Arizona Gandy Dancers

Discuss park gauge trains and large scale miniature railways having track gauges from 8" to 24" gauge and designed at scales of 2" to the foot or greater - whether modeled for personal use, or purpose built for amusement park operation or private railroading.

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Topics may include: antique park gauge train restoration, preservation, and history; building new grand scale equipment from scratch; large scale miniature railway construction, maintenance, and safe operation; fallen flags; track, gauge, and equipment standards; grand scale vendor offerings; and, compiling an on-line motive power roster.
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Steggy
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Steggy »

Typically, a ceramic mold is used to contain the reaction and direct the heat to where it is needed. The process was developed at the end of the 19th century to weld streetcar rails.
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by kcameron »

I recall watching it used in a demo of how rail bonds are made at a track joint. I recall it also dealt with the copper wire mixing to the steel rail. At Sacramento during the NMRA 2011 convention. I've also watched them use it to weld in repair sections on welded rail. Leaves a good bit of a burr on the sides, lots of grinding to make it good.
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Bill Shields
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Bill Shields »

Exactly on the refractory dam . We got clay from the pottery class
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NP317
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by NP317 »

Info on thermit welding, including showing the tools:

https://weldguru.com/thermit-welding/

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Erskine Tramway
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Erskine Tramway »

We got an estimate on thermite welding the R&GN Ry. once. The expensive part was getting the molds made to fit the 12-pound rail. In any event, it was waaay too expensive at the time.

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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Curtis_F »

FYI: ASCE Rail has a custom metallurgy, but is somewhat close to 1070 spring steel. Welding on rail will add more carbon to the metal embrittling. If welding is performed on ASCE rail it requires post-weld heating and slow cooling to help normalize the metal. If the welded joint is not normalized after welding then one day it will shatter.

Full-size railroads are very tricky about ribbon rail. One of the things they do is heat and/or hydraulically stretch the rail to pre-tension it. Steel is very strong in tension, thus in cold weather, the rail shrinks increasing the tension which the rail is strong enough to handle just fine. Then in warm weather, the rail expands to relieve some of the tension but not all of it, so it doesn't (or at least shouldn't) kink as there's always some tension in the rail.

Darrel Klompmaker of Little A-Merrick-A fights kinks by torquing the rail joiner bar bolts very tights then using ballast with fines in it so that it sets up almost like concrete and holds the rails in position by force. Sean Bautista of Hillcrest Shops fights kings by using anti-seize on the rail joiner bars and leaving the bolts a little loose with a gap between the ends of the rails based on the temperature of the day it's being installed vs. temperature extremes for the region. Both methods work for grandscale track.
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Greg_Lewis »

Hi Curtis!
Can you explain a little more about how this pre-tensioning works. I've seen rail laying done and the lengths of rail are just pulled off the end of the rail train and onto the ballast, and then spiked in place. So is the tensioning done after the rail comes off the train and before spiking, or at some point before the rail is put on the train? And if the latter, how does the tension stay in the rail? Is it sort of like the stress that's in a piece of CRS? I just can't visualize how this works. THANKS!
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Curtis,

To add to Greg’s question, does antique 100YO ASCE 12# rail have the same metallurgy issues you describe above.- needing post weld normalization? We plan on welding two out of three joints on our forthcoming build out, so concerned about the embrittlement and breakage issue you describe…

And many thanks for your drawing of double spring switches. Very informative!

Thanks
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NP317
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by NP317 »

Glenn:
I suspect you will need to test the steel rail alloy for elemental composition. Arc spectrum analysis might be easiest.
I would certainly do that before trusting any welding. Future operation is at stake
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Erskine Tramway
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Erskine Tramway »

Greg_Lewis wrote: Tue Mar 22, 2022 11:36 pm Hi Curtis!
Can you explain a little more about how this pre-tensioning works. I've seen rail laying done and the lengths of rail are just pulled off the end of the rail train and onto the ballast, and then spiked in place. So is the tensioning done after the rail comes off the train and before spiking, or at some point before the rail is put on the train? And if the latter, how does the tension stay in the rail? Is it sort of like the stress that's in a piece of CRS? I just can't visualize how this works. THANKS!
Hi Greg...

Any pre-tensioning is done at the rail plant where the rails are welded into quarter mile lengths. After they come off the rail train, they just heat and thermite the ends together. On the BN, it was a year-round, weather related, process of cutting a piece out or cutting a piece in, depending on the weather. I forget how much my Section friend told me they added and subtracted every year. Continuous Welded Rail will 'Sun Kink', though they've got a fancier name for it now. I've seen it happen, 131-pound rail, concrete ties, lots of ballast and all. I got over one that was out about half the gauge in a couple car lengths that popped out right in front of me. I got stopped in a half-dozen cars, and the Section walked me over the rest of the train at 5 MPH. The Roadmaster sent me a clock and an 'atta-boy' letter for not 'plugging' it when it happened. I knew it wouldn't stop that coal train before I got to it...and I wanted to see if it would derail the MAC I was riding in. It didn't.

Part of the yearly maintenance of the Ravenglass & Eskdale 15"-gauge in England is removing and greasing the joint bars. Their rail is about 30-pound, on big ties. Their scheduled speed is 15 MPH, though they are allowed up to 20 to make up time. Here's an interesting ride with one of their 2-8-2s 'River Mite' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlps7KrzU8A

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Greg_Lewis »

Thanks, Mike. Interesting.
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Re: Arizona Gandy Dancers

Post by Curtis_F »

Mike,

Thank you for the reply.


Greg,

Here's a video showing one way to tension rails in place in preparation for them being welded together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8EZ6pEAyLc

The tensioning stays in the rails as CWR because gravity prevents it from being a free-floating structure. It's constrained by its own weight. The friction between whatever it's resting on is greater than the tension forces in the rails. Considering that these ribbons of rails can be thousands of feet long and weigh several tons their self-anchoring ability is quite substantial.

Cheers,
Curtis
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