Western Railroad Discussion > What Does it Mean?

Seems like the UP has had MOW projects going on here all the time—except maybe during the winter months—for the last couple of years. Looks like 2021 won’t be an exception. There’s signal masts and other signal material spread out here and there so I guess they have a signal project of some kind scheduled. Then about a month ago this pile of rail showed up. I would guess they are going to replace some joints. But what does all the various writing mean that’s on the rail? Thanks.
 

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When joining new rail to old the heads of both rails must line up exactly.
An example would be when installing new prefabricated insulated joints made of new rail in a track with some amount of rail.
Other times some new 136 lb rail may be installed on a curve while leaving older, but still good 133 lb rail on the tangent.
These are "compromise rails", they do the same thing as the old cast or forged steel compromise joints.
Nobody wants to install bolted joints in heavy tonnage track.
These should permit the welders, when lining up the rail ends to make a field weld, to get very good matches of the rail heads.

Yup, note the height measurement which is close to the SP 112# spec and note of "worn" which will give you a good
height match to similarly worn 133#. Good stuff, beats trying to shim!

Out 

What is "Nortrak"? I've seen this on rail welds on Donner as well.

donner_dude1 Wrote:
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> What is "Nortrak"? I've seen this on rail welds on
> Donner as well.

https://www.voestalpine.com/nortrak/en/