Short Walk Through Time

[J.B. Books]

I used to going hiking with my daughter when she was little on some abandoned lines (and a few active) of the old Boston & Maine RR. We use to look for and collect date nails in the ties. Date nails were used to date the age of wooden ties so that various methods of wood preservation could be determined. The B&M stopped using date nails in the 60's. I can't recall the oldest one I found, definitely have some from the 20's, maybe a few from the teens.

I have not seen a date spike in a tie plate so that may be a unique practice on the RR that ran through your area.

The poundage on the rail is the weight per yard. 85lb is light rail by todays standards. As trains got bigger rail weight got heavier. Lighter rails is still used on sidings and yards where trains are moving slow. I think the standard wieght today on continous welded rail is 139lb. Todays trains can still operate on 85lb rail but they will be going slow.

Along with the Steel Company name you will often see month and year the steel rail was produced. Older rail might be 10 1923 for October 1923 and newer rail might be I I I I 1999for April 1999.

In 2001 the new owners of the B&M mainline completely replaced the rails, most ties and added more stone to the entire line from Boston to Portland Maine. This was done to allow for high speed Amtrak service, 79mph. I was surprised to find a tie in the mainline after this was done with 1925 date. Like our guns the nail was in interesting time traveler to me.

It will be a sad day when we see rails stamped "Bejing Steel and Foundry I I I I I 2011"

[TARNATION !!!]

Thanks Pete: Interesting info. To clarify, the rail plate itself had the molded date on it. I did see the vertical month codes I I I I ...... I'll have to have another look for a numeric month code. Also interesting about the pounds/yard figure and that 85 is considered light today and a train would not be moving very fast on those rails. I have only witnessed a couple trains travelling that line. Speed was not a factor !! The first one was heard long before seen. It was crawling along. I first heard the "whistle" at some great distance and continued to hear it at fairly long intervals. There is a turn in the line about 5 miles from where we hike. Finally saw the train and thought we better remove ourselves from the right of way. We continued the hike in the stubble field. The train finally rolled by. Had a wave to the engineer and he back. But for the noise, we could have had a short conversation. He was taking cars to an elevator to take on a load of peas. I only know that because the next day, there was a continuous line of split peas in the snow along the rails. I wondered how much food was lost due to a leaking car.

One thing about this forum - there is a wide life experience knowledge base to shed light on many subject areas, including rail tie nails

Cheers,
Jack

[TARNATION !!!]

Originally Posted by Pete Lester

...It will be a sad day when we see rails stamped "Bejing Steel and Foundry I I I I I 2011"

You may be predicting the future. We have a Costco close to home. We also have a steel plant that makes various diameter steel pipe from recycled steel (anything but mostly automobiles and rail cars). One day, Costco was having shopping cart corrals installed at several locations in the parking lot. I watched a bit of welding and some painting. I walked by a newly minted corral that had yet to be painted. Clearly imprinted on the steel pipe was "Made in China" Apparently cheaper to bring it in from the opposite side of the planet than a few miles north of the parking lot. Only thinking of the bottom line will be to our societal detriment. But when your competition is utilizing the "cheaper" stuff and your own costs are 3X theirs you either join in or fold. Will be interesting to see how this ultimately plays out. Don't think I will be here to see the end game but it may not be pretty for those who value self-sufficiency.

Cheers???????

Jack