Used train rails crack#

Removal of a rail line is an environmental nightmare And nobody ever complained about railroad electrification using minerals that are toxic to manufacture - it's just steel, copper and aluminum. Heck, the John Bull could celebrate its 150th anniversary by steaming down any random freight line, the Acela line, or indeed, the TGV lines. It's also our best hope for mass intercity transport that is 100% renewable, and remember, French TGV rails are essentially identical to better freight rails.

Rail can move 1 ton of freight 460 miles on 1 gallon of fuel, so this is actually fairly 'eco' conpared to trucks - nevermind that two train crew can move 20,000 tons of freight as opposed to only 80 tons if they were truck drivers.įurther, rail is the only transport mode that lends itself to electrification, so it could clean up as the grid does. Rail moves 40% of America's ton-miles, and is the only way your local Target or Ikea store keeps its shelves stocked. It's typical for your basic suburban NIMBY type to figure that trains are yesterday's news, and all those tracks oughta just dry up and die. But they may have only two Machines in 20,000 miles of track, so they have to wait, wait, wait for the beast's availability. Or simple availability of the machines - it would be insane to pay crews to pick it up by hand when they have a Giant Magnet Machine that can pick it all up while traversing at 10 miles per hour (which matters due to track downtime). Or traffic conditions, railroad is too busy to hand it to MoW forces for an afternoon. That is because of MoW priorities - they need to do work on northern climes while the weather is favorable, so work in Texas may get put on hold for months.

It is SOP in the rail business to pre-position supplies weeks or months in advance, and then take up to a year to pick up the old scrap. On the active railroads (which you should not be walking on, by the way), you're seeing evidence of recent maintenance-of-way. And railroads don't use old rail because it is worn out sort of like putting a bald tire on a car because it can still hold air.ġ00% of all railroad steel is recycled. I can't imagine what you are talking about when you say 'scrap yards are prohibited from buying old rail' other than the length may be a problem to handle without proper equipment. I expect in the US, there is not often enough rail in most areas, so the old rail just goes into steel scrap to be remelted. To convert rebar to rail you heat to about 2100☏ (1149☌, 1422 K) and roll it, this requires a large amount of rail to economically operate serious equipment.

Used train rails crack#

The upside, new rebar is more or less weldable, the rail-rebar would normally crack if welded. Rail does wear-out so there was a steady supply for many years but as rail lines were taken out of service and changed from 2 or 3 tracks to one (because computers can manage scheduling trains going two directions on the same track), the amount of rail available has shrunk.ĪSTM first wrote specification for new steel rebar in the 70's because old rail had met most of the demand up to that time and there was little demand for 'new' rebar. RR rails are hard, that is to say, they have a relatively high carbon content, so they can't be made into just anything.Ĭoncrete rebar WAS a perfect match for old rails, so essentially all old rail became rebar. There is not 'much' left in terms of serious usage. A great tonnage of rail has already been used in the US.