One park I walk in has the W&LE for a border, and this summer crews have been working on the tracks, which up until now have been made of 40’ rail joined together. A couple of weeks ago a number of 40’ rails were dropped along the ballast and now I see they’ve been installed. But the new rails have been welded, not bolted, together.
This is new to me. I always thought railroads installed new, really heavy welded rail, and that it seemed to come in mile-long lengths off of rollers. I don’t know if the newly installed rail is new or used, and right now only one side of the track is welded. If they weld both sides I’ll miss the clickety-clack that is so Old School to me.
Doubtless I don’t understand what I’ve been looking at, so can someone here explain this?
Are you saying that one rail is jointed and the other is welded?
Is the track segment you are viewing on a curve or a tangent?
Is the jointed rail on the inside or outside of the curve?
On curves, normally the outside or ‘high’ rail will be the one that wears sooner than does the inside or ‘low’ rail presuming that the curves has superelevation and spirals built into it.
Superelevation is designated for the priority, or preference, for either freight or passenger. If it is for passenger service the lower rail will sustain greater wear because the lower rail has the heavier loads wearing against it. If for freight the passenger trains will restrain their speed to avoid tipping over.
W&LE being smaller Regional Carrier, I doubt that they own the machienry necessary for the proper laying of welded rail. Being frugal, I suspect they don’t want to spend what is necessary to hire a contractor to come in and properly lay welded rail.
I believe some of the mills manufacturing rail are making them in 78 foot lengths. Rails from the mills of whatever length get sent to carrier rail welding plants and go out of the plant in 1440 foot lengths, which are dropped where the rail is needed for installation. The Class 1 carriers when they install the 1440 segments into the track will follow up the installation by welding up the joints of the 1440 foot segments. The only ‘joints’ that get left in the track structure are the Insulated Joints that are required for the various Signal and Crossing Protection apparatus.
The Iowa Interstate had some existing jointed rail field welded. It seems like I’ve heard of others do the same. I seem to recall the CN on some of it’s exIC trackage in Iowa doing this, too.
Maybe the WLE wanted to replace some badly worn rail before field welding it.
I don’t believe that most railroads would allow you to weld up true jointed rail without cropping the ends off each stick. The main reason is that the bolt holes for the innermost bolts of each joint would be too close to the heat-affected zone of the weld, and the stress concentrations around the holes combined with the less-than-pristine metallurgy of the HAZ could produce bolt-hole cracks. A secondary reason is the batter and cracks present at the rail ends.
Cropping off the ends, removing all the rail anchors, sliding the rail down, welding, and then reapplying anchors in the a new, welded-rail-appropriate pattern is quite a chore. It’s easier to replace the rail with new welder strings and send the used rail back to a rail welding plant (or scrapped). If you aren’t set up to handle strings, I guess it’s still easier to lay new sticks (or good quality second-hand sticks that have already been processed) than to fart around with all that and still have your ancient crappy rail in place.
Note that when joints ARE used in welded track, the inner two holes are left undrilled and unbolted - that lets you drop the bars and weld the rail with no additional cropping (except for whatever is needed to bring the rail to the correct longitudinal stress state, i.e., "neutral temperature - and, if you’re using thermite, the gap needed by the weld process itself.)
Probably somewhere in a rail yard near you, there is a section of track that was rebuilt with track panels at some point, and the inner bolt holes and bolts are missing on those joints as well - even if they will never get around to welding that rail. Track panels
The Iowa Interstate had some existing jointed rail field welded. It seems like I’ve heard of others do the same. I seem to recall the CN on some of it’s exIC trackage in Iowa doing this, too.
Maybe the WLE wanted to replace some badly worn rail before field welding it.
I don’t believe that most railroads would allow you to weld up true jointed rail without cropping the ends off each stick. The main reason is that the bolt holes for the innermost bolts of each joint would be too close to the heat-affected zone of the weld, and the stress concentrations around the holes combined with the less-than-pristine metallurgy of the HAZ could produce bolt-hole cracks. A secondary reason is the batter and cracks present at the rail ends.
Cropping off the ends, removing all the rail anchors, sliding the rail down, welding, and then reapplying anchors in the a new, welded-rail-appropriate pattern is quite a chore. It’s easier to replace the rail with new welder strings and send the used rail back to a rail welding plant (or scrapped). If you aren’t set up to handle strings, I guess it’s still easier to lay new sticks (or good quality second-hand sticks that have already been processed) than to fart around with all that and still have your ancient crappy rail in place.
Note that when joints ARE used in welded track, the inner two holes are left undrilled and unbolted - that lets you drop the bars and weld the rail with no additional cropping (except for whatever is needed to bring the rail to the correct longitudinal stress state, i.e., "neutral temperature - and, if you’re using thermite, the gap needed by the weld process itself.)
Flash-butt welding in the field is still done by Holland, Loram, Plasser and others - but it’s rare anymore to convert a whole district this way anymore. ($$$$)
Where you are more likely to see the flash-butt operation in play is on a railroad that either does not believe in boutet welding or is overwhelmed by rail failures. You frequently see 6-hole bars with only the outer 4 holes around a joint drilled, signalling a future flash but operation in the field to come later. The quality control in a rail welding plant is more reliable in most cases and de-stressing the rail is less of a concern.
Shortlines and Class-1’s have different priorities and experience in dealing with welded rail. Have seen far too many failures to anchor the newly laid shortline rail cause grief shortly after a rail relay. (and using used-anchors is not saving anybody in the long run - better to buy new like the Class 1’s.
I noticed that several years ago, just north of Evans Mills.
I supposed that it was relay rail that was sent somewhere for welding into CWR, as opposed to being done on site.
Watched a mobile butt welder in use at Deshler not long ago when they were laying new CWR. Box van hi-rail with a slide out that clamped over the rail and welded the two together. It happened several times as they put in sections near the diamond.
Speaking of rails with bolt holes: how do they put those holes in the rail? They’re obviously not drilled. When, in the rail-making process, does that happen, and how?
(1) unless you’re running in excepted track territory, torch cut holes are a bozo no-no and an FRA Code-1 defect.
(2) Rail starts as “blanks” (no bolt holes), then may be pre-drilled at the mill or cut in the field. Bolt hole and angle bar patterns differ between railroads and are not always interchangeable. [That “deal” on secondhand rail may be no bargain if the drill pattern is wrong and the OTM (especially angle-bars) can’t be found and/or does not match your standard plan that applies to the rest of the railroad. Shortlines get themselves in trouble over this all the time. Gets really strange when it comes to step-joints/compromise joints (hard to find in the first place)
Most rail bolt holes are cut with a low-speed mechanical drill and a chisel cut bit cooled with water. Higher speed rotobrach drills are out there, but the costs of the bits is pricey. The older method works just fine for properly drilled and peened results.
Anytime a rail intended for use is jointed rail track is cut, the rail end with the cut needs to have bolt holes driller into it. I’ve had experience with rail drilling at SCRM (OERM) during a program to remove flame cut rail ends and flame cut bolt holes. In this case, the drill motor was a lawn mower sized gasolene engine with a very funky gear reduction scheme and the drill bits looked a bit like small metal stakes. We were using water from a hose the lubricant/coolant. Despite the overall fuky nature of the setip, it did a good job of drilling the bolt holes.
Note to MC: Paul Hammond was the person behind eliminating flame cut rail ends and flame cut bolt holes at SCRM/OERM. (I started my reply before you posted) I also appreciated the link to rail drills, the one I worked with at OERM circa 1990 is similar despite being a number of years old back then.