Where do you buy your metal stock?

[ArlyA]

Dumb question, Why do they have 2 different styles of rail?

If you go to the salvage yard, you'd likely see many rail weights.

 

[Big Barn]

Dumb question, Why do they have 2 different styles of rail?

More dumb questions. Does this mean there is only one style of train wheel and it will run on any style / weight track ? Or?

 

[Peter 315]

More dumb questions. Does this mean there is only one style of train wheel and it will run on any style / weight track ? Or?

Main line track is the heavier rail , secondary track , rail siding the lighter rail

 

[ArlyA]

More dumb questions. Does this mean there is only one style of train wheel and it will run on any style / weight track ? Or?

As far as I know, the height grows and the stem becomes thicker, as the weight goes up. All wheelset's can still use them.

 

[yomax4]

I used to sell Victor torches to the railroad repair guys. They would also do a strange type of weld on them. Most of all though I think they shot a lot of pheasants out there. Ahh, there goes the thread.

 

[Big Barn]

Thanks guys! I learned something new

 

[dragoneggs]

Rail - weigh your 1 foot pieces, multiply by 3, that should be the number (that isn't :=) on your pieces. Rail on this continent is rated by weight per yard.
(if your piece weighs just over 20 pounds (slightly longer than a foot) it'd be 60 pound rail, etc... Steve

Okay they weighed out at 18.7 and 37.0 lbs using my wife's bathroom scale that I hauled out the shop while she wasn't looking (cooking dinner yeah late one!). So doing some math and figuring 12.25in length, 54.95 and 108.7. I am theorizing then 60lb and 110lb rail?

 

[BukitCase]

Google-fu strikes again, take your pick

RAIL SPECIFICATIONS

'nuther fun tidbit
Was standard railroad gauge (4’81/2”) determined by Roman chariot ruts? – The Straight Dope

Snopes claims not, but they've been wrong a fair amount... Steve

 

[BrokenTrack]

Okay they weighed out at 18.7 and 37.0 lbs using my wife's bathroom scale that I hauled out the shop while she wasn't looking (cooking dinner yeah late one!). So doing some math and figuring 12.25in length, 54.95 and 108.7. I am theorizing then 60lb and 110lb rail?

Close...there is 30 pound (old days), 60 pound, and 115 pound.

When I worked for UP/BNSF we used 136 pound rail, and of course CWR or Continuously Welded Rail, which was using the Thermite Welding process. It uses chemical heat of magnesium to make aluminum powder and other metals carbon-loving, to bring in the steel into the gap and fill it.

As for ties: I have seen them all. Plastic, wood, steel, concrete and composite. Wood always worked the best. Steel the worst. Concrete okay, but got destroyed during derailments.

A perfect wheel, on perfect rail means the wheel and top of the rail has contact 1/2 an inch wide. The contact between the flange and inside of the rail in perfect conditions (new rail, and new wheel) is .175 of an inch...or just a little more than 1/8th of an inch. In other words, there is not a lot of contact. I thought of that sometimes, sitting on a high railer (pick up with rail wheels) at a 60 mph switch with a 15,000 ton trail barreling headlong at me and only .175 of an inch holding it all to the rail as it shifted from my track to the other track!

 

[BrokenTrack]

I use a steel supplier, but they charge so much per cut, that it is just as cheap to buy a whole length of steel, as four feet of it because of the cost of cutting it. It is crazy.