"Thin" rails in Wakefield

walking the rails today by the station in wakefield, the rails are really......thin. i mean the ones on MBTA lines are like very heavy gauge, and was surpised how light they were.

So, wait....
you actually picked one up and hefted it?

no, i mean the rails them selves, arent as thick of a guage as the mbta has on their lines. i was just surprised how thin they were.




oddy enough, theres TONS of rail over there just sitting. i cant believe it. steel is 100 bucks a ton right now to scrap. there must be a few grand just lying off to the side.

Well rail size has drastically changed over the years. Compared to the rail we have in Wolfeboro, NH it is VERY light compared to the rail on the White Mountain Branch, which is light compared to the Northern Main, which is light compared to to MBTA rail.


Now, stick a section of our Wolfeboro rail next to the MBTA rail and its a HUGE difference!

I don't have the track chart on my desk right now for the Western Main, but I can tell you that the difference between 115# and 132# rail is only 1/2" in the base and 1/2" in the height. It's not that outstanding a difference.

tom18287 wrote:oddy enough, theres TONS of rail over there just sitting. i cant believe it. steel is 100 bucks a ton right now to scrap. there must be a few grand just lying off to the side.

on my way.

Also, the Wakefield station is on the Western Main Line (Haverhill) not the Eastern Main Line (Newburyport)

I believe he was talking about the abandoned (?) line from Wakefield to Newburyport.

The rail on the Newburyport Branch (not the Eastern Route ML -- in fact the branch was built to by the B&M to compete with the Eastern for Newburyport traffic) in Wakefield is 85 lb. One exception is the rail at the old Wakefield Center station (now the Omelet Express restaurant) is 131 lb.!

The rail in the current Wakefield station on the Western Route is 115 lb.

The rail height difference between 85 ASCE and 115 RE is 1-1/8" ( 85 is 5-3/16" and 115 is 6-5/8"). The difference in head width is only 5/32".

DAW

>>One exception is the rail at the old Wakefield Center station (now the Omelet Express restaurant) is 131 lb.!

IIRC, many many years ago when I lived in Wakefield, that was the result of a repaving of Water Street and the rails embedded in the street crossing were replaced at the same time.

PBM

GRSGuy wrote:I believe he was talking about the abandoned (?) line from Wakefield to Newburyport.

Gotcha, I didn't realize he was talking about the old station on Water Street