Eastern Railroad Discussion > My view from work

On a MofW gang with Canadian Pacific Railway, driving the end motorcar, a fairmont model.

CPRchris

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Nice picture. I'm struck by how each 39' length of rail looks straight and the "curve" appears only at the rail joints. Shouldn't each 39' rail be curved - or at least curved a little especially on the right-hand rail?

WP

prionw Wrote:
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> Nice picture. I'm struck by how each 39' length
> of rail looks straight and the "curve" appears
> only at the rail joints. Shouldn't each 39' rail
> be curved - or at least curved a little especially
> on the right-hand rail?
>
> WP


You would think the rail should be nicely bent, and it should, but at low speeds hand laid rail like this is not a problem, eventually it might bend itself, and with attention to bolt torque, and gauge will be fine with use.

well one would think that, but when I was talking to the section guys on this line, they said that all they lay is "straight" rail and let nature do the rest....it will bend after time......and believe me, ripping down the track in third gear in the motorcar, i had WHITE knuckles....on curves, in the motorcar, when you went over the joint bars, the car would jerk so hard that you would think that you were gonna go for a tumble.

The whole Havelock Sub of Kawartha Lakes Railway ( an internal CPR shortline ) is 39 foot rail with a few 78 foot sections near Peterborough.

Believe it or not, almost all of this subdivision ( 80 miles ) and the Nephton sub in havelock ( 20 miles ) is 25MPH..... man would I hate to be a hogger on this board.

CP uses the 3xxx gp38-2's and 82xx gp9u's on these lines, no 6 axel power allowed. Can ya figure why ?

Sure is spooky sitting in a siding watching 3 gp38-2's and 20 fully loaded hoppers with wet silica sand going track speed, seeing the cars sway quite alot !

CPRchris - a sardine in a can

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