Hi,
I’m going to be putting an RIP track in my 1954-era AT&SF yard layout, and I was wondering what material would be used around the track. At the moment, I’m thinking of the RIP rails embedded in a concrete slab, stained with oil & parts lying around. Would this be correct for a class 1 road in this time?
Thanks in advance,
tbdanny
I don’t think a RIP track would be embedded in concrete. They were usually a stub ended siding with gravel roadways along one or both sides to allow access for trucks with welding equipment and spare parts.
Depends on the size of the facility and where its located.
At a major yard a RIP track might not only have a concrete pad, but a shed or building over it.
A RIP track would have racks of sheet metal, angle iron and pipe. They would have a rack with spare doors, pallets of grab irons, brake shoes, air hoses and angle cocks. There would also be a “garden” of rails laid to hold both used and new wheelsets.
It would have a building for the offices and a tool shed. There would be an enclosure for the acetylene and oxygen tanks.
From what has been said by RR men on this forum before this would not be correct for most RR in most periods.
If you think about the real RR (as distinct from decades of model images) a large number of the parts that are going to be taken off of any car on a RIP track will be bulky, awkward, heavy or any combination. It would not be safe or sensible to have bits laying around. If you had to change out a brake cylinder would you want to be tripping over bits from previous jobs?
I may be taking your few words to an extreme but a common modellers’ perception has become one of great chunks of stuff left where they landed.
There are pics of real RR scenes where there are mounds of brake shoes rusting in scruffy grass and other variations on the theme… however these “cameos” have rather been taken from their very occasional reality to being a “universal truth”. The thing was that those piles of junk were more likely to be on the property of a struggling / failing RR in its worst times. They were also likely to be at times when the value of scrap was minimal… so the RR couldn’t even help itself by getting a reasonable price for the junk.
Dave has pointed you toward the regularly needed spares being racked in an orderly way. While the parts taken off cars might not be ordered so neatly they would be organised. I can think of three clear groups:
items that can be returned for (cost effective) refurbishing - which therefore are valuable
Scrap material - high value and low value
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The most important things are good drainage and as level as possible. Think about working on your auto and then scale it up some. You don’t want to be working in/under/around a car in a puddle.
The next thing you don’t want is dust… especially if you are working with brake components - again, it’s just like your auto.
So you will get good concrete laid with a slight fall away from the track or to the ends in the 4foot if you can. Better than this you will get it all nicely set out with slight slopes to good drains laid below the concrete. You want the drains to have rodding points.
If you can’t have concrete you want any good solid aggregate material; that will either drain off or through BUT that will not dust.
You could use old ties…
You might have a mix of hardbase types. They may also have different ages.
In 1954 I would expect such a hard base to have been laid like a house base rather than slip paved. This will mean that, if it is any size, it will probably have been laid in several sections. If there are large weather variations the formwork may have been left in between sections until it became useless. Then it would be picked out and replaced with bitumen… done properly the wood would be pulled early and the joints sealed with bitumen. All this could be done by the local MOW crew or a contractor depending on the line, urgency and resources.
You probably want your hard surface right up to rail head inside and outside the track. this makes getting materials in/out from under and across the ends a lot easier… you also don’t have to keep hauling yourself over a protruding rail head and/or avoiding tripping over it.
Where to start?
First,parts laying about creates a safety hazard so,there will no parts laying about for carmen to trip and fall over…
You will see car jacks in designated areas.A rack of blue flags, stored freight car wheels and complete trucks and dumpsters or in some cases a company gon for scrap.You will see carts with cutting torches,mobile welders,oil and grease drums,ladders,step ladders and other such items.
As for parts (other then wheels or trucks) those would come from the stores building.
Yes some RIP tracks was embedded in concrete while others was embedded in rolled gravel-this gives a smoother surface to walk or stand on while working.Some had wooden walk/work area between the RIP tracks.Some was rolled cinders that was black from oil…
Safety was and reminds a top priority for shop men working a RIP track.
Its more than that. A contract repair shop will be doing refurbishment jobs. Upgrading cars, replacing things. Recoating interiors, repainting entire cars. A RIP track typically won’t be doing that, just running repairs. They will patch or replace in kind.
