Eastern Railroad Discussion > Rail defects. what caused this?

I was wondering how defects like this happen? It is on the old C&O mainline (CXST) a few miles east of Clifton Forge, Virginia. The rail is 132lb 1949 vintage. There was only these two as far as I could see and they were about 30-40 feet apart. Tom

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Here's a location picture. It's MP273 and a nice place for a smoke break on a trip to Kentucky last weekend. Unfortunately no traffic for my short stop this time. Tom

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Rail Burn. Locomotive slipped got the rail hot. Lost its temper and cracked out like that.
When a wheel does it its called spalling. Im not sure about rail. should have been one on the other rail also.

It's an engine burn fracture. Caused, as has been said, when a locomotive looses traction and spins it's drivers. I've seen some on an old branchline spaced for steam engine.

More from UP's Track Maintenance Field Handbook: An engine burn fracture is a progressive fracture starting at the spot where locomotive driver wheels have slipped on top of the rail head. When these fractures spread downward, they resemble compound or transverse fissures.

Direct hit from a howitzer projectile?
Gonut

There are two mainlines running east out of Clifton Forge. One is now the Buckingham Branch. Which one is this? Might be the reason you didn't see anything.

It is an engine burn but not a situation where the rail was tempered. Tempering steel is actually a process that softens the material.

In the case of a burn, the material is heated due to the friction to red heat or higher at the contact point. When the wheel stops spinning the cold steel of the rail behind the hot spot quenches the hot spot as efficently as pouring cold water on it. The result is a glass-hard spot that actually needs to be tempered to soften it somewhat.

After this the rest is history. The hardened material starts to crack, chip and spauld out resulting in the burn mark. Depending upon the severity of the burn the rail may require replacement. The burned rail in the photos likely needed to be replaced.

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What kind of an idiot would leave an engine sit and let this happen, back off of the throttle to notch 0 or shut off the unit..DUH...

I don't know but it looks like a CSX engine and a CSX pickup truck. Might be a logical explanation like vandalism. I don't know any engineer in his right mind who do something like that.

NSDTK Wrote:
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> Rail Burn. Locomotive slipped got the rail hot.
> Lost its temper and cracked out like that.
> When a wheel does it its called spalling. Im not
> sure about rail. should have been one on the other
> rail also.

The burn patterns can be interesting. One time I came upon a burn pattern in 1920s-vintage rail had been clearly left by an eight-drivered steam locomotive.

Bob

in reference to nitewatchmens photos, i believe and have heard that those pictures were taken when remote control was being initiated, and said idiot would be a crew member somewhere down the length of the train who wasn't used to the technology yet. At least that was my understanding of those pics when i read about them, they are on the anti csx website and i think it gives the story behind them.

I also think that is true.

Note that there are only 3 axles that burned. It could be that a traction motor was cut out and then the wheel slip alarms were not working.
KC