Date Nails

Date Nails haven't been used in years. How do the Railroads keep track of how old a section of track & ties are ?

Generally better record keeping and having rotating schedules where sections of ties are scheduled to be all replaced at a certain time.

Thank You Ian for your response. I wasn't sure if the railroads used a different method of tracking like paperwork or computer.

From experience they change ties as they wear out like anything else. I work on a ''secondary main'' and I found a 49 date nail on the main line. Yards are a good place to find them. I have seen a few from 54-56 in our yard where I work.

On the two lines that our speeder club maintains, and on New England Southern we have a CRAP load of date nails. Most of ties are from the 30's-50's, with a few 70's here and there. I have a bunch in my collection.

I have date nails from the following railroads:

Lehigh Valley 1917 (Moravia, NY-Auburn, NY) Branch. I only have 2 date nails.

New York Central as well as some New York New Haven & Hartford nails with the following dates: 1925, 1927, 1930, 1931, 1933, 1935, 1936, 1938, and 1939. In all I have about 30 date nails.

Most of the info that you are looking for on the replacement of ties can be found in a Railroad Maintaince Program Book. On occation a stray Conrail one pop's up on e-bay. These books tell you every thing about the divition in which the book covers. info in these books tells you things such as:

*# of ties in a section
*Rail waight
*year rail bed was undercut
*year rail was last grinded
*location of underground utilitys (public & priviate as well as R.R.)
*Location and M.P. number location for signals, grade crossings and bridges.

I have several hundred date nails from The New Haven and Maine Central Railroads that go back to 1922 , I found only several out of all of them that the Date Nail head was Perfectly SQUARE in shape, the nail head is very thick and very well defined and is dated from 1922-1930 comming from a New Haven rail yard Brockton, Mass near my home. Can anyone explain the rare square head design? I want to again state the head is vry square and not fron hitting the head of it with a hammer or trick photography.I,ll be happy to scan one of these or photo it and post it on my Webshots page so you can view it. THANK YOU

There were some Railroads that had Nails with letters on there heads which Reported the type of wood that the ties were made of. I my self have never seen these but have been told about them.

I discovered some MEC RR tie tacks that had the name of the company that was hired to do segments of the line between a-b stamped onto the head itself. The tie tack they used was about a inch long and there must be records of what the company was paid to do. The last year stamped MEC tie tacks I have are from and stamped " 74 '

There were also communication pole date nails. I found two such over the years, both made of copper. One was on the old Lehigh Valley Railroad in New York State and the the other on the Milwaukee in Illinois.

I have found Date Nails from 1922 thru 1931 & wish the railroads would do more with them .

Ian MacMillan wrote:On the two lines that our speeder club maintains, and on New England Southern we have a CRAP load of date nails. Most of ties are from the 30's-50's, with a few 70's here and there. I have a bunch in my collection.

Where did you find date nails from the 70's?
The good-old (pre-Guilford) B&M started using them in 1924 and discontinued them in 1958.

I had some spare time this morning and collected some date nails. I guess they were ATSF nails since thats had to be who put the ties in. I found a 30, 39, 47, 49, 53, 54, and 57. There were tons of 53,54, and 57's but only a few of the older ones. Prior to today I had never seen date nails on a main track.

I,ve come upon some type of Date Nail ( Tie Tack ) which is about 1 1/4 " long, has a 1/2" diameter head with " P-K " stamped in the center of it. The " P-K " stamping is enclosed within a rectanglular area about the size of a pencil eraser.. There are several types of ways it was stamped on the head as well. I have only found these on the Maine Central Line up in The Notch. What can anyone tell me about what the P-K stands for? Thanks.

Over the years the railroads experimented with various chemical preservatives to prolong the life of ties. These treated ties would have a nail with a number or letter code on the head to indicate what preservative it was treated with.