Quote:
Originally Posted by theking
Another question what is done with the old ties...plates and spikes?
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again, this all depends on contracts. There is huge money around that scrap metal. Sometimes the railroad wants it back. Sometimes the contractor wants it for scrap money and that goes into the contract. One thing I can tell you though, is that shit gets reused until it is absolutely no longer functional. Every piece of steel in the tracks has been marked with a date since day one. it's not uncommon to find rail from as far back as the 20's on active track today. I'd say a vast majority of the rail in alberta railways has been in use from the 40's to 50's. If it is still functional, it goes right back into the tracks.
Plates last forever. I've worked on single hole plates marked like 1850's. Spikes and anchors have a tendency to go into the ditch because laborers HATE picking that shit up. So did I, I just chucked it all in the ditch never to be seen again, and pretty much all the highers ups look the other way.
It is really sickening what that stuff costs. To build a one mile stretch of brand new track is a big money project. Think of it this way. most rails are 39 feet long. a 115lb rail for one strand i've been quoted anywhere from $4000-8000 depending on ages. One set of joint bars is over $100, the bolts to do them up (4-6 per joint) run as much as $4 per bolt. A keg of spike that holds enough to spike a dozen or so ties are upwards of $80. Ties themselves $60-120 (roughly 3000 per mile). Start adding that shit up. you haven't even worked in specialty parts yet.
Multimillion dollar companies that operate in nothing but railroad reclamation.
Ties get stacked in enormous piles, and are later loaded onto a train and shipped to special burning locations to be properly disposed of. They are afterall soaked in creosote. The farmers snatch the odd few up when they can, but when you're pulling hundreds of thousands, you can't get rid of them all.