Using Railroad Track for bridge beams

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I have two creek crossings, one is down to bedrock and I just put #57s down either side, other I used steel corrugated pipe, 36" X 20ft. On upper end where creek starts at spring. I'd sell RR steel.

 

[Eagle1]

You can make some $$$ selling it in chunks for anvils. railroad anvil for sale | eBay

 

[ljjhouser]

I'm in - It is far too flexible. One time I was looking for an I beam to move a concrete septic tank, weight was about 10K. Went to the steel yare and looked at a 20' 6" I beam. When they picked it up, it flexed like crazy. i had to use 12"19lb to get the strength.

Rail would be a nightmare is my guess. Take a LOT of support and support to keep it from turning under load.

 

[Streetcar]

Can you post a single example of structural railroad track? And a railroad track in some more complex plan doesn’t count. Just track laying flat down as a beam like the op is planning.

Railroad track around is commonly used in retaining walls

from comments here, most of you have not seen a bridge beam prior to lateral bracing installation. They can be move with your hand

 

[Eagle1]

Railroad track around is commonly used in retaining walls

from comments here, most of you have not seen a bridge beam prior to lateral bracing installation. They can be move with your hand

Maybe but my 2 bow a few inches down with just ONE dog standing on it, or a person. No sway side to side but lots of up and down, almost like a rope bridge.

 

[Hay Dude]

Nice of the company to give away money like that, offer the company to take the whole lot and get it in writing. Start calling around scrap yards for the best price on heavy melt, I'm sure they will pick up, give you some decent cash, and you won't have to lift anything heavier than your cell phone.

From what I heard (at least in my area) most steel scrappers won’t take rail.

 

[4570Man]

Railroad track around is commonly used in retaining walls

from comments here, most of you have not seen a bridge beam prior to lateral bracing installation. They can be move with your hand

They also use concrete pre cast blocks for retaining walls and I think we can all agree those won’t make a good bridge.

 

[muddstopper]

41 years experience messing with rail. Your 90lb rail doesnt weight 90lbs per ft, it weighs 90lb per 3 ft. Just supported on each end, it will bow like a sting under its own weight. Even 132lb rail will bend and flop when its hooked to a crane. Selling it to scrap yards isnt easy either. Most reputable scrappers wont touch it unless you can document where it came from because they cant resell it without proper documentation. Altho I do know a few that will break it up into chunks and hide it inside car trunks and such. Another thing to consider is rail is very brittle and will break, especially in cold weather. Rail makes great cattle crossings when its laid perpendicular to the roadway but unless you can put some support under it, I wouldnt consider it for a bridge.

 

[LD1]

You could have the top rail straight and have one below it with an upward arch that would give it cantilever strength, but that would have each side at nearly 2000 pounds, kind of hard to get across the span to place.
At any rate, I hope you glom onto the free rail anyway, you never know...

Rail is 90# per yard, not ft.

So two 20' runs per side wouldn't come close to a ton.

 

[LD1]

Im not going to touch on material quality.....brittleness, flexibility, etc. I'll simply stick to listed material properties.

And 90# rail is 5-5/8" tall and has a moment of inertia of 38.7.

Which makes it slightly stronger than S7-15.3 I-beam which is 36.7.
And falls between w6x16 @ 32.1 and W6x20 @ 41.4

That said......With 4500# at midspan of a 20' section per side.....your 90# rail would deflect 1.12" and would see bending stress ~21,000psi. In "engineering" terms you would typically want deflection to be less than L/360. Which is "length in inches" / 360. So you want to shoot for something that wont flex more than ~0.667"

I'd say the rail falls a little short of this goal.

A w8x21 with a moment of inertia @ 75.3
A w10x17 or a w12x14 are all amout the minimum to meet this. The taller lighter beams will need ALOT of lateral bracing to prevent twist and flopping over.

I say a pair of rails are no good for this project. 20' span each rail would only be good for about 2500# of weight. But again, this is strictly taking the material shape and moment of inertia and assuming as if it were the same steel that I-beams are comprised of. I havent used rail for anything other than rail (not on a railroad, but for things like gantry cranes). So I cannot speak to the other concerns that other people have mentioned

 

[Hay Dude]

Related to rail:
When I go for hikes, I usually walk the abandoned tracks in my area. At one spot, there must be 100 lengths of track, probably 40’ long or more each just abandoned laying in the weeds for 40 years. This was a freight rail line back in the 70’s. I am no rail expert, but it looks fairly in tact and simply surface rusted.
Why aren’t they repurposed or recycled? They wouldn’t require too much work to get to. Only about 1/2 mile from the road and the railroad ROW is still owned by the railroad.

