MODERATORS NOTE:
Rail availability has been converted from the pre-July 2008 WW&F Discussion Forum.
Some formatting may have been removed or modified from the original postings that appear quoted in this topic.
Information contained within this post may be superseded by more recent postings and conversations.
jockellis wrote:How do you find 56-pound rail and how much of this commodity is still available? It would seem that all the museum's and its volunteers' future efforts will be dictated by this.
Jock Ellis
Cumming, GA
elecuyer replied:There was a recent newsletter article about this very topic. Since you are a new member, you just missed it.
Maybe our newsletter editor can post it here, or email it to you.
-Ed Lecuyer
John McNamara replied:{From the July/August 2007 WW&F Newsletter}
Where Do You Get Your Rail?
I have heard this asked many times over the years, so I’m going to try and list all the places from which we obtained our rail and where we installed it. Most of the rail we get is over a hundred years old. The original rail on our mainline was thirty-five pounds per yard and came in ten-yard lengths, but rail of that weight is almost impossible to find today. Fifty to sixty pound rail is easier to find, so we’re using this size almost exclusively.
Our first two hundred feet, placed in front of Sheepscot station, was fifty pound rail given by the Seashore Trolley Museum. The next rail came from Mr. Phillip Sammis, who wrote to the museum that he had a mile of track and some storage rail in Hancock, Maine. His rail was three different weights: 35-, 40-, and 56-pound rail, some of which we purchased, and some of which he donated. Our volunteers made at least four trips to Hancock to extract the rail from the woods and move it to a pickup point at roadside. I went over on the second work trip, and I remember moving a lot of 15-foot lengths near his car barn; then we when down a ways and picked up a stockpile of 30 ft rail. We had a little three-foot gauge flat car, and to make matters worse, everything had to be pushed upgrade the entire length. I believe I made three trips over a two-year period getting rail. Of course, the heaviest rail was at the farthest distance from the road.
One funny incident I remember was that Jason saw a wild duck that no one else could see, so if you see a plastic duck peeking from a window or behind a tree at Sheepscot, you’ll know we’re just teasing Jason. Over time the Hancock rail was used in the yard, on the mainline, sold, or used in other places. The 40-pound rail took us to the start of the first curve and the 56-pound rail took the mainline about two-thirds down grade beyond Davis Crossing.
The next rail to arrive came from the Narragansett Pier Railroad in Rhode Island. Some members from that area took up about five hundred feet of track. Most of it was 50-pound rail and is still stockpiled at the museum for a future siding. However, there was some 56-pound rail, and we used that to complete the track beyond David Crossing and continue to the start of Cockeye Curve. This addition gave the railroad about one-half mile of mainline track. About the same time, we got word that the State of Maine was rebuilding the Wiscasset trestle and replacing the 85-pound running rail and 56-pound guard rail with a heavier running rail and 85-pound guard rail. Thus, the old 56-pound guard rail was now surplus, and the State was willing to give it to us. However, we were given only one day to remove the spikes and pull the rail to shore.
It was one of the hottest days of summer when we went out to do this. The trestle was about a half mile from the shore, so it was a long walk to get there. We pulled the spikes, and a Maine Coast Railroad engine and engineer pulled long strings of rail to the mainland where we unbolted and stacked the rail to be transported to the WW&F Museum. While pulling spikes, I dropped my spike puller between the ties into the mud flats below. Since I dropped it, I had to go get it, which involved getting off the trestle and walking through about two hundred feet of mud. I’m sure glad it wasn’t high tide. Installation of this rail moved the railroad ahead to the three- quarter mile marker in the center of Cockeye Curve.
At this point, we had run out of rail, so Jason started checking out different rail salvage yards. He found that Kovalchick Salvage in Pennsylvania. had a lot of what we needed, so he and I drove out to see it. The Museum had only enough money for one truckload, but Mr. Kovelchick said that he would trade for some of our 40-pound rail, which gave us the chance to get two loads or one-half mile of good rail.
