Eastern Railroad Discussion > White marking on tracks...

Saw this tonight at Cooke Rd. (Columbus, OH) about 20ft north of the crossing. Second white mark about 150ft north of that on the same rail. No similar marks as far as the eye could see.

They did just come through with the ballast train a week and a half ago - and mid week the dumped a bunch of ties down the Sandusky Line (photos of that later).

Anyway, I've seen the white spray paint that track quality vehicles put on the side of the rails and this seems different.

I'm wondering what this usally means to an NS MOW crew.

Thanks,
Mark

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That is a tie that needs to be replaced,SR practice that is for years too.

CSX has been using yellow on the ex CR trackage. On some of the ex, C&O I think it is yellow and orange.

whats up john ? whats new at the steak haus ?

A tie gang between Syracuse and Rochester was using red/orange paint to mark ties for replacement.

I've seen places on NS where blue paint is sprayed on the side of the rail. Are different colors used for different purposes?

ags wrote:
> That is a tie that needs to be replaced,SR practice that is
> for years too.

Well... look at this... I only saw two white marks in maybe a half-mile of tracks.

Lots more ties than white marks - but not enough ties to replace them all.

Anyway, looks like I'll have fun watching the work! Any idea as to when it might begin?

My fellow local railfans said it could take a month. Others speculated less time for fear of tie theft.

And another question - how accurate are they in the number of ties they drop off? Is it pretty close to what they need, or do they dump a lot of excess ties just in case?

Later,
Mark

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I've seen orange used along with white. Usually tie inspections are preformed on foot by a pair of inspectors. They mark the ties that need replacing by hand. I suppose you could use a track car, but usually those are used to find interal defects in the rail or a low spot in the track.

It was pretty interesting last year after they walked the tracks and made their orange marks. At speed it looked like 2 solid orange lines next to the rails!

As far as ties, they keep count of the ties that are marked. IIRC there are roughly 1700 ties in a mile (for 'high speed' mainlines at least), and they have a rough idea of how many they need per mile.

On the tie train I worked, they knew they needed 1100 in a mile, so while we rolled down the hill (just using engine brake to keep it at walking speed) the man operating the Cat. excavator (with tie grapple) would get a bundle. The guy walking the ground had a counter, and would tick off the number of ties. On his signal, the Cat would drop a pile of ties trackside. I think all told we did about 3 miles of track that day. We had to stop each time a train was cleared through the double track, and also had engine troubles to start the day out with.

Sure beats the 'old way' of throwing off ties by hand!

Have a safe CSX Day

Maybe they are "start and stop" marks for complete tie replacement on that line?

BaltoJoey

I have seen entire ties on the CSX painted white and when I asked a M of W guy about it he said it meant that there was a pipe or culvert or something passing underneath the right-of-way at that point.

Ties for replacement were tagged with just a dot of white paint.

I don't think that's a spot for a tie to be replaced. There is usually just a spot painted on the tie and a spot painted on the outside of the ball of the rail, and you'd see a lot of them, not just one or two. This is marking something else which could range from an underground wire, etc, or possibly a defective rail. Has a Sperry car or something similar been thru lately?

No Sperry car that I'm aware of. Also no tell-tale white spray paint on the sides of the rail (indicators of defects?).

I suspect that it does indicate something other than a bad tie or bad rail.

Could be "start/stop" indicators for some trackwork process, but there aren't enough ties in the immediate vicinity to mean "replace all of the ties between the white marks".

Could also be a buried cable or something. I'm not aware of a culvert, pipe, or other things located between the two marks.

I'll check back this weekend and see if the marks go all the way across - or if they're on the other side of the rail as well.

I'm aware of buried fiber in the area - but that is perpendicular to the tracks. Other utilities would probably be closer to the grade crossing. And a lot of electrical utilities go overhead.

Later,
Mark


rathole wrote:
> defective rail. Has a Sperry car or something similar been
> thru lately?

Don't the railroads mark clearance points with a bit of paint on the outside of the rail?

YOU guys are all wrong,those lines are used to judge how fast the train is going with the use of an airplane,this way the state highway patrol can write down the engine number and send CSX the ticket...........scoob

It has nothing to do with a Sperry Rail. If it was there would be a red tape between the rails. I would say some Roadmaster or Track Inspector was trying to mark out something.scoobydoobydoo wrote:

> YOU guys are all wrong,those lines are used to judge how fast
> the train is going with the use of an airplane,this way the
> state highway patrol can write down the engine number and send
> CSX the ticket...........scoob
>
> [%sig%]

Those paint marks on the rail are showing where they buried some Scooby Snaks for our friend Scooby, just a few feet outside of the Right of way line.

They are just helping an old friend out during his railfan trips :-)