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Recovery, or lack of, discarded rail

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sburnley

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I have noticed on many recent journeys that is a huge amount of rail left by the side of the track or in the 4 foot. It looks like there might be enough to enable tens if not hundreds of miles to be created. Do the infrastructure projects for track relaying not have a cost element included for the recovery and possible reuse of used rail?

Is this rail likely to be recovered in the future?

Would it be reusable on less busy, branch, lines or is it only worth scrap prices?

I have read recently too about the use of the Whitemoor Yard to recover all sorts of materials such as ballast and sleepers. Now that this yard is working fully, could this start a new impetus to recover some of this rail?
 
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NSEFAN

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IIRC, the stuff in the four foot is actually new rail waiting to be put in place?
 

Old Timer

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Long welded rail strings for relaying are normally unloaded between 16 and 8 weeks prior to the work taking place.

They will be laid in a position suitable for manipulation onto the line being relayed. This is not normally in the four-foot of an adjoining line, as one will be open to raffic and the other will have the ballast trains standing on it.

LWR left for extended periods of time will usually be there because the planned relay was either cancelled or curtailed.

Network Rail continue to make excuses for not recovering LWR, ranging from the inavailability of the LWR trains, to the "costs" of recovery.

One little known fact is that over time LWR will "walk" in the direction of trains and so the ends can foul on either sleepers or four-foot equipment. In such circumstances the rail can then buckle sideways.

There is at least one recorded instance where LWR left unmanaged actually migrated to the running edges of the rails causing the wheel flanges of trains to actually run onto and along the LWR at 125 mph thus technically derailing the train as the wheel / rail contact was lost over that section.

The LWR ended up with deep groves along it.

In AC electrified areas, situations can arise where LWR can "liven up" from induction and if there is no path to earth can give rise to an electric shock when touched.

LWR that is left there for too long is regarded as unsuitable for use and is sometimes cut up and recovered as scrap.
 

BestWestern

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My understanding is that NR are now making more concerted efforts to recover the many miles of abandoned rail lengths scattered around the network. While some of it is undoubtably there for future planned P-Way purposes, there's no doubt that much of it has simply been dumped. With the current high metal prices I've always thought it must surely be worth NR's while to recover it, so it's good to hear that they are now trying to do that. An additional new 'track recycling' plant recently opened at Westbury yard.
 

Old Timer

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That is good news indeed.

None of the Railway Companies that I work to, tolerate the leaving of materials in the way that NR does.

Note that short lengths of rail placed alongside the line at various points are likely to be maintenance spares, there to be used as closure rails to replace damaged or defective rail sections that have to be cut out of the track.
 

es373

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Most of the time it isn't waste rail. It's usually off cuts left in places so if there was to be a broken rail or a bit of track needs replacing, the spare won't be far away.
I don't think there's anything wrong with it. As long as it follows health and safety then it's fine.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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I have read recently too about the use of the Whitemoor Yard to recover all sorts of materials such as ballast and sleepers. Now that this yard is working fully, could this start a new impetus to recover some of this rail?

There is a 4pp article in the September 2011 edition of Modern Railways about Network Rail's National Delivery Service covering the supplies for infrastructure work. Scrap rail processing is noted in that article with a large picture of scrap rail being sorted for recycling and a quarter of the article is given over to Whitemoor. with an ariel view photograph of the site complex.
 

Old Timer

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There is a 4pp article in the September 2011 edition of Modern Railways about Network Rail's National Delivery Service covering the supplies for infrastructure work. Scrap rail processing is noted in that article with a large picture of scrap rail being sorted for recycling and a quarter of the article is given over to Whitemoor. with an ariel view photograph of the site complex.
Most of the rails and sleepers will be the track recovered from renewals sites rather than scrap materials specifically collected.

I remember trying to have all the LWR for cancelled renewals on my area recovered and used on future sites so as to save money - and failing miserably because of a lack of interest.
 

richw

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scrap metal prices are sky high at the moment, if it is for scrap then perhaps a good time to collect and scrap!
 

battledroid

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As has been mentioned above one of the biggest issues surrounding the miles of CWR scattered all over the network is the fact the bloody stuff doesn't stop shuffling around and moving..

Whats interesting is that the rail is rarely recovered, ironically when its doing £220 a tonne and getting in the bloody way, yet the sleepers are a financial burden and the stone needs fortunes spending on it in screening and transport but are dealt with swiftly...!
 

Trog

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Under the BR accounting system unserviceable sleepers had a negative value so the more of them you used the cheaper your job got.

As for picking up rail a ton is about one 60'-0" rail, in the modern paperwork infested railway it does not take long for costs to build up higher than what the rail is worth as scrap. Then the bean counters start to resist having the work done as it makes a loss and spoils their targets. Trying to get work done against their resistance is less efficient than normal, and so costs more, raising the level of resistance further.

If only we could go back to the BR way of doing things, but you just can not put somethings back together once they are broken.
 

sburnley

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"As for picking up rail a ton is about one 60'-0" rail, in the modern paperwork infested railway it does not take long for costs to build up higher than what the rail is worth as scrap."