The following April, our crew got together and put out ties and rail to the end of the graded area at a point called Hall’s Crossing. Before ties could be placed on Cockeye Curve, the volunteers had to shovel some snow! We still had a lot of rail left, but we had to wait for stump removal and trestle construction. A group of Marine reservists constructed a beautiful replica trestle over Humason Brook during the summer of 2001. Two months after they got done, our crew put down the rest of the rail. It took our track three hundred feet beyond the trestle or close to a mile and two-tenths.
Then to our surprise, a Midcoast contractor, Mr. Harry Crooker, came and asked Harry Percival if he would like some rail that Mr. Crooker had picked up years before from one of the old logging railroads in Northern Maine. The rail consisted of 56- and 70-pound rail. He transported it to us in four huge truckloads at no charge. We spent quite a lot of time sorting it out by weight and quality.
Some rail we had to junk, one truckload we gave to the Sandy River Railroad Museum in exchange for a water tank. The 70-pound rail is still stockpiled, and the good 56-pound rail moved us further north to what is known as Trask Crossing. After that rail was placed, we got one more load from Kovalchick Salvage, which got us to Alna Center Station, a mile and six-tenths from Sheepscot Station.
The next rail was given to us from two sources. One truckload of 50-pound rail was given by the Connecticut Antique Machinery Association and was used on the run around track at Alna Center. The other came from the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad in North Carolina. This was one full load of rail and another partial load with switch points and frogs. This rail took our mainline 1600 feet further north.
The last two loads were purchased from a railroad in Vermont and a chair factory in Gardiner, Massachusetts. Part of this rail took us about 900 feet northward and 600 feet beyond Albee’s Crossing. The rest of the leftover rail should take us another thousand feet this coming fall.
Over the years, many members have checked out rail in many places that we found was not the right size, or we were not able to get for one reason or another. However, we are currently interested in some rail that the South Carolina Railroad Museum has at the very end of their line. It’s about two miles of 56-pound rail. Let’s hope for the best! (Fred Morse)
James Patten replied:The answer to "how much 56-pound rail is available" can be complicated. We can get it by the truckload from Kovalchick Salvage (owners of EBT), but that's expensive. There are abandoned sidings and branch lines which are laid with it (or something close) all over the US, so there could be a hundred miles of it in total. The problem is finding it before someone decides to bury it or scrap it or turn it into a rail trail.
The reason we use 56 or 60 pound rail is it's easy for us to move around manually, yet stiff enough that it isn't like spaghetti. It also looks appropriate on the ground. Maine Narrow Gauge RR had to lay theirs with 80 or 90 pound rail, and while it works it looks a little funny.
Wayne Laepple replied:Further to the subject of 56/60-pound rail, both were fairly common well into the middle of the 20th century, but as locomotives and freight cars became heavier and track maintenance costs rose, lines were either abandoned or upgraded with larger rail. The MKT operated miles of branch lines with 60-pound rail, running trains at 50 mph without any trouble, but when they cut back on tie replacement programs, the track fell apart rather quickly. Many of the branch lines in the wheat belt of the upper midwest and Canada were laid with 56/60-pound rail, limiting cars to 50 tonss and severely restricting the motive power size.
I worked for a shortline railroad in North Carolina in the early 1980s which used 56-pound rail, and we found that even if we put new ties in the track and spiked them to gauge, the rolling stock would quickly push them out of gauge on curves. The one advantage of the small rail, I soon learned, was that it wasn't as hard to get things back up on the rail when something derailed. It's for exactly those reasons that very few common-carrier railroads still have small rail in track. New freight cars can weigh up to 315,000 gross wight, and cars that heavy can barely operate on 100-pound rail.
I have been keeping an eye on several lines that still have 56/60-pound rail, since I believe when they are closed or upgraded, we'll have to move quickly if we want to get any of it. Most of the light rail still in track is in the south, a long way from Maine. With scrap prices the way they are today, we'll be competiting with the junk man for small rail.
The rail available from Kovalchick Salvage is often purchased by coal mines, which use the rail for props to hold up the roof in deep mines. Even the track in the mines is generally laid with 85-pound rail these days.
