Modeling Information
The WWSL
The organization of a gang of fifty-eight men would be about as follows: one flagman out in each direction at all times gang is at work; two men taking up and putting down farm- and highway-crossing timbers and doing other odd jobs; one man looking after tools; four men pulling spikes; three men throwing out old rail; ten men adzing ties; twelve men putting in new rail; two men gaging; two men spiking joints and quarters; four men spiking; six men installing joints; one man handling thermometer and expansion shims; four men unbolting and setting out old rail; one water-boy; . one foreman; two assistant foremen; one timekeeper.
Another type of work train is the rail train. The rail train does one of two things: It either deposits the new welded rail alongside the track where it is to re-place the old rail, or it picks up the old rail that has been replaced, and hauls it somewhere to replace other rail in a siding or some place.
Renewing Rails.-Rail-laying should be started as early in the season as possible in order to be completed ahead of the general track work. It should be done at the recommendation of the supervisor of track, as he is in a better position than any other person to know the condition of the rails on his division. Badly worn rail in main track is dangerous and increases the cost of maintenance work.
The rails should be shipped on flat cars, rails of the same length being loaded together. Rails cut to special length for curves often are painted red on the ends. When the rails are unloaded they should not be placed on the end of the ties or in the ditches, but should be placed on the ballast or edge of roadbed and laid parallel with the track. Dropping rails off a car is a bad practice. When unloaded by hand they should be unloaded with skids from the side of the car or pulled off the end of the ear upon an incline. Unloading by hand costs about twice as much as unloading by machine. Whatever method of unloading is used, the rails must be handled carefully and not allowed to fall on other rails or on hard or uneven ground.
On busy track it is essential that every minor detail be worked out beforehand and that every man knows exactly what he is expected to do. The work can be done more economically if traffic can be diverted to another track while rail is being laid. Usually this is impossible. On some roads the frequency of trains allows only about 15 or 20 min. of continuous work, and at the end of that time the line of rails must be bottled up to provide an unbroken path for the train. Rail laying is a menace to traffic because it necessitates making a break in the track. At all times the foreman must be in touch with the train dispatcher and flagmen must be kept out in each direction. The use of switchpoints to make temporary connections between the new and old rail is often resorted to. It is not a safe practice and is not allowed on many railways. All defective ties should be renewed at the same time the rail is renewed and the track properly lined and surf aced as soon as possible after the rail is laid.
In removing the old rail two lines of spikes are drawn, if the old and . new rails have the same section. Some supervisors draw the two inner lines of spikes and throw both old rails in. Others remove the two outer lines and throw both old rails out, while still others remove one inner and one outer line of spikes and throw one rail in and the other out. If switchpoints are used for temporary connections both rails must be thrown out. If the new rail is of different section from the old, three lines of spikes must be drawn. As soon as the old rail is removed, the spike-holes are plugged and the ties arc adzed to give an even bearing for the new rail. The new rails are then laid singly, allowing for expansion as discussed in Art.the track is gaged, the splice-bars are applied with half the full number of bolts, and the rail is spiked to the shoulder-ties and second ties, sometimes to alternate ties. If the work is being done by a small gang the same gang will return later in the day and fully bolt all joints and spike all rails. If the gang is large it will be divided into squads which follow each other and perform the various parts of the work. The bolts of all joints should be carefully tightened to as near the same tension as possible in order to insure an equal movement of the rails when expanding or contracting.
As soon as one or two new rails are in place the old rail is unbolted and placed on the roadbed outside the track. On very busytrack it may be necessary to bolt up a string of rails on the ends of the ties and throw in the entire string at one time, instead of laying the rails singly. The wor-train should follow closely after the rail-laying gang and should pick up the old rails, together with all scrap, and leave the right-of-way clean.
It is even more economical to load than to unload the rails by machine. Before being loaded the old rails should be inspected for defects and all defective rails should be kept separate from the relay rails. The rails should be loaded in the order in which they were removed and when relaid an effort should be made to lay them in as near the original sequence as possible. In order to secure this result the rails sometimes are numbered with chalk or paint.
When renewing rails the general practice in the past has been to shift the joint-and shoulder-ties to correspond to the standard spacing of ties at joints, because the nw joints practically never coincide with the old joints. The practice requires a large amount of extra work and disturbs the condition of the track to such an extent that a large amount of maintenance is required afterward to bring it back to its former condition. There is a growing tendency on the part of maintenance of way engineers to let the joints fall where they may without respacing the joint-ties. This is now being done on the Lehigh Valley, Pittsburgh and Lake Eric, and Illinois Central. The results have been most satisfactory. The cost of renewing rails is considerably reduced, the track is not disturbed, and more time and money are available for general maintenance and improvement of the track. Also it makes it possible to lay the rail in the winter when other track work cannot be done, and hence allows muchmore time in the summer season for other work.
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