about 6 months ago. They are really nice kits.
Plasser American makes both rail machines and welders that make short work of ribbon rails. The APT 500 can fusion weld up to a 6" gap in a few minutes using high amperage and a super jack. The RM 800 and equivilent machines from that family can remove, install and ballast track in one pass. This includes removing old ties and rails, undercutting the ballast and cleaing and reshaping the stone, replacing ties and rails and installing the new ballast. Handling ribbon rail is quite easy if you have the right equipment for it.
The next question of course is “how does the railroad manage expantion and contraction if the rails are joint welded for miles on end”? Truth is that the rail itself is under tension and the expansion and contraction happens within the steel of the rail itself as a form of internal pressure. It would take me two or three pages to adequately explain how this works, but all you have to do is know that in the world of full sized railroads it does.
You would need some material that is very flexible for the rails. Plastruct sections and code 40 trail is waaaaaaaaaaay too stiff.
If I had to make it myself I would use Evergreen 2x6/2x8 or .020 by .060 or .080 strip gled end to end and set on edge on the cars. You have to have something that is flexible enough that if you put a dozen of them on the cars it will still go through the curves and turnouts on a layout
The Pasadena Model Railroad Club in California operates a model of a Santa Fe ribbon-rail train that was scratchbuilt by a club member. The train carries nickel silver code 70 rail, and the club layout’s mainline curves are broad enough to let the train operate flawlessly.
This surprises me. I’ll bet their train has problems with turnouts and particularly cross-overs though. Of course, the prototype did, too. I believe there were special speed restrictions on the NYC for these trains, even on the Central’s #20 and longer mainline turnouts.