physicsguy91

A machinist I know uses a railroad spike puller to move machinery. It cannot be rolled like the device in the picture, but rather "walked" along.

Is there a video #1 and 2?

I took this class as well. It was very fun and everyone learned a lot. Can't wait to try it at home!

Track is a bear to cut. It can be done with a torch, but with a band saw or chop saw it'll be much more trouble than it's worth.

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/28668-spliting-rr-rail/

I have split some pieces of track. I cheated a little and cut partially through with a chop saw rather than scoring with one of these, but it still broke without too much trouble. There is a more in depth discussion over in the problem solving section.

I have actually been doing something similar to this fairly recently. I have several pieces of 9-10 ft. 132lb rail and I need pieces 3 ft. in length. Tried scoring with a largish chisel, placed the track up on 4x4s and hit the end with a 12lb sledge. Made a loud noise and jumped around, but no breaking. Perhaps a larger chisel designed for cutting RR would work, but I just don't know. Anyways, the way I am currently going about it is I am first cutting through the bottom web with a chop saw, and then at least scoring the top on either side. Could also be done with an oxy torch I suppose. After cutting the web I can usually break them in about two or three blows. The first opens up the cut a little, and the last breaks it, leaving only a small band along the top of the rail which is easily broken by tweaking the two ends around a bit.

I have also played a bit with how much of the web actually even needs to be cut. On one rail I just went through the bottom horizontal part, leaving the vertical section, and was still able to break it. The break was not nearly as straight though, so if you are interested in a "clean" break, I would suggest cutting further up. Even a good break will need to be cleaned up some with a grinder if it is to stand upright or anything like that.

This is tough stuff though. Just cutting the web is a decent undertaking, but at least with this method I am able to avoid having to cut the worst of it.