Hello everyone. I was walking around my property and I found something really cool. Where I lived used to be a railroad in the 1800s. However, during WW1 (i think) they ripped it all out since it wasn't being used. But earlier this week I found a small amount of track lying stuck in the earth. If I wanted to get some of this, how would I go about cutting it out? It is about a half mile along a little track and then maybe 300 feet into the woods. What do you guys recommend I use to cut it? Should I even bother? I was thinking maybe a portable thermic lance, like in this video. Ill post a picture of the track and where it is as soon as I get home.

 

 

Doublecheck to see if the railroad is legally abandoned. Even if it's derelict, if the railway still owns the right of way, it's a crime to remove anything from it. 

For example, there is a derelict rail line near where I live where someone thought they could remove some track and sell it for scrap. The owners of the line found out and sued them for damages -- a pretty penny, I assure you.

However, if you can legally access and remove the rail, I'd suggest a cordless cutoff saw or angle grinder with a cutoff disc. Thermic lances are cool, but (A) you don't want to set your woods on fire and (B) your cut won't be nearly as clean.

If its legally abandoned as JHCC says, then why cut it? Far more profitable to dig it out and use the piece whole. Get a buddy or two, maybe a six pack of a resfreshing beverage to entice some help, and dig it, lift it out and carry it home! 

3 minutes ago, Ridgewayforge said:

If its legally abandoned as JHCC says, then why cut it? Far more profitable to dig it out and use the piece whole. Get a buddy or two, maybe a six pack of a resfreshing beverage to entice some help, and dig it, lift it out and carry it home! 

How long is the piece, anyway? Inches, feet, yards, or miles?

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.

I agree with recovering it whole, rail can be mad into many useful things. Tho old rail may not be the high quality steel we are used to, you could have scored a sorce of wraught iron. 

If it's long and far from power:  you can bring a backpack O/A rig with a cutting torch or if you can access it from the underside I have cut rail with my 30" hacksaw (bow saw handle with a piece of metal cutting bandsaw blade in it, the mounting hole punched slightly closer together to make more tension when mounted)  Now when I got towards the hardened surface layer I just broke it.  (note you need to clear the rust from the area you are cutting as rust dulls saw blades!) There are also gas powered cutting rigs both abrasive disk and blade; but I'm cheap and need the exercise...

Now if it's close to power I use my industrial angle grinder with a 7 to 9" abrasive disk and again I start from the back but don't need to clean the rust off as much.

If it can be wrangled with a 4WD vehicle I would drag it closer to power and work on it there.

If it's too far off the road to just drag the whole rail out I'd use a hack saw or batter reciprocating saw. Be sure to wire brush all the rust and dirt off first, it REALLY dulls a blade quickly.

AFTER you make sure it's legal!

Frosty The Lucky.

Assuming it's ok and legal to remove, a gas powered abrasive saw as Thomas mentioned would be my go to method for in the field cutting on something such as that. A gas cutoff saw would make quick work of cutting and removal, not to mention just about any big box store that rents equipment will likely have one. I wouldn't want to mess with oxy fuel purely because of the fire risk. The cutoff saw will indeed throw sparks, but can be controlled to a much greater degree and it's a lot more portable.

"Rooftop" torches would be my next choice. Even the small sets can cut thick stuff for very short periods of time. 

Such methods would be suitable in the event it couldn't be removed as a large piece and easily transported back to the shop. Those gas saws really are the bees knees for stuff like this. They're messy and loud, but they get the job done fast and are as easy as a chainsaw to use.

IMHO of course

Gas powered demo saws can be rented from most rental places fairly reasonably. One caution though. The abrasive blades for gas saws run at higher RPMs than standard 14" abrasive chop saw blades. Make sure you buy the right one. When you spin up a low RPM blade in a gas saw, it will wobble and start to look like a wet noodle about 1-2 seconds before the blade grenades on you. Those blades can seriously injure you when they let go. Don't think that you can go cheap and only make one "quick cut". You'll never get it done as the blade WILL explode almost instantly when run up to speed.

You might want to think about the advisability of using any sort of sparking/burning equipment in a forest, far from any means of putting an unexpected fire out.  You should also consider the cost of all the solutions suggested so far, compared to the value of what you want to recover.  As far as I am concerned, it is simply not worth it.  If you want some RR track, just go out and buy some.

If it's as old as you say, the chances are good that it's wrought iron and might have a pretty decent resale value.  However, how much work it takes to get out of the woods will seriously impact the profit margin.

I'd say that the real wrought iron market is fairly shallow so don't spend a lot to amass a lot of it; some will generally sell at conferences if at a decent price.

If the track is old enough to be wrought iron, chances are any spikes would be too. If you have (or can borrow) a metal detector, it might be less hassle to check for those first.

very good point!  I've run across wrought iron spikes before.

1 minute ago, ThomasPowers said:

very good point!  I've run across wrought iron spikes before.

I've got a handful from an old rail-to-trail conversion outside Boston. Thinking about san mai....

Guys I am no where near good at blacksmithing to be considering a profit margin. This is mainly just I want to take it out because Im curious. You all bring up some very good points. Ill have to think about what Im going to do. Here is a picture of it. Some of it is cut off by the picture. It ends in the ground burred on both sides.

If it's wraught it will cut with a hacksaw pretty easy, a picture of any writing on the sides would be good. It would allow us to ID it. 

That doesn't look like any railroad track I ever saw. No flange on the bottom, just what appears to be a rectangular cross-section. No spikes, no ties, no ballast. Could there have been a mine nearby that could have used that type tracks for the ore cars?

2 minutes ago, olfart said:

That doesn't look like any railroad track I ever saw. No flange on the bottom, just what appears to be a rectangular cross-section. No spikes, no ties, no ballast. Could there have been a mine nearby that could have used that type tracks for the ore cars?

I don't think you are looking at it correctly. The rail is laying over on it's side.  What I see is that the bottom flange is facing us in that pict and you can just see the underside of the top of the rail above it.

1 minute ago, DSW said:

I don't think you are looking at it correctly. The rail is laying over on it's side.  What I see is that the bottom flange is facing us in that pict and you can just see the underside of the top of the rail above it.

You may be right. I could be suffering from an optical delusion. I was expecting to see a rail in its normal configuration spiked down.

I think the tool you need, ... Is a shovel.

And then, depending on the length of the rail, ... a tractor.

Naw just a lot of friends with ropes and beer...

A minimum six foot pry bar (or an eight foot 4 x 4) and some blocks - looks like it just might pop right out of the mulch.

Oh, I'm hard headed, if I can't get a horse in there, I will find a way to drag it out, even if it's rails and rollers...

gas and iduction forges not withstanding, blacksmithing is low tech, lol.