105 Lackawanna Tie Plates

Looking at some former DL&W track, I notice that they used a double shoulder plate for 131#? rail, and punched it for use with 105# rail.

Anybody know anything about this? Is this a good practice ?
It appears that is gives a larger seat area, but only really acts as a single shoulder plate in this application.

CJ,
I know almost nothing about track, but I can relate an opinion I heard.
Last September at the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society meeting in Jamestown, NY, the keynote speaker at the dinner was Bill Burt of LAL/WNY&P. He related how the Erie, for budgetary reasons, used a smaller tie plate while the DL&W used the one you must be describing. As a result, the Erie's smaller footprint caused more damage to ties with the more concentrated weight cutting into the wood. This was causing a headaches on the WNY&P and BB wished EL had adopted the DL&W plate.

There is nothing wrong with re-punching tie plates for smaller rail. I take it that the 105 DL rail was relaid somewhere by Erie Lackawanna. A lot of that rail was released from rail projects on the M&E in the late 1960's, were new 105 DL CWR replaced 105 DL jointed rail. The older 105 was cascaded down to the P&D (Gladstone) Branch to replace much older 101 DL jointed rail, and I think some of the older tie plates, at least on curves, were replaced with the repunched 131 RE plates. 101 and 105 DL rail had the same base dimensions, but I think some of the 101 DL on the P&D had either older single-shoulder plates, or the unusual DL&W screw spike construction.

Before the EL merger, the DL&W had begun a standard of using 18 inch 131/132 RE tie plates on the low side of heavy-traffic curves. I forget what was the width of standard DL&W 131/132 RE double-shoulder plates for tangents and high rails - either 14 or 16 inches. At any rate, they were far superior to the Erie single shoulder plates for either 110/112/115 or 130/131/132 lb rail. The Erie used cut spikes for rail holding, and screw spikes at the corners of the plates, but they were harder on the ties and didn't hold line and gauge nearly as well as the DL&W standard plates.

The Erie also had a standard of slotted joint bars, with notches in the skirts of the bars that were supposed to be filled with a spike (through the tie plate, as well). The theory was that the spikes in the slots were to prevent the rail from running longitudinally, but they were not sufficient to do that. Most of the time, the only result was the joint ties slewing and messing up the gauge (tighter), or the joints would crack at the slots.

The Erie Lackawanna adopted DL&W standards for those components soon after the merger, but the Erie stuff remained for decades. As Bill Burt reminds us, it still haunts the railroad. I cannot imagine why the Erie kept those standards for years after they were proven useless. The DL&W and the D&H were far ahead in that regard, and the results were there for anyone to see.

But no one is perfect. The D&H replaced a lot of 90 lb rail with 112 RE during WW II, and they didn't have new tie plates. They repunched the old 90 lb single shoulder plates for the 112 RE rail. It really did a job on the ties until the plates could be replaced in later decades.

Thanks Chief,

What is involved in repunching plates ?
Why did DL&W have so many in inventory to repunch ?

I understand the larger plate, but in the case of the 105# rail, you are still getting essentially a single shoulder plate, correct ?

What is the guiding criteria for double shoulder plate use ?

You run the the plates through a punch press, with a jig that catches the back and leading edges. A square punch comes down, through the plate and into a square hole along with the slug that was punched out of the base of the plate. It's the same process that is used for punching new plates.

The DL&W removed many miles of 131 RE rail, and it was relaid in many locations that already had 6-inch plates. Thus the surplus 6-inch plates. They could also be reused for 6-inch rail later if necessary.

Double shoulder plates are better, if you can get them, in track with higher speeds or heavy traffic, but in the case of 105 DL rail, it was normally relaid on lighter traffic lines where the bigger base on the 131 plates worked very well to extend tie life. Yes, the 6-inch plates (meaning in this case the base width of the rail) repunched for 105 DL rail acted just like single shoulder plates because the gauge side shoulder did not contact the edge of the rail base. But they had a large bearing surface on the tie.

101 DL and 105 DL rail both had a 5-3/8 base, and that is uncommon. New plates would probably have to be rolled on a special order, and that would have been more expensive than re-punching the 6 inch plates.