A flat tire??? Give me a break. Flat spots, OK, flat tire???
A wheelset can have flat spots, a thin tread or flange, broken wheel, tread or flange, a worn or gouged bearing surface and very rarely, a loose wheel.
An experienced crew on a wheel truck can change out a wheelset on the main track at a grade crossing in less than 30 minutes. A modern “pit crew” at N Platte NE, can change out a wheelset of an empty car in a coal train in a yard track in less than 15 minutes.
You would only block it up if you needed to use the jacks someplace else. Otherwise the car would sit on the jacks. Disconnecting the brakes is a quick j
Perhaps a difference in language again?
Yes a “flat tyre”. I’ll ask Nick to post a pic of a 9" flat I took last year. Loco was DIT but hadn’t had the straight air released so the wheelset did ten miles or so without turning. The other three wheelsets turned occasionally so they had massive burns in them - right though the tyre into the body of the wheel.
As to calling it a “tyre” - that may not be US usage but it’s what we call the distinct ring of metal that includes the flange and tread of rail wheels except monobloc wheels. Extremely rarely a tyre seperates from the rest of the wheel.
During the Blitz my Father was returning to Epsom through Waterloo Station when the tyre of a wheel under a SUB unit (EMU) broke in platform 1. The break must have been very low on the wheel. The result was that the steel straightened itself out cutting upwards through the floor of the brakevan/guard’s compartment… while the guard (conductor) was sitting in it. Apparently he wasn’t very happy about it.
In thirty years I had heard plenty of flat spots / flat tyres thumping along the rail(s) but I had not seen one until last year. The loco was later dragged away at 3mph on wheel skates. i don’t know if you use skates in the US?
For 1954 I would expect wheels to have tyres… when did monobloc wheels start to be common?
With regard simplicity and time taken for jobs on a RIP track I’m sure that expereinced crew can whiz through jobs. My points are that they do not want the safety risks (as Brakie confirms), they don’t want to be working in puddles or oil spill and some
Over here they are known as flat wheels.
A tire could be found on the steam locomotive drivers( wheels)…
Like a lot of these discussions much depends on date and location specifics.
And from railroad to railroad to include merged railroads or railroads controlled by other railroads.
I have learnt that! [banghead][banghead][banghead] [B)] [8)]
the PRR at E St Louis did light repairs to cars while they were still on the interchange receiving tracks while the blue flags were still in place. just light running repairs, no heavy work or repacking journals or c.o.t.s. etc. the 3 i/c tracks were spaced far enough apart to get down between them with a cushman 3 wheeler that had a small welding outfit and a few basic tools on it. the most common repair done on the interchange tracks was replacing brake shoes.
an assortment of new brake shoes was distributed along the tracks laid face down near the outside of the rails where they could be easily reached. that way the needed brake shoe was close at hand anywhere along either side of each track. the worn out ones were usually just pitched up between the rails and once in a while these were collected using a motor car and trailer.
meanwhile back over at the old NYC yard at Brooklyn Illinois, i never saw a car knocker fix anything other than maybe tighten up a train line if there was a bad leak. there was an old tank car set up at that location with oil for the journals but when the bosses checked the level in the tank after several months, it was still nearly full. result of this was the oiler jobs were cut off. i think the only oil that ever left that tank was when the guys from the GM&O next door would come over and mooch a can full to save walking back to their own supply. you would think those big four car pecks would have had enough sense to at least waste a bit of oil on the ground or something to make it look like they were doing their jobs.
grizlump
grizlump
Mid to late 1800’s. US freight cars used one piece cast iron or steel wheels almost exclusively since the late 1800’s. It would be extreeeeeeemely rare to find a wheel (other than a steam engine driver) with a tire after 1900 in the US.
The RIP track should be on concrete since when you jack a rail car you want a solid surface for your jacks , You don’t want your jacks falling over .
You would need a couple of buidings , a compressor building for air test , a tool building , a supply building . Larger parts like couplers and brake beams and wheels would be out side , Your Air parts must be kept in doors . Also there would be racks of angle iron and pipe , most rips won’t have sheet steel or doors , that work is generally done in a car shop . A damaged door would be worked on but generally there would not be new doors sitting around .
