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I Forge Iron

How to cut a rail road track


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Just now, Anachronist58 said:

I always try to keep ropes and beers on hand, but don't drink em whilst in process.

Drinking ropes is never a good idea.

It might be tricky getting the crane out into the woods, but the method in this video looks like a lot of fun!

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Gnaw, the beer soaked rope, I'm no dope.

With some good PPE, a nice chair, and some refreshments, I could watch that mag lift all day! Great video.

Too bad there's nothing overhead to attach block & tackle (come-along) to :rolleyes:.

 

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How old does a rail have to be to be wrought? My son found a narrow-gauge rail a couple years ago. It was from the last era of White Pine logging in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It was from the 1880-1915 timeframe. I myself know of some rail from 100 years ago....also logging rail. I'm curious what it would be worth if wrought, and how would you market/sell it....chunks, pieces, whole rail?????????

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Go to google and look up "wrought iron spark test". Pricing depends on how much you want to profit and your expenses.

                                                                         Littleblacksmith

 

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53 minutes ago, j.morse said:

How old does a rail have to be to be wrought? My son found a narrow-gauge rail a couple years ago. It was from the last era of White Pine logging in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It was from the 1880-1915 timeframe. I myself know of some rail from 100 years ago....also logging rail. I'm curious what it would be worth if wrought, and how would you market/sell it....chunks, pieces, whole rail?????????

According to this site, steel trail was introduced in Pennsylvania in 1863 and by 1890 was used in about 80% of all lines.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2016-05-18 at 7:23 AM, j.morse said:

I recently bought a RR tool at an estate sale. It is basically a cold cut-off hardy with a long handle. I had no idea what I had until a RR worker on another forum told me. It was used to score a line all around a rail. Then said rail was dropped on another rail right at the line scored. It would, according to the RR guy, snap the scored rail cleanly. I have not tried it.

When I was young I worked on the Canadian Pacific Railway on a section gang in the Columbia River Valley in the British Columbia rockies. I saw it done that way. Actually, I do not recall the 'drop the rail thing.' I recall scoring the rail all around and then sledging the hardy hard on top of the rail to make the cut.

By the way, a whole length of rail--of the older type--is 33' long. Rail was referred to by its weight; all the rail on our section was 125lb rail (125 lbs per foot). The old guys on the section gang really knew how to use jacks and lever arms to move that heavy rail around. All our work was out in the boonies and any sort of crane was absolutely unheard of. At the time I was fresh out of university and thought I knew everything. The guys on the section gang taught me I really didn't. I appreciated that.

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If I found that in the woods and had to have a piece, I would drag my small torch set out there on a RAINY day when everything is well soaked and cut it.  First I would determine how long it actually was as it might be moveable as it is.

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Yep pounds per yard, as verified for my own curiosity from these four "specimens" (although at times I have been accused of talking softly to them a petting them - absurd!).

Robert Taylor

20131213_135357_Willowside Terrace.jpg

Edited by Anachronist58
addendum, clarification
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  • 2 weeks later...

There's old rail like that all around me and I see people taking it all the time. I personally use a Milwaukee cordless bandsaw to cut all kinds of rail. I got it at Home Depot it's nothing special. If the rail is to big I dig under it or if I can I put a car jack under it and block it up. With old rail like that it's much easier to cut. In fact they cut it on spot with no tools a real long time ago. This is how they did it..

Take a cold chisel and mark a clean line around the track. Then take a good size sledge hammer and hit your mark. That's it, it will snap and much easier than you'd ever think! Back in the day they'd mark the rail with a chisel and drop it onto another piece of track and the rail would snap clean. That's how it was done with old track. They didn't have power tools out there on site back then. All you have to do is mark and snap it. New track you can't do that. New track is steel old track is iron. Steel track will not snap! I'm in Pa and there's tons of old Pa RR track around and that's even today how they remove it. So just snap it if you don't have a cordless bandsaw. People think way to much into cutting rail and it's really not that hard. 

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  • 6 years later...
  • 3 weeks later...

When I was in high school, I had a job working on a crew that repaired small sections of railroad track that had issues.  It was a tough job, but I learned a lot.  The mainline sections were 165 lbs. per 3 feet.  The older track was not as large as what they use today.  We used to cut it with a gas-powered chop saw, but as others have said, you have to be very mindful of sparks, as it will definitely catch the woods on fire.  I've seen it.  If I couldn't drag it out with a tractor or something, I would cut it with a cordless bandsaw.  If I didn't have that, I would cut it with a small torch rig.  If I didn't have that, I'd probably just sit on it and drink a beer.

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