I presume the title of this thread is supposed to read "Continuously Welded Rail / Thermite", not "Rate". Autocomplete can be a terrible thing. A colleague says it's quicker than his spouse at completing his sentences for him....
There's a lot more to thermite rail welding than can be condensed into a half hour video, but this seems to be a decent introductory dive into the topic. Suffice it to say that welding rail is not a DIY project.
Quote:
An article on exothermic rail welding in which the word 'Boutet' is never mentioned.
That's because the producers of the video were working with people from Orgothermit, a Boutet competitor. Incidentally, in North America, the Boutet rail welding product line is now being sold by Pandrol.
Here at Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, we thermite welded about 1,200 linear feet of relay-grade 128 pound girder groove rail as part of our East Campus project. This is track that's embedded in our Volunteer Boulevard and we didn't want to deal with the potential maintenance issues of that many bolted joints in pavement. Welding also provided 100% electrical continuity for traction power negative return. Our trackwork contractor subcontracted the rail welding work to a fellow named Ron Michaels, a one-man business based in northwestern Pennsylvania. While Ron personally prefers working with Orgothermit products, the rail welding kits for our job came from Pandrol (nee Railtech Boutet, located in St. Jerome, PQ) as they are the only vendor who currently has the tooling to make ceramic welding molds to fit the now-obsolete 128 pound girder rail. Ron was indifferent, as he routinely works with both brands. (He also does stick welding repairs to worn frogs and switch points.)
The results have been completely satisfactory. I expect the softer metal in the heat affected zones (HAZ) might someday develop batter and begin sounding like jointed rail, but that's likely two or three decades out, so it will be PTM's Next Generation who will be addressing it, not me. Incidentally, there are post-welding heat treatments now available to bring the hardness of the HAZ up to that of the parent metal and the weld metal, but the necessary equipment won't fit over the 6-inch wide head of the girder rail.
/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.
Director of Engineering
Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, Inc.
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