L-o-n-g RR spikes

[Ferrous Beuler]

nitro brought a question here about carbon content of railroad spikes which I replied to on his thread. Being on the subject of railroad spikes reminded me of a memory of some 30 years or more. When I was a kid, as all kids do, I walked the tracks and picked up spikes. So of course I Knew by single digit age what a spike looked like and had a collection of them. Didn't we all?
One day at a friends house, my friend pulled out a box in the garage and said "look at these, they were my Grandfather's." He produced several railroad spikes which looked just like any other spikes except that they were longer, several inches longer than the norm.
Now, I am NOT going to right now trottle out to the barn through the snow and lay a tape on a spike to see what it exactly measures.
The point is, these spikes were 3 or 4 inches longer than the only size spike I have ever seen anywhere else. I worked as a welder in a railyard for two years and never saw any odd spikes, even doing some add-hoc railwork when neccesity dictated the normal work was interrupted and for a time we were all rail monkeys.
Has anyone seen these longer spikes?
What was their application?Dan.:)

[Hollon]

It seems like I remember seeing some ones like that. I know that because when I got some standard sized ones, I thought they were small.

[Bentiron1946]

I don't know about length but there is a big difference in head size too. Several years ago I was picking up spikes and when I got home and started sorting them out as to quality some had heads that were nearly twice the size of others. Do you know the reason for this?

[Chuck Richards]

The HC Spikes are used for switch ties and some of the heads are larger. I can only speculate as to the longer spikes, probably used on bridges and such that would require extra holding power. Need to find and OOOLLLDDD railroader hopefully a track gang member and ask em.

[markb]

I got these at a garage sale and thought that the skinny ones were for a small scale RR but that doesn't make sense. Anyway heres some pics.

[Chuck Richards]

The long skinny ones were used on bridges. I used to see them when walking track. Worked for the RR for a couple of years fixing signals. I would love to get a hold of some of those big spikes. Might have to go see the local track gang. Got a bucketful of reg HC spikes. Great for teaching and demos.

[Hillbillysmith]

I have seen this too. But I'm not sure why. The only thing that I am able to speculate would be different size of tracks. I have 4 different sizes of RR track. Maybe that would be why.

[ThomasPowers]

I recently picked up a handfull of very small spikes---used out here for small tracks in mines for ore carts. They are ony a couple of inches long and apx 5/16"(? haven't measured them) in crossection