Eastern Railroad Discussion > What A Drag

This is my first entry on the Eastern Railroads side of T/O, because I am in California. But my friend send me this video clip of a CSX engine literally "dragging" a length of welded rail. It was unusual to say the least, as I've never heard or seen this done. I suppose this piece of welded rail was needed urgently, and there was no heavy equipment nearby to perform the task. My friend told me that the length of rail was to be used for an industrial siding, but that the proposed industry failed to materialize. Please feel free to add comments or make corrections as you see necessary.

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Back on 4/20/80 I witnessed the very same thing as Conrail U33B 2914 was dragging 2 lengths of CWR up the east slope on #4 Track at CP-Benny in Tunnelhill,PA.  According to the scanner chatter they pulled these rails from MG Tower up over the interlocking switches at Benny and through the tunnel to Gallitzin,PA. You can see that they are about to do some track work with all the ties laying there, but I still could not believe what I was seeing,hearing and smelling as the steel on steel protested this move.  I always wondered if this was common practice.  I'm sure some of the MOW members of TO can fill us in.

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Its more common than you think. A friend dragged 2 sticks about 10 miles outside of Waycross. When the Everette sub was taken up there were 2 work trains. One had 2 geeps and sat in the same place 12 hrs a day for a week. The other had 2 SD40's and went and pulled rail to the other train. They said the train that moved, would go to a spot 1500ft. from the end of the track, they would pull spikes from about 10 ft of track, throw the ends into the gauge, hook onto the joint bars, and back up. While that train pulled to the other train and returned, MW people would measure 1500 ft and repeat the process all day long, and successive days until the train got full.