This seems entirely plausible but won't there come a time when the rail just has to be removed - there'll be too much of it and no space to dump any more!

Given that some of the lengths are long pieces of continuous welded rail what are the complications of actually retrieving it - would it require a special train or possession of long sections of the network? Would it require also the closure of all running lines of quadrupal parts of the network - the WCML south of Roade Cutting for example?
 

sburnley

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"Add Content"
I'll assume that this is intended as a comment about my contribution, as I started the thread, but I don't really understand what you meant.
I regard this forum as a great place to get answers to all sorts of questions about the modern railway and its operation. Mostly I read and enjoy the exchanges about questions I never thought of and the quite interesting, often surprising, responses.
My "content" in this thread is about the retrieval of rail. In principle my question was already answered but I got to thinking about how I might deal with the problem if it were my project to deal with. So I followed up with another question - about whether you would need to use a special train to recover the rail (you need a special train to lay track so why not one to get it back?) - and then if you did need a special train would you also need to take possession of more than two pairs of lines to run it.
I thought these were quite valid questions. Clearly if I knew the answers I would not waste anyone's time asking the questions in the first place.
Does that deal with your comment?
 

Ploughman

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The long welded rail trains deliver rail to sites around the country and offload rail up to 235 metre at a time ( I think I am correct in this) They do not normally get programmed for site recovery due to the high workload planned.
However some sites require shorter lengths of rail and these are delivered in lengths of about 100m.
These trains can and are planned for recovery but there are strict limitations on what can and cannot be picked up.
I understand that rail has to be in 100m lengths.
No Joints present in the rail and maybe no Thermit welds in the length.
This may be due to the effect of these welds / joints on the clamps on the train.

Previously the old 300 ft train could cope with these due to the use of side lifting cranes on the wagons but rules may have changed.
 

The Informer

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Scrap rail does get re-covered but only if there is a sufficient amount. The scrap value is added onto the yearly maintenance budget so its worthwile collecting it all in now and again.
 

9K43

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After working hundreds of ballast trains over the years, I have seen many miles of CWR put in place, and many hundreds of miles of CWR lifted that had little or no traffic over it.
( Wath Area and from Oakenshaw Jct to Wath Road Junction.) Thats just a few miles.
As for scrap bit of rail, the Per Way were thier own worst enemies for this carry on.
Scrap laying over walking routes slung down bankings and drain lids missing in tunnels, just ripe for some big slip, trip and fall injuries.
We had regular cwr trains out of Castleton for the big ballast jobs.
All this rubbish made suitable ammunition for gippos and others to try and derail trains and nick the signalling wires.
The only folk who made money was the Law Firms for slip trip and fall accidents to traincrew.
I have a scar on my shin that had 12 stitches put in cos sum comedian took all the man hole lids off.
 

TheSlash

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We now mark rails in the four foot by putting a line of chalk/wax connecting the rail and a fixed location, such as a sleeper. This helps us monitor movement.
 

sburnley

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We now mark rails in the four foot by putting a line of chalk/wax connecting the rail and a fixed location, such as a sleeper. This helps us monitor movement.


That's very interesting - and leads to more questions:

When would you decide that the movement has become sufficiently large to cause someone to do something about it, and what would that 'something' be? Surely you don't go back and move the rail to where it was - so is that when it has to be targeted for recovery? (!!)

Does it take days, weeks or months for rail to move sufficiently to be a nuisance, and how often therefore is a PW check required?

You say 'in the four foot', so does that mean that rail on the edge of the track is not monitored? And if not, how do the track gangs (or whoever) decide whether to leave track in the four foot or on the side when they are working on a project? Is is just by accident or is there a specific decision made at the time the work is planned? It would seem to be the easiest decision to leave it on the track side so that it does not require monitoring.
 

TheSlash

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The rail is first marked and then checked weekly by the patrolman.
We select a sleeper and draw a line across the sleeper, up and over the top of the rail and then continue along the sleeper. This monitors longitudal movement.
Then we draw lines alongside the foot of the rail on both sides to monitor lat movement.

If the rail is determined to be moving, we first look at ways of stopping it. We look for any small lumps of ballast trapped under the foot that might be acting as a roller.
The patroller will note on his Track Engineering Form that the rail is moving along the four foot and mark it for urgent action {attention within not more than 1 week}.
It will then be planned to remove the rail to a safer location. This can involve cutting it into several small pieces and removing by hand, or transportation away from site using scrap train, road rail vehicle or manual means {rail horse}.

I've encountered rails moving along the four foot and as a short term measure, turned them onto their side to take out the roller affect of the rail foot.

Rails outside the four foot are not such a problem, although they are acknowledge as potential tripping hazards and ammunition for T&V.

It's important to remember that in these times of track access becoming less and less, scrap management programs should not take priority over frontline maintenance.
I believe that in recent months, the tail has been wagging the dog.
 

Bunting14

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I noticed quite a lot of track still attached to the sleepers at Barkston Junction on Thursday (on the old link between ECML and Sleaford). I would have thought that should have been tided up by now.
 
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