Date nails!

[NellsChoo]

Can anyone give a little history to the lowly Date Nail? When did they start being used? Were they just to date the age of a tie? When did they stop being used?

Jonelle

[SRS125]

date nails were used to date the age of a section of ties and when they were last replaced they would placed every 3-10 ties or so all they were used for was to mark the date in which a a section of ties went in like the first 80 ties were layed in 1925 the next 60 went in in 1939 and so forth. They most ofton dated when ties were replaced. Some railroads had letters on there date nales which told you the type of tree the tie was made from like O for Oak, P for Popler, C for Ceder ect. I used to collect date nails and have enough to cover from 1915-1939 3 nales from 1915 came from the Lehigh Valley the rest came from a line that went threw an unknowen line in Quinebaug, CT. Here are 2 web pages on date nails.

http://facstaff.uindy.edu/~oaks/DateNailInfo.htm
http://www.fantasticprices.com/DateNail/Railroad.htm

[NellsChoo]

I have seen two small nails with letters. Maybe they are the "type of wood" nails! Must look out for them again...

When did the railroads stop using the nails?

[Delta]

Cool links, SRS. I always wondered about the "X" on one of the date nails I pulled while working Texas.

I actually pulled some 27 date nails in Brownwood, TX back in 97. Hard to believe that 70 year old ties were and probably still are in service.

[SRS125]

I'm not to sure when they stoped useing date nails I'm guessing the late 50's early 60's?? maybe??

[SRS125]

Cool links, SRS. I always wondered about the "X" on one of the date nails I pulled while working Texas.

I actually pulled some 27 date nails in Brownwood, TX back in 97. Hard to believe that 70 year old ties were and probably still are in service.

You would be suprised Delta I can rember seeing some railroads plug the spike holes with wood plugs roll the tie over and reuse it the only thing was that the tie could not be split on the ends or badley cracked if they were they were cast off to the side. Most of these ties would find there way to an industral side track or a branch line that sees little traffic. Even Rail Yards might still have there old original ties as well just rolled over and reused.