 

[bcp]

Cost for the RR to retrieve is greater than scrap price.

Bruce

 

[Eagle1]

But if you take their track they will come after you in court if at all possible. They are VERY protective of their ROW and track, even if their will NEVER use it again.

 

[Jstpssng]

But if you take their track they will come after you in court if at all possible. They are VERY protective of their ROW and track, even if their will NEVER use it again.

I'm the same way. Take something of mine without asking and I get rather POed. Why should they be any different?

 

[muddstopper]

Related to rail:
When I go for hikes, I usually walk the abandoned tracks in my area. At one spot, there must be 100 lengths of track, probably 40’ long or more each just abandoned laying in the weeds for 40 years. This was a freight rail line back in the 70’s. I am no rail expert, but it looks fairly in tact and simply surface rusted.
Why aren’t they repurposed or recycled? They wouldn’t require too much work to get to. Only about 1/2 mile from the road and the railroad ROW is still owned by the railroad.

I can give a partial answer. Rail is usually removed becaused it failed testing. The test cars cover a lot of gound in one day and the result is usually bad rail scattered all over. While one stick of rail might seem like a lot of scrap weight, it cost a lot of money to go pick up one piece of scrap rail. As far as repurposeing the rail, well it failed a defect test and you cant just put it back in service someplace else. It can be repurposed for things such as pile driving, retaining walls and such, but the railroads have been in place for a lot of years and most places that need retaining walls already have walls. I have worked with vranes picking up scrap, it usually involves a train engine and crew, several gondolas, and laborers to help stack the rail in the cars. The engine pulls the gondolas and crane on the track stopping to pick up each piece of rail, stack in the cars, and then move on to the next piece until the car is full and then they switch out the loaded car for an empty one and do it all over again. It takes a lot of rail to fill one gondola so you can see why the railroad company isnt exactly worried about one or two pieces of rail laying in the weeds.

 

[4570Man]

But if you take their track they will come after you in court if at all possible. They are VERY protective of their ROW and track, even if their will NEVER use it again.

Nobody would care if someone stole a few pieces of already pulled up abandoned rail in the woods. But if they didn’t take it seriously scrappers would be pulling up good rail which would obviously be expensive to replace but the bigger problem would be trains derailing.

 

[Eagle1]

Track here has not been used for 50 years and all the road crossings are paved over. I would still not take a piece of track. Seen some try and get busted. They will also take any effort to re-purpose their ROW straight to court, some local town just had to pull their new walking trail.....
Now the cast off concrete ties in the weeds you are free to take. These tracks would require an entire reinstall, new ties, ballast and most likely rail to put to any use. Thing is if they remove track they may never get their right to use it back and as such it is cheaper to defend their rights.

 

[Jstpssng]

One of our former clients had an old siding and when scrap was at it's highest he gave somebody permission to take it. There were trees growing between the tracks and his viewpoint was that eventually it would be forgotten, and could cause problems further down the line.

 

[Hay Dude]

I can give a partial answer. Rail is usually removed becaused it failed testing. The test cars cover a lot of gound in one day and the result is usually bad rail scattered all over. While one stick of rail might seem like a lot of scrap weight, it cost a lot of money to go pick up one piece of scrap rail. As far as repurposeing the rail, well it failed a defect test and you cant just put it back in service someplace else. It can be repurposed for things such as pile driving, retaining walls and such, but the railroads have been in place for a lot of years and most places that need retaining walls already have walls. I have worked with vranes picking up scrap, it usually involves a train engine and crew, several gondolas, and laborers to help stack the rail in the cars. The engine pulls the gondolas and crane on the track stopping to pick up each piece of rail, stack in the cars, and then move on to the next piece until the car is full and then they switch out the loaded car for an empty one and do it all over again. It takes a lot of rail to fill one gondola so you can see why the railroad company isnt exactly worried about one or two pieces of rail laying in the weeds.

It’s more like 50, but thanks for the explanation. Im sure even 50 pieces probably isn’t worth it

 

[redman135]

Is it practical to weld the rails togather in a truss style?