There should be dumpsters around and generally every thing is fairly neat and organized .
And don’t for get the blue flags .
Very careful how I word this… I don’t know and I don’t have my source material to hand at present… but… UK and as far as I know most/all of Europe have kept trying monobloc rail wheels and have always gone back to tyred wheels.
IIRC there was a really nasty ICE type high speed train crash in Germany that was due to a wheel failure. So it’s not just us.
As far as I’m aware there are advantages to both monobloc and tyred wheels. It may be a commercial decision rather than a safety one. I don’t know.
On the other hand,if monoblocs are far superior one would have thought that Wisconsin Central / EWS would have started to switch all cars, at least new cars, to them as soon as they got into the UK and Europe. As far as I know they haven’t.
Maybe it’s just like some countries use centre frames and draftgear while others use side buffers. Neither way is sufficiently better than the other for one to replace the other universally.
I’m pretty sure that locos had tyred wheels in part so that the worn tyres could be taken off the wheel and replaced with new ones.
Another thing I have seen (twice) is a train passing with a brake shoe dragging and causing the wheel it was on to run with a white hot tyre. This showed in the dark as a bright white circle proceeding with the train. I had both trains pulled up fast on the next signals… I didn’t want either tyre breking and de-railing the train.
Hmmm… that makes me wonder. I’ve seen lots of pics of US freights piled up - oft
There is also a difference in axles. The French tried to put hollow axles on the Acela, but Amtrak had to change them to solid axles, because hollow axles are banned in the US.
Its also a matter of the size of the train and the operation. Countries that use side buffers tend to run small trains of small cars.countries that use center sills tend to run large trains of large car cars. I’m sure there is a point where the “drawbar” force exceeds what the chain in a side buffer can stand and the “buff” force exceeds what a draftgear mounted in the sideframe can handle (or that you would have to install two or four side buffers vs. one or two center draft gear).
Some derailments are caused by broken wheels, but they are a relatively small compared to other causes. If you wanted to data dive through the FRA’s files you probably could figure out how small. Human failure is typically number 1 and track failure is typically number 2 in ranking of general cause. Most time a chunk of the tread breaks out. Worst case scenario is that the chunk breaks out of the tread and it DOESN’T derail. Then the train runs for miles and miles knicking the rail every 9 ft or so. With a derailment you just pile up a dozen cars in one spot. With knicked rail you stand the chance of a broken rail with every car of every following train. That rail then has to be slow ordered and repl
a few low budget rip track operations i have seen pretty much work right off the block truck. that would be one good detail to add to your scene. also an air test cart might be found sitting around.
i never knew anybody who would work under a car that was not protected by jack stands and blocking, but that may differ from road to road and depend upon the era. in an emergency, i guess anything is possible.
if you disconnect the brake rigging first, you can roll a truck out from under a car without getting under it. that was more common back in the days of friction bearings. actually, you can pull the brass and wedges out of the journal box with the car still sitting on the truck. that’s how thieves stole so much brass years ago. all you need is a tie stub for a fulcrum and something to use for a long lever. a hook to pull the journal pad and a large pair of tongs come in handy for safety reasons and this works easily on empty cars. (don’t ask me how it know)
flat spots are not so common as they used to be. just listen to a train when it goes by. dynamic braking has resulted in fewer overheated wheels and slid flat wheels like we use to see. also equipment detectors on the main line call attention to defects that were previously overlooked.
most repair facilities keep a few wheel sets on hand and send any defective ones back to the company’s wheel shop on the same car the replacements come in on.
trueing wheels in place is more common on locomotives if the flat areas are not too large. the device is called a ledgerwood and is intstalled in place of the brake shoe where it car shave or cut the wheel down a bit untill it is round again. i have never seen this done on a car, just on engines.
i would imagine that the main reason separate tires were not used in the USA is because they must be heated and then shrunk on to the wheel. heavy bra
About the only diesels with tires would be the BRC GP7s. Also the only GP7s with plain bearings, as every other GP7 had roller bearings.