Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

AWSmith wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 9:47 pm
What do you suppose will be the posted speed over this new track? 10 or 25 mph? I guess they cannot use the steel ties within the grade crossing signal field territory. Wonder if the joint bars are insulated at the transition point.

Great Point on steel ties and signal field. This is the answer to your question. If someone gets the wood tie distance from crossing and does the math of location of signal trip you can come up with max speed. 60mph train seem to trip crossing a half mile away. "objects in mirror seem closer than they look"

AWSmith wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 9:47 pm What do you suppose will be the posted speed over this new track? 10 or 25 mph? I guess they cannot use the steel ties within the grade crossing signal field territory. Wonder if the joint bars are insulated at the transition point.

Huh, That could actually be part of the reason they used wood ties for such a large portion of track. If they're setting the crossings for higher speed, steel ties would trip them unless they're far away or insulated.

Track looks good enough to run an Axela.

I thought the grant was for Class 2 track (25 mph freight) on the 132lb rebuild. Glancing through the docs, I can’t find the reference for the rebuild section.

However the grant also had 3,000 wood ties to keep the network up to Class 1 (10 mph freight) standards.

As far as I can tell it is all rebuild, every singal inch.

About 2500 of those ties went in the Southern.

Is it 100 lb rail on the wood ties? I was going to go down there today to see what profile they used. But I was closer to Jamesburg to pick up a deposit for a job and i had some "unfinished business" verifying the rail profile i mentioned on the Amboy secondary on this thread quite a few pages back. You can't read the embossed code because it's pretty much rusted off. I scratched it with spit and a rock to show what i thought was 152 lb rail. Bracdude mentioned that was heavier than the NEC. So i went back and checked today taking a tape measure with me. And boy it is some heavy rail. I compared my measurements to this chart. https://www.txholdings.com/rail_chart.php
What weight do you suppose it is? This is the stretch of track on the Amboy Secondary right across from the Recoil indoor shooting range. What would justify using such a heavy rail?

I could be wrong here...and im sure you'll correct me if i am....

but i seem to remember Kean saying that there was a mill in colorado that had made a bunch of rail for export to Russia...that was now sitting and going nowhere due to the Ukraine war.
So, they were able to get this new rail really cheap. Dimensions just slightly different than what the Class1's use..not good for Class1 heavy rail use (and its stick rail), but OK for a 25 mph shortline.

Thats what i seem to remember...but if i have my facts mixed up...u can bet that the reason they are using what seems like really heavy rail, is cause they got it on the cheap.

pdtrains wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 10:02 pm I could be wrong here...and im sure you'll correct me if i am....

but i seem to remember Kean saying that there was a mill in colorado that had made a bunch of rail for export to Russia...that was now sitting and going nowhere due to the Ukraine war.
So, they were able to get this new rail really cheap. Dimensions just slightly different than what the Class1's use..not good for Class1 heavy rail use (and its stick rail), but OK for a 25 mph shortline.

Thats what i seem to remember...but if i have my facts mixed up...u can bet that the reason they are using what seems like really heavy rail, is cause they got it on the cheap.

the real heavy rail I measured was on the Amboy secondary. Not down here on the freehold to Farmingdale project. I don't believe they are using anything heavier than 132 pound rail . The rail they pulled was 100 pound that looks like they reused on the wood ties. I can see the joint bars on the replacement rail are six hole, the salvaged existing are four hole, https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=63FF4C1F

Kinda says right on it that its 132 lb RE rail. Not sure what all the talk is about...

From the pictures I saw of the wood ties compared to the steel ties, and if half a mile of wood ties for a crossing approach indicates that the speed of the track is 60MPH, it appears that the crossing approach distance they are using is about a quarter of a mile (probably less, I'm guesstimating here), so that means they are building the track up to 25-30MPH standards.

If that track on the Amboy sec has been there a while, they at one time ran some seriously heavy stuff down there. Remember, it was electrified into the 50s, was a major harbor-to-Bordentown/Camden run through Hightstown, as well as connecting to the Northeast corridor near Monmouth Junction when NEC was PRR. I imagine a large amount of coal came down there.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=63FF4C1F
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And like I said for the last year its 39 Foot NOT 50 or 60. Since the the beginning of rail service in America stick rail has been and always will be 39 feet. All do to the length of the standard cars in the beginning 40ft. Only when a piece of track is need to keep the joints separate do they add maybe a 32 foot piece or whatever is around. When doing a planned project smaller pieces will be planned in the work. As seen in photo.
I've been dismissed on this each and every time I've posted!

nd like I said for the last year its 39 Foot NOT 50 or 60. Since the the beginning of rail service in America stick rail has been and always will be 39 feet. All do to the length of the standard cars in the beginning 40ft.

I wonder why starting in, say the 1970s when quantities of used 66ft mill gondolas started getting downgraded to MOW service, that the railroads didn't start ordering 60/62ft lengths of rail for replacement usage when updating/rebuilding sidings, spurs, secondaries? Was it because they had large stocks of 39ft reclaimed from abandoned sidings and spurs? Was it because they needed to ship by truck trailer (limited to 40ft/45ft in that era IIRC). If rolling mills of the era could churn out 1000ft ribbon rail, then surely they could crank out 62ft lengths, and apparently (according to wiki...yeah, I know) they do -

Jointed track is made using lengths of rail, usually around 20 m (66ft) long (in the UK) and 39 or 78ft (12 or 24 m) long (in North America), bolted together using perforated steel plates known as fishplates (UK) or joint bars (North America).

78ft stick rail would likely use flush-deck 89ft flat cars (in the 70s likely downgraded former TOFC flats -
hmm, TOFC is a rather small percentage of intermodal nowadays in North America, and has been for years - shame cause it did look cool).

Well anyway, they could have switched decades ago, probably save themselves some hassle, so why didn't they?