railroad track weldability?

[HMW]

Very interesting GMAW and fat fab. I have never heard of that but sounds cool. i have seen the grenades work and man can they melt stuff, They dont really explode like a real grenade either so I can imagine what your talking about. You wouldn't happen to have any pics of track welded like that. Sounds cool

[Bmxin^Bjorn]

he is using the ripper for a extremely harsh mining enviroment up north.

[rktompsett]

About 20 years ago I bought a 9 foot length of track rail at a scrap yard for the threshold of my pole barn door. As the yard guy was torch cutting it to my length he told me that rail is harden on the top (where the train rides) and softer in the web and base so cutting was a bit difficult on the harden surface.

[Sberry]

I have welded several things to it with 7018, heat first, its thick.

[Craig in Denver]

You wouldn't happen to have any pics of track welded like that. Sounds cool

Google "thermite railroad track welding", there's youtube videos.

[spotsineyes]

...to weld this stuff you need magnesium rod...

Manganese. Rails are manganese steel.

[ctrhenry]

having spent considerable time i the rail weld shop here in Nashville i can share this much. They butt weld ( resistance) 88 ft sections to make 1/4 mile lengths that are either resistance welded by machine in the field or thermite welded.

track comes in numerous grades. the best quality rail comes from japan.


the head ( thick section at top ) comes in varying degrees of hardness and
how much is hardened, some the whole head is hardened some just the top surface 1/2" deep

the better quality rail is used in the turns and at switches and crossings.


legally all R.R. rail is property of a rail line and none is commercially available even in scrap yards. likely what you can find is crane rail. which is the same but different.

If you show up at a scrap yard with sections of railroad track the FBI will come to see you.

[FusionKing]

If you show up at a scrap yard with sections of railroad track the FBI will come to see you.

Yea they busted me for copying vhs tapes

Seriously tho if I HAD RR rail I would not be dumb enuff to SCRAP them!!

BTW 88 ft!!! I would love to bring them to the scrapper just to see everyones reactions (except the FBI)

[ctrhenry]

watching them buttwelded together using 12 volts and 20k amps is amazing.

makes a heck of a flash around the weld when it shoves them together.


the cars that the 1/4 mile rails go on are really interesting.

pretty interesting to see how the sausage is made. you can see the 88 foot pieces stacked in the yard and the cars being loaded with finished rail

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie...vnh_0KxlV4q5ig

[WyoRoy]

legally all R.R. rail is property of a rail line and none is commercially available even in scrap yards. likely what you can find is crane rail. which is the same but different.

If you show up at a scrap yard with sections of railroad track the FBI will come to see you.

Hmmm...must come from the part of the country you're in. RR rail is readily available here at the local scrap yard. The RR sells their scrap sections to them quite regularly. If I had a use for it, and I don't, I'd head down to the office of the Roadmaster at the depot and talk him out of as much as I need out of his scrap pile prior to the next load going out. Haven't needed to do that since needing a couple of yards of the stuff for weight when I had to drive my old Ford van back to Minn. mid-winter to pick up my mother-in-law after she recovered from surgery for a brain aneurysm. The rail is useless for anything of a structural nature as it is quite limber...place both ends of a section of rail a foot and a half above the ground and 15' apart and it will sag to the ground in the middle...makes it easy to do curve re-lays. Running a ribbon rail train of 1/4 mile sections...50-80 sticks...is quite entertaining. You get to watch the rail pliantly follow the grade changes and curves as you go down the track.

They used to wire-feed and grind the switch points and frogs when they wore out, but I believe there were problems with health issues in the manganese welding process and now the weld and grind work is done quite sparingly.

Except for making nice bookends in short sections I'd leave the rail for better alternatives out of the scrap yard.