When did US railroads like the Union Pacific start using imported steel rails?
Second, is the reason strictly cost related or do foreign mills produce certain types of rail our domestic mills do not?
Third, which countries are the biggest suppliers?
Finally, which US railroads are the biggest buyers?
The first foreign rail was purchased from England in 1828 to be used on the Baltimore & Ohio’s first lines. Foreign rail has been purchased by the carriers from that time until the present. Each carrier has their own reasons for making the purchases that they do. It may be price, it may be quality, it may be personal relationships between the parties involved.
We had a thread on this not too long ago – the present ‘importation’ being that the rail is provided in longer lengths as received from the ship, requiring fewer yard or field welds when placed in track. (Note that the Asian supplier has actually had a special ship built to handle the greater lengths!)
At least one of our ‘domestic’ LWR-producing mills is now foreign-owned (Russian) - does that matter?
Importing rails is primarily about the type of rail, not the cost. As Wizlish notes, US mills do not produce the really long rails that UP wants, so they are imported from Japan on UP’s ship Pacific Spike.
http://www.up.com/aboutup/community/community_ties/longrail.htm
Also, no one makes streetcar girder rail in the US, so it is imported (I think from somewhere in Europe).
“+1” on NorthWest’s girder rail response above.
One factor not mentioned yet is availability or delivery. If the mill is at capacity - and in a busy year, they all are, because none of them were built with a huge amount of excess capacity, for obvious reasons - then there’s no place else in the US to go to for rail. Also, their rolling schedules are made up months in advance, so there’s not much flexibility to add or change a quantity. For some items - crossing frogs come to mind - a backlog of 6 months is common (and even then they don’t always make the delivery date . . . [banghead] ).
Finally, there’s the issue of price, which is often quoted as “Price in effect at time of shipment*”.* In English, that means"We’ll tell you what the actual price is after we’ve made it, loaded it, and it’s on the way to you". (Kind of like a restaurant saying that the price of your meal will be determined when it’s on the way to your table - not what it was when you ordered it.) It often seems to include just about everything - fuel costs, increase in labor contracts, raw materials, etc. - and always seems to go up, not down, and especially just before my shipment !
How about knuckles and couplers? Imported or domestic? Some railroaders have told me they wonder about the metallurgical quality.
I’m guessing foreign rail was pretty rare in, say, the 1960s. Don’t recall if it was the 1970s or the 1980s that Nippon rail started appearing on SP. And most new SP rail was probably still CF&I-- the Nippon rail was just for curves?
I don’t get it, fellas.
How does one get a quarter of a mile (1,320-feet) single ribbon rail out of 480-foot lengths with just two welds (as per the UP press release)?
480 * 3 = 1,440’ connecting three pieces requires only two welds.
The length you get, 1440’, has been a familiar ‘standard’ length for CWR for a long time. (Didn’t we have a discussion on this not too long ago with some “experienced” commentary?)
AREA (now AREMA) - and perhaps other organizations/ agencies (STB or FRA) publishes annual figures as to the quantities and weights (sizes) of rail produced each year. It’s been a while since I looked at one, but I believe foreign rail is listed separately. It should be possible to go back through those or the trade press articles (Railway Age, Modern Railroads, etc.) and find out when importing rail started.
I’d concur with timz that it definitely wasn’t in the 1960’s - I’d say early 1980’s, when the US steel market started undergoing some major changes (mostly negative).
I too believe that the Nippon rail was mainly used for high wear and stress areas such as curves. But CF&I had some special features for curves, too - “Hi-Si” (high silicon) rails, and “Hi-Cant” (?) tie plates to tilt the rail inward so that the head of the rail better matches the angle/ slope of the wheel treads.
Perhaps Mike/ wanswheel can find that info . . .
3 pieces, and just 2 ‘interior’ welds are required:
480 ft. + WELD + 480 ft. + WELD + 480 ft. = 1,520 ft.
Probably a few ‘short’ rails in there to keep it down to 1,320 ft., which is unlikely - there’s no magic to any particular length as welded. As I noted in that other thread, it’s not much of a problem for the welding plant to make custom lengths, or to add a few more cars to a rail train to be able to carry a longer length than normal. One of my projects had
[quote user=“K. P. Harrier”]
How does one get a quarter of a mile (1,320-feet) single ribbon rail out of 480-foot lengths with just two welds (as per the UP press release)?[/QUOTE]
Lets consider that the “+” signs represent welds …
480+480+480 = 1440
That is just 2 welds to join 3 pieces of rail. Yes, the total length is 1440 feet, which is slightly more than the stated 1/4 mile.
Yes, but 480 x 3 = 1440 ft., not 1520.
I guess those folks don’t understand the AAR approval process for safety critical interchange components.
http://www.steelworks.us/newsite/images/cfi_history_timeline.pdf
CF&I patent for something, perhaps the first quarter-mile rail?
What about field welds to get very long runs ? Does UP normally have very long runs of rail in the outback ? Know here that rail is often temporary planted in trench below surface of grade crossings until it replaces old rail .
Maybe they don’t, but they encounter broken knuckes all too often. Would you care to explain the process and how that ensures a quality level that reduces incidence of knuckle failure?
Boutet or Flash Butt welds?.. Simpler to cut and drag instead of digging in with a rail plow.
(1) DRGW and SP would bar up enough joints until they could get flash butt welds to be affordable. (The old SP cold-welds were a disaster)
(2) SP’s troubles with BethSteel had them replacing rail on Tehachapi and other places mainly with CF&I steel, bit also Nippon 141 Hi-Si CWR when it was new, just a function of priority in the mills and who had the technology like PDN said.
Thanks once again, Mike !
As for me: Doh ! [D)] I forgot to mention Railway Track & Structures magazine as a source for info on imported rail, and also for the CF&I Hi-Si and Hi-Cant items.
I was employed by the Chicago and North Western Railroad through most of the 1980’s as an ultra-sound rail test car operator (much like a Sperry car). I recall the C&NW using some German rail on tight curves around Dixon, IL. It apparently was produced to handle higher stresses typical of higher speed curved rail much like around Dixon.
One other item regarding this subject, the North Western use to have a testing department I believe at the California Ave. shop facilities in Chicago. There they had a lab that inspected and tested many new products used by the railroad including new rail. I was told by one of the lab technicians that the best quality rail (this was around 1988) was produced in Japan and W. Germany and the U.S. rail ranked toward the bottom and England was dead last.