Railroad Track Anchors

[ollie]

Gawd!  I have 3 pcs. of it at the house.  Can't remember where they all came from either.  I through it in the back of the truck when it gets slick outside!

[jdmidwest]

Makes a good anvil too.  Farm auctions are a good place to look.

[marcus]

12 hours ago, Foghorn said:

Wife and I walk in one of the local state parks that had the old M&I yards thru the area. Several places have sections of 30' rail abandoned along the hiking trail. Doubt they would sell it though plus you'd have to cut it to get it back to a vehicle.

i see them all over the woods at the conservation areas around st.louis

[ollie]

Flea market booths are another place to look for them.  Now that I think about it. I can't really remember where ours came from.  Here and there I suppose.  If you look around enough you will find them.

[Foghorn]

When it gets real hot in the summer and the rail gets "sun kinks" they will cut the rail in pieces that would often  be an appropriate size for a anchor. They leave that piece laying as it is of no further use to the railroad. From my view of the weather today it could be a while before they need to do that.You can usually find small pieces of rail along the right of way if you live close enough to the tracks. 

[Ham]

From personal experience,  The pieces of rail weigh a LOT more than they look like they weigh.

[Foghorn]

Ham, you are correct as a 1' section of main track 158# rails would be over 50 #. Even the old 90# rail would be 30# for a one foot section! 

[Ham]

I made a trip to Virginia to fish smallies with a buddy on the New River. We stayed in a cabin right on the river. the road to the cabin ran alongside a railroad track which was very active. There was lots of repair debris along the sides of the track. So I'm easing down the road to the cabin and a 5 plus foot piece of track had been thrown down and ended up stretched across the road. I saw it and decided I would get it out of the road. I bent down and went to snatch it up and basically nothing happened. I was able to get it where I wanted it, but my idea that this was gonna be easy was in error.

[Chief Grey Bear]

1 hour ago, Foghorn said:

Ham, you are correct as a 1' section of main track 158# rails would be over 50 #. Even the old 90# rail would be 30# for a one foot section! 

Not to butt in, but, they don't make 158# rail. Not in the US. The largest was 141# but production of that ceased when it was not cost efficient. Most rail lines operating over 1M gross tons annually, which is not really that much in the grand scheme, mostly use 132# or 136#. 

[Foghorn]

And Chief is correct as I was going on memory which isn't very good after being retired for almost 3 years. Did see on the internet where they had some 155# rail years ago but that didn't work out. Most of my dreams about the railroad involve derailing cars or trains-they might be nightmares.