Mike Fox replied:If we stepped up to the next size, 65# rail, there are several sidings here in Maine that are laid with that. I have a few places to check that are hidden from view and forgotten that could possibly be 56 to 60 range. Just need to get back there with my tape and see what size it is.
Mike
Wayne Laepple replied:For Mike and anyone else who might be poking around looking for rail, 56 and 60-pound both measure 4-1/4 inches tall and 4-1/4 inches wide at the base.
mikechoochoo replied:There was miles of 56 or 60 pound near Wagner South Dakota a few years ago, I'll Have to check on it.
I would like to get some 2 inch pieces of some of the odd sizes for a rail collection/exhibit. Any scraps rail gang? Now days you only hear of 12,16,20,25,30,40,60,and up
I know they made 8, and 10 and that there were a lot of other different variations in weight.
How do you tell 56 from 60 without weighing it?
Mike Choochoo in Minnesota
Wayne Laepple replied:The thickness of the web is the main difference between 56 and 60 pound rail. I don't have the dimension for 56 handy, but 60-pound is 31/64". There were some variations of course, but most 60-pound rail is ASCE, as mentioned above. The ASCE sections are about the only ones still around. I'm not certain whether mills in this country are rolling anything smaller than 115RE (AREA) section. I believe there is a mill in Europe making 60-pound, where the Welsh Highland and the other narrow gauges in Britain are getting new rail. Of course, they have the Heritage Lottery to pay for it!
jockellis replied:Thanks for all the info. To coin a phrase, you don't know where your next rail is coming from.
Does track have the weight cast into it or do you just have to measure it? I don't remember where but I've seen some around Atlanta that looked really tiny.
During WWII some grandstanding senator held a congressional hearing in an attempt to get the government's money back from the Southern Railroad because it and its subsidiary, the Georgia-Florida RR, had laid 60-pound rail to a hastily built Army training base near Jacksonville, FL. The committee chaire was one Harry Truman.
Southern pointed out that despite very heavy traffic, not a single wheel had left the rail on the spur.
The senator also made another error when he criticized an artillary piece his son had to fire. He called it antedilluvian. Harry, a WWI artillary captain, was quoted as quickly pointing it "is a darn fine gun, too."
Then Truman closed the inquisition and thanked Southern for its help during the war.
Jock Ellis
Cumming, GA
Joe Fox replied:There are 2 miles of 56 or 60 lb rail in South Carolina, that the museum is getting whenvever the South Carolina Railroad museum rips it up. This 2 miles of track, is due to be ripped up sometime soon, and replaced with bigger rail. However, I don't know if they have ripped up any rails yet or not.
Joe
Bill Sample replied:At the Fall Track Weekend I heard that there is another competitor for light rail - it is being purchased for use in the security fence upgrades along the Mexican border. And as we all know, more demand will drive up prices so we should start saving up for our donations to the WW&F's next fund-raising campaign!
Dave Buczkowski replied:Bill;
There's no one stopping us from sending checks to Allan now that are earmarked for the purchase of rail. I'm sure he's be glad to put the funds aside for that purpose.
Dave
Joe Fox replied:What size rails are they using? If they are sticking with lower rail, such as 25, etc. then we should be all set. What is the maximum size rail that they want to use? Thanks,
Joe
Mike Fox replied:Thanks Wayne. I knew the height but knowing the base is another way to double check.
Mike
Ira Schreiber replied:There are a few sidings here in the plains states that are 60# rail. Most are disconnected, but the properties belong to the BNSF railroad.
A request to BNSF might prove productive.
As to the South Carolina rail, the rerailing project is years away, according to local sources. This could mean over five years and our needs are much more immediate.
A recent inquiry to Kovalcek showed 60# rail at $720/ton F.O.B. Pennsylvania. They would allow us $200/ton for the 70# that we have. Needless to say:"No Deal".
Ira Schreiber replied:So. Carolina RR museum web update says a grant was applied for one mile of rebuilt track. If that occurs, we MAY have a rail source.
