In Canada, CN use to mark the year that a railroad tie was put in place with a dateing nail. If you have not seen one, they are about 1.5 inches long. They have a head on them about the size of a dime, with a year molded into the head of the nail. Example “66”.
It seems that they stopped using these in 66 since I have never seen one newer than that. In talking with a retired section foreman, he said they stopped using them because there was really never any good value to their use. “If a tie needed replacing it was because it was wore out. Not because of its age.”
I am wondering if other railroads ever used them. Either in Canada or the USA.
If anyone else has some knowledge in these I would appreciate hearing about it.
I believe at some point most all railroads used date nails. I’ve heard that the reason that they were used was to keep track of different types of preservatives they used on the ties. It was an experiment to see which ones lasted the longest before rotting. By the 1960’s they had pretty much perfected the treatment for the ties so the date nails were no longer needed.
Most any treated timber products had date nails until 1969 (Ties, bridge timbers, poles, etc.)…Since the late 1940’s, all ties were also stamped on the ends with the date, type of wood and where treated. That practice continues to today.
I have included a website here with info on date nail collecting. I am a member of the Texas Date Nail Association as well. Don’t let the name fool you. There are members scattered throughout the US. There is also date nail show held in the spring and fall in various locations in the US.
As said, almost every railroad used them. I could go on and on about the use of date nails, but if you go through the website I have listed you will find a wealth of information concerning their uses.
Utility companies used them also. But the reasons were not all the same as what the railroads used them for. There are some utilities and construction companies still using them today.
As for what bpepper is looking for concerning CN nails, here is what is listed in Jeff Oaks book “Date Nails and Railroad Tie Preservation”. It shows that CN started using date nails in 1924 and ended in 1968. It notes in the Maritime Provinces and Western Provinces they were used till 1947. Then it says that all lines used them from 1959-1968. It also shows that code nails were used in the Western Provinces. Those being a 2 and 4.