is there a reasonably fast way to cut railroad track without using an angle grinder or bandsaw?  i highly doubt taking a chisel on the perimeter until it has a line all the way around, then placing a rock or something on one side of the line sledging the other side would cause it to break, but thats all my tiny brain can come up with at the moment.

any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated!

-kegan

Greetings Kegan,

 

The long and short of your attempt is...  Your going to hurt yourself...  There is no substitute for the proper tools..  Check around your area and see if someone has a chop saw...  Lots of folks out there that will give you a hand..  Good luck

 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

thanks Jim, i appreciate the forthright answer =] i probably wont be attempting it that being the case.

I tried scoring all round a piece of rail and using a rail cutter chisel with a sledge and it said ''OH REALLY''...LOL......Nothing doing.

It cuts just fine with a bandsaw though on slow speed with a bi-metal blade.

Every time I cut track, I did it on a horizontal bandsaw or a power hacksaw.  And I put the track in the vise with the bottom flange to the top.  I would cut almost all of the way through, stopping about 1/2" from the top.  That is the extreme work hardened zone.  It would crack easily to finish with a good blow from a small sledge hammer.  Stopping short of the top helped preserve the blade for more cuts.  I found that if you cut all of the way through, the blade was fried.

The railroad guys say they used to score the rail all around with a cold cut then with rail spiked down jacked one end to put pressure with the rail hot they piled ice on the scored area and hopefully it broke. Will not work with small section.

Cutting RR rail is pretty much a perfect use case for the Oxy Acetylene cutting torch 

A 2 stroke powered abrasive disc works wonders. You will get 4 or 5 cuts out of a 7.00 disc for a cost of less than 2.00 per cut and it goes through a rail like a knife through butter.

angle grinder cuts it just fine, only problem you'll have is the grinder "bottoming out" and not being able to get a complete cut, if you're working the wrong size grinder. 

 

Takes about 30 seconds per cut. Clean too.

angle grinder cuts it just fine, only problem you'll have is the grinder "bottoming out" and not being able to get a complete cut, if you're working the wrong size grinder. 

 

Takes about 30 seconds per cut. Clean too.

 

30 seconds/cut....that I have to see to believe.  When I did it on a horizontal bandsaw, it took about 30 minutes on a real slow cut.  Same on the horizontal power hacksaw.

That must be a big angle grinder or some 1:10 scale track. Maybe he meant 30 minutes

I have a big old Milwaukee industrial angle grinder and using a 7" cutting disk it takes me a lot longer than 30 seconds---though less than 30 minutes.

30 seconds/cut....that I have to see to believe.  When I did it on a horizontal bandsaw, it took about 30 minutes on a real slow cut.  Same on the horizontal power hacksaw.

 

30 minutes = blade preservation.  Set it going, and go off and do a multiple of other tasks.  I stopped the saw with 3/4" remaining and broke the rest with a blow from a heavy hammer.  Avoided cutting through the hard layer.  I got many cuts/blade by not rushing, and cutting from the bottom to the top.  And it was a clean, perpendicular cut with no clean-up or grinding needed.  And not standing there holding a sparking beast!

The piece of rail i have is hardly touched by chisels, angle grinder, hacksaw etc etc. im going to HAVE to get a plasma torch. :/

The piece of rail i have is hardly touched by chisels, angle grinder, hacksaw etc etc. im going to HAVE to get a plasma torch. :/

 

You have better have an industrial sized plasma cutter.  As was said above, Oxy-Acetylene torch will do this job easy, just make sure you have the correct size tip and pressures.

 

When I spoke of using a hacksaw, I did not mean hand cutting.  I cut track using a 14" Keller, with water coolant, and Starrett bi-metal blades.

Did you try cutting from the bottom to the face and breaking the last overly work hardened bit off rather than trying to cut it?

 

Like cutting bandsaw blade with snips---you cut from the softer back and let the hardened zone break.

i meant cutting the profile, hardy hole, horn, areas underneath. And i thought oxyacetylene was WAY worse than plasma in terms of cutting. Learn new things every day. 

Plasma cutting is more precise HOWEVER you have to have a system designed to cut the thickness needed.  OA has a MUCH wider range of cutting even though the cut is rougher.

 

A plasma cutter that will do rail will be a MAJOR INVESTMENT, cost more than any car I've ever owned in the last 40 years!

grinding slag and tears is not a problem. I was gonna find someone who actually knew how to use one. maybe a welding shop?

Got a shop program at school?  A votech nearby?  A muffler shop that chops and welds 100 mufflers a day,...

Thomas, plasma cutters and arc welders have come a long way in the last 15 years. Inverter technology and smart circuit boards have radically altered the landscape in welding, and the plasma cutting heads have been redesigned. A typical 230V 50A home dryer plug will power a new PAC unit that will cut twice the thickness of a decade old unit.

 

Of course, our schools 3 phase hand held units would do it. In the timeless words of Tim Taylor "More Power! RRrrh!"

The last time I cut track I used a worm drive circular saw with an abrasive metal cutting blade. Although woodworking tools are not really suited for it.

The “Gandy Dancers” used to break rail all the time back in the day.  Had a large chisel with a handle for the scoring. Breaks easier in cold weather.  My this from my Grandfather who worked for the Rock Island RR.  My father was a contractor who took up several hundred miles of track from the early 1960s till the late 70s. I saw many of these chisels.  They lacked the power tools snd mechanization of today well into 1960s and railroads far predate cutting torches. So the would break the rail if needed. 

I have a scoring chisel I picked up at a RR auction basically a long handled top cut. Rail breaks surprisingly cleanly. The use was described to me years later when an old RR hand told me what I had rather than what I thought. 

I use my cut off bandsaw from the base to the cap tilted so the blade is always cutting through the induction hardened wear surface from underneath. If you attempt to cut from the wear surface down it blunts the blade almost instantly, barely puts a shiny line on the rail.

Frosty The Lucky.

Awesome, I had to go find info on them manually cutting rail with a chisel.

Ive used abrasive cut off saws as I didn’t own a horizontal bandsaw.

Nice thing with abrasive wheels is that heat and friction don’t ruin the blades like on band saw or power hack saws, since that how they actually cut (stating the obvious since 99.9% know this), and they aren’t phased by the induction and work hardened running surface.

BTW, I once saw on an old Nat Geo show (1980?) railroad workers  in China cutting rail with a hand hacksaw while the helper squirted oil on the cut! Talk about more cheap labor and time than expensive tools!!!!!