Date Nails

[dummy]

on sunday while wandering around the rails in the southerntier along the old erie line, i found several nails in the ties with numbers on them. 54, 41 most of them were. does anyone know what these are?

[2nd trick op]

These are tie date nails, placed in the ties when first installed to indicate the year of replacement. Not all railroads used them, but there is a small fraternity of collectors dedicated excusively to that segment of our hobby.

[dummy]

i didnt think those ties would last that long. 41 was a long time ago. i thought ties only lasted 30 or 40 years in the northeast.

[Train70]

Found several 1917 nails on the Erie ( NY&LE) south of Gowanda a few years back,hows that for longevity.

[dummy]

where is this club? do they have a website?

[CAR_FLOATER]

http://fantasticprices.com/DateNail/Rai ... m#jeffoaks

[Otto Vondrak]

on sunday while wandering around the rails in the southerntier along the old erie line, i found several nails in the ties with numbers on them. 54, 41 most of them were. does anyone know what these are?

If you were close enough to the tracks to see date nails, you were probably putting yourself in harm's way. Please, stay off active railroad tracks.

[RedLantern]

on sunday while wandering around the rails in the southerntier along the old erie line, i found several nails in the ties with numbers on them. 54, 41 most of them were. does anyone know what these are?

If you were close enough to the tracks to see date nails, you were probably putting yourself in harm's way. Please, stay off active railroad tracks.

Even being around inactive or abandoned railroad tracks can still be trespassing.

[JimBoylan]

When I was working on The Shore Fast Line in 1983 between Pleasantville and McKee City, N.J., there were still 3rd rail ties in use. The electric trains had stopped running by 1931!
Philadelphia & Western Rwy. used tie date nails at least as late as 1964, probably until South Eastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority took over about 1970.

[NY&LB]

http://community-2.webtv.net/nailernews/NailerNewscom/

ERIE used date nails from from 1910 through 1958 with the exception of 1919 and 1955 (where they used a roofing nail!)

DL&W used date nails from 1910 through 1958 as well but NOT all the same types as used by the ERIE; DL&W did not used date nails in the following years : 1935 to 1940 and 1953 to 1957. I have found 1911 nails on discarded ties over the side of the cutoff in NJ.

AT&SF was the most prolific user of date nails, using them from 1901 through 1970.

If you want more info on date nails, PM me...I have thousands!

[scharnhorst]

I pulled several date nails from ties on a long Abandoned NYNH&H Line in Quninbog, CT about 14 years ago the rails, ties, and all crossing gates and lights were all in place but the line had been closed for 30 some odd years as the last costomer a paper mill had closed down. The line was vary much overgrown with trees and wash outs. The line was fully removed 2 or 3 years ago and turned into a bike trail.

[rob216]

I was able to recover about 20 date nails from one of the line that I do track work on. All of the ones I got are all stamped 58, and most of those ties still look in decent shape. But we still did pull the ties out for replacement. There are still a bunch down there that I didn't get do to the time I had out there working. Glad I was able to save the ones I could.

[scharnhorst]

I saved 2 dates nails from the Lehigh Valley line along Owasco Lake that went from Auburn to Sayre both dated 1917. I had to cut a cross a few fields to get to the hedgerow where the ROW was.