Moving Welded Rail

A couple of years ago, the BN parked a welded rail train across the street from my friend Mike Daly's house. With no one around to stop him, he took a number of photographs of this very specialized equipment. Since MoW equipment is of particular interest to me, he allowed me to copy these photos (and has allowed me to publish them here).

Welded rail is usually carried in quarter-mile lengths, strung across a string of flatcars equipped with roller racks. Each rack is capable of holding 4 or 5 levels of rail, with 8-10 rails per level. These roller racks are mounted on top of 40' or 50' flatcars that are dedicated to this service. While operating together, these cars are coupled normally, and then chained as well, to prevent someone from accidentally splitting a train while rail is on it. That would be a real mess to clean up.

Because the placement of the rail on the rollers will vary as the train winds its way around curves, the rail is bolted down (using special bolt plates that grip the base of the rail) in the middle of the train. This allows the flex to affect the end cars (rather than forcing the middle cars off the tracks if the bolts were at each end).

Some of the roller cars use a single box frame mounted in the middle of the car. Others (like those above) use two smaller racks per car. These racks appear to be home-made in one of the railroad's maintenance shops, rather than made from standardized plans.

Various detail shots of the racks, including a side view of another roller rack style. The rollers are just wide enough for the base of the rail.

Here's yet another roller rack style. Note the toolboxes installed on the tops of each of these racks. They held extra roller assemblies, spikes, wrenches, and miscellaneous stuff associated with track laying.

There's some sort of collapsable frame at the end of a car. I don't know where in the train this car is, so it's hard for me to make a guess at what the function of this is. If you know, please let me know.

Of course, laying continuous welded rail out of quarter-mile pieces means that the rail needs to be welded in the field. While this can be done after the rail is laid, it's preferable to do it using more mechanical means (which are more easily controlled than thermite bombs).

Here's a shot as the rail is being pulled off of the roller racks (after the mid train bolts are loosened) and into the welding machine. The nearby yellow frames move to be able to guide the rail into the proper place.

The welder is a very large piece of machinery, also mounted atop a flat car. On overall view, this shot shows the welder, and the rail guides (see the picture above) between the welder and the rolling racks. Once two sections are welded together, they're moved out behind the welder (to the left, in this picture) and laid on the ground alongside the existing rails.

Some closer shots of the welder.

These are the cars that take the (now) continuous rail from the welder and place it onto the ground. The arms towards the rear of the car (left side) move to place the rail in the right place.

On the BN, these trains are usually powered by one or two of the GP rebuilds (GP39V, E, M) or even unrebuilt GP9 or SD9's. One or more cabooses will be between the engines and the rest of the train. An idler flat will separate the caboose from the first roller car carrying rail. During rail laying operations, the welder will bring up the rear of the train, but in transit additional rail laying equipment may be following the welder.