It is Monday time to get up and moving .

 

Morning gentlemen, it might be a Monday...but at least there isn't 3 feet of snow on the ground; or 10 feet of water. I wish I could have had my camera with me yesterday, in KC there was a late model Aveo (Chevy's answer to the Focus) sitting at the yard office. The a/m rims on the thing had to cost more than the car. Sort of like putting a performance exhaust on a Metro. No matter how much you polish a turd, it's still a turd.Sad, truly sadThose will bend. Nothing says King of the road like an 8 foot long piece of rail. Yeah, it will flex under the weight of a 18k ton coal train; but that Prius is no match.

 

I would have to get a good look at the rail. See if I could picture it on my truck. Hmmmm, could get interesting if I think too much about it! lol

 

Well, here you go:


That's 115# rail, most of what we've got is either 133# or 136# which is a little bit taller on the web of the rail and wider on the base. At 6 & 1/2 inches tall I think you've got your 6" C-channel beat.

 

I was looking at that exact pic a few min ago! lol If I get one I would want the tallest I could get. I need to be able to mount my pintle hook in the middle of it. I woul probably mount it upside down, so I have a nice wide part to step on.

 

Good Morning All!

Happy Tuesday and Welcome to the First Day of Summer!

 

Good morning everyone!
This is indeed first day of summer at 1316 EST.
The longest day of the year and for those that have sunshine, will have the most sun of the year.
Have a great day!!

 

On this Tuesday…do me a favor …get a few folks together and do a rain dance for us out here in the Southwest…and have a great day.

 

Thought for today:

If your standing on a toilet, does that mean your high on pot?136# is the biggest I've ever seen, and I'm not sure it even gets any bigger than that. At first I was thinking if you mounted/welded the pintle hooks in middle of the web you'd weaken the steel. Then I got to thinking about those load coal trains that we scream (and I do mean scream!) around the corners with. Haven't broken a rail yet...I think you'll be ok in that department. Since it's high carbon steel, you might have a little trouble cutting through it with a regular drill bit. At work they use a water cooled hydraulic drive drill to cut the bolt holes. Looks sort of like this:

And here's the bit:

The railroad I worked for in Waldron had a F550 that ran all the tools off the PTO. The dang truck road like a battleship, but it carried every tool we ever needed to fix track. It took longer to set the drill up than it did to cut the hole...it literary cut the rail with it's two carbide tips. When it was done a little disk about the size of a quarter would pop out of the web. Neat little tool to watch work.

 

Hide a piece of RR iron behind a set of stock bumpers. Some ******* is gonna learn the hard way NOT to ride someones ***.

Zack, how hard would it be to burn a few holes through it with a torch? Or should someone just a plasma cutter if they can get ahold of one?

 

Well, this is looking like it would become a pain to to. If it is that hard to drill through, I can only imagine trying to cut it to length. I might just stick with using 3/8" steel. Maybe put tome 1/2" supports in areas I might need a little extra strength.

 

It's not hard to torch a hole...or even cut the rail. You just loose the strength of the rail when you do...it's heat treated at the mills. I used to do allot of volunteer work at the Ft. Smith Trolley Museum, and they used to use old 85# rail for "cross ties" in the concrete crossings. That rail we weren't too worried about strength of the rail at the were it was cut, so most of it was torch (oxy/act) cut. I've heard you can plasma cut it and it won't effect the integrity, the musuem doesn't have anything fancy like that....or at least not yet.It's not that hard to cut through, we use chop saw blades to cut it. Seems like they were 12". Like I was telling James, it's just torching it weakens the steel for track usage. Not sure how much it would weaken it for bumper usage.

 

Bumper usage.... as long as it protects your ride & not the person hitting you (the car not them personally) then I think it would be ok.

Well, how much wear/cracks or what ever do yall have on the joints?

 

This time of year, there generally isn't an issue with broken rail. Broken rails happen during extremely cold periods (below 15F) and generaly isn't near where the the rail was termite welded at the 1/4 mile section ends. Rail wear is another story...it depends on where the rail is (straight or curved), if it's curved...how tight the curve is and speed of the trains. The rail we had at Waldron was rolled in 1926; I don't have clue when the rail was rolled that we run on between Newport & KC. I've heard of some rail that on straight track in Death Valley that was rolled in 1898...and still in service. Rail does some neat stuff depending on the ambient temperature...think of it as a really huge thermostat spring.

 

Good Morning All!

Happy Hump Day!