Breaking a rail with a hammer and chisel would be noisy and take a long time, so is apt to draw unwelcome attention - and you wouldn't be able to guarantee just when it would break.

A variation on this, used on english bullhead rail, was to nick the rail all the way round, then use a jim crow rail bender to make the rail snap.

I have come across old rails which were cut this way and while the break was clean, it was not necesarily square.

I have seen scrapmen use to use a similar method- cut the head with a gas axe and then hit the rail with a sledgehammer. I'm told it works better on a frosty morning.

I have used a hand operated rail saw, around twenty years ago. It clamped to the rail and there was a long handle linked to a saw frame which took a 24 inch machine saw blade. We used to wire a pair of fishplates (joint bars) to the frame to make it bite better. It took around 800 strokes to cut a rail and this contraption was known as "99 change hands".

We had bought some third hand rail with no fishplates available. It turned out to be Great Western Railway. As usual they had their own way of doing things and their fishbolt spacing was different, so we wound up sawing half an inch off each end of each rail....we stuck it quite a while before we went out and bought a petrol saw.

Tim

It was just 1 chisel strike, to nick the base, and then 20 loud hammer blows, not the rolling force of wheels and traffic. Maybe a flat wheel at high speed under a heavy car could give the blow, but it would have to be very near the nick, and repeated near the same spot.

While replacing broken rail in yard 4 at Proviso the section forman showed me how to cut rail with a chisel faster than a gas powered abrasive saw . His men set up a 100 RE rail on the ground with one man placing the wood handled chisel on the head and another man striking it squarely. It had to be perfect with each placement of the chisel and strike of the sledge. The rail would be rolled by a third man while the chisel marks continued on a slight over lapping path on the web, base, webs other side and back to the starting point on the head. Then they placed an angle bar about 10 inches from the scored line and with rail that was to be removed free of ground contact the forman swung the sledge one time not to hard , hit the rail and with a ring the short piece dropped to the ground. He turned to me and smiled and his crew nodded. These people were of another time , the late twenties , thirties and forties. But with powered saws you can cut rail with two or even one person. They new what was coming, much smaller gangs. They are all gone now , but I still remember. Mark S.

Hi Mark,

In your account above, where was the sledge blow directed on the rail?

I remember DD recounted seeing similar when he worked for the Santa Fe in the sixties... he mentioned after the rail was scored with the chisel, the foreman dumped ice water from the water can on the intended location of the cut (and he said this step must have been IMPORTANT for the crew to give up ice water) then walked to the other end of the rail, and smacked it squarely on the end. The shock wave ran the length of the rail, and when it cam to the score, the rail fractured cleanly and the short piece dropped off.

I always wanted to give it a try, but the torch was faster for the junk yard rail we were always using.

Hey Torch


Squarely on the head furthest from the scoring. It was important to do each step correctly. The foreman always did the last step. It was amazing how clean and square the end of the rail was. No cold water was used but it was northern Illinois late Fall 1976. I was at that age when all of this was neat and exciting and remember it well. But I don't remember if I locked the front door or not 10 minutes ago. As a side note about rail in those times if you hit the base while spiking the foreman would have a fit and change out the rail with another good one because you just compromised the one you hit. The rail would now be more likely to break at that nick especially with weak tie support and/or a nearby impact of a wheel with a flat spot. That is also why you can't let a steel tracked crawler cross your rail without protection " old tires, etc" . We're talking about mainline here but it's good to carry these practices into your yards. Much of this nicking, scoring, gouging goes unnoticed now adays till a rail fails. Mark S

Hey Dennis

I just left a retirement party for a CNW/UP General Track Foreman with 44 years of service in the Dekalb area. He said he cut a heck of a lot of rail using a chisel. He'd score the head, web and base but not the underside of the base then hit the very end of the rail and it would drop off. Apparently my memory is flawed. Mark S.

In either version, does the underside of the head get chiseled?

Steve

I seem to remember hearing about a wreck on the L&N where this happened. A car which was an antique back then was in the middle of a train. Only that one car derailed and rolled, the rest of the entire train was upright and the crew were shocked when they walked the length.

Rob this is the main reason I think as to why the British OSS or American Forces didn't chisel away at enemy lines. A lot easier to use large amount of explosives or bombs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-8gV4DJZUw

Hi Steve

I should'nt speculate on this foremans chiseling procedures so I'll post his answer as soon as I talk to him. Mark S.

I don't want to steal Mark's thunder, and am very interested myself in what his retired track foreman friend has to say, but it's been my experience with materials that are commonly cut via the score and fracture technique (glass, cast iron pipe) that any gaps in the score allow the crack to run someplace where you'd rather it didn't go.

All the old rail chisels I've seen have been ground with rounded corners, so it is certainly possible to score the underside of the head, the fillet between the head and web, and the fillet between the web and base.

At IRM forty or so years ago we had someone who insisted rail could be cut by sawing part way through the head, then starting a saw cut in the tip of each side of the base. I don't know if he was ever successful. The attempt I saw, the fracture ran pretty straight down through the web, then back at a 45* angle through the base. Not pretty.

From the trade press of the day:

Practical track maintenance
By Kenneth L. Van Auken

http://books.google.com/books?id=fr83AAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA116&ots=jPBJcWD2x3&dq=cutting%20rail%20with%20rail%20chisel&pg=PA115#v=onepage&q=cutting%20rail%20with%20rail%20chisel&f=false

Railway Engineering and Maintenance - Volume 15, Issue 8 - Page 264

http://books.google.com/books?id=8IUfAQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA265&ots=8cwoHgmkeT&dq=cutting%20rail%20with%20rail%20chisel&pg=PA264#v=onepage&q=cutting%20rail%20with%20rail%20chisel&f=false

Hey Torch

What you got there is perfect. It tells different ways to chisel rail and I would think that every good foreman would have "HIS" way of doing it! Go BLACK HAWKS. Mark S.