Railroaders' Nostalgia > Question

I worked for the railroad for 32 years.
I ran across an article about a small
four car derailment  in a train yard.
This derailment was bad enough that
they had to use a derrick.In the article
it mentioned second car "shelled" back on.
And final car "retracked" by derrick cars.

I have never heard these terms before.
has anyone else?

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.
 

I Googled "shelled". 

Def. 2: "Having the outer case or cover removed."  For example, "Shelled peas."

-LD

“Shells” refer to “Burlington” style rerailers.  They are held against the rail with clamps and wedges.  The older style Burlington’s needed to be spiked to the ties.

They’re currently available from Aldon or Burlington .

Other rerailer styles are McCartys which are heavier but easier to use than the Burlington’s because you don’t need to dig a hole to get the clamps under the rail.  Also those big triangular types that we never used.

 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/19 15:12 by Ironhand.

Early on in my career with Santa Fe, I worked at Fullerton, California.  The UP Anaheim branch line ran parallel to Santa Fe's main line thru Fullerton.  The UP's local crew would usually park their train on their track near a coffee shop, and walk across our tracks to the restaurant.  Now the Santa Fe used the McCarty frogs for rerailing, which weighed well over 100 pounds each.  They were a bitch to get in place to rerail one axle or even one or two cars.  The UP had magnesium frogs which were more compact and much lighter, mounted on hooks on their engines.  Some how, we ended up with a set of UP magnesium frogs in the Santa Fe freight house in Fullerton.
A week or so after the UP frogs appeared ( Wow we were glad to have them!) the Division Superintendent called and asked if I knew anything about a missing pair of UP frogs.
I told him I didn't recall seeing any.  He loudly told me to replace them on the UP engine that night while the UP crew took their lunch.

Norm

Norman Orfall
Helendale, CA
TIOGA PASS, a private railcar

aronco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Early on in my career with Santa Fe, I worked at
> Fullerton, California.  The UP Anaheim branch
> line ran parallel to Santa Fe's main line thru
> Fullerton.  The UP's local crew would usually
> park their train on their track near a coffee
> shop, and walk across our tracks to the
> restaurant.  Now the Santa Fe used the McCarty
> frogs for rerailing, which weighed well over 100
> pounds each.  They were a bitch to get in place
> to rerail one axle or even one or two cars.  The
> UP had magnesium frogs which were more compact and
> much lighter, mounted on hooks on their engines. 
> Some how, we ended up with a set of UP magnesium
> frogs in the Santa Fe freight house in Fullerton.
> A week or so after the UP frogs appeared ( Wow we
> were glad to have them!) the Division
> Superintendent called and asked if I knew anything
> about a missing pair of UP frogs.
> I told him I didn't recall seeing any.  He loudly
> told me to replace them on the UP engine that
> night while the UP crew took their lunch.
>
> Norm

Sounds like you weren't the first person to have that idea!

Norm, Well the statue of limitations has now passes when working for the WP we had many run through engines from the UP and the WP being poor we would take a set of the UP frogs of UP power we always left them a few units and then when working for a Shortline holding company we did the same thing so that each location had a few of the good frogs, I always looked the McCarty rerailers as they worked well as long as the person using them knew the inside from the outside one. I always marked them so everyone knew. Also use a lot of oil on the frogs to insure the wheels would slide back on the rail. Also has a couple of sets of Burlington frogs but it was always faster to use the McCarty frogs. I do not miss using blocks and frogs to rerail cars