1955 CPR Maintenance of Way, Rules & Instructions - Rail

In 1955, the Sperry Car is mentioned in this CPR booklet (see rule 432). 

Shimming, bracing and spiking diagrams are included within an interesting chart at the end of the booklet. The wide variety of track hardware depicted there also provides a glimpse back into the early light rail branch line era. 

Decades ago, using simple tools and muscle power, the section gangs ensured that the road remained open and safe throughout the year - regardless of the time of day or the weather conditions. 

Today's track and roadbed is homogenous by design and renewed by heavy specialized equipment to make it relatively 'maintenance free'. 

These rules show that 1950s track gangs worked with standard-length rails which were delivered on standard cars. An assortment of connecting hardware, spikes and anchoring hardware ensured that the rail stayed in place on its wooden ties in spite of the longitudinal, vertical and centrifugal forces of passing trains. If the trains didn't slide, hammer or spread all these bits and pieces out of place on their own ... there were also the forces of nature to contend with.

If you are interested in steel rails, an earlier, more elaborate CNR rulebook section with photos and diagrams of rail defects (probably pre-Sperry Rail Service in Canada) can be found here:

CNR 1939 Maintenance of Way, Rules & Instructions - Rail Failure Reports

The manual shown below spent a good deal of time on the job and in its owner's pocket. Over a period of years, a number of pre-gummed sections were affixed over regulations which had been revised (see Rule 422). I resisted any temptation to peel up these well-glued patches. This front-stapled booklet did not lend itself to complete flattening on the scanner glass, so the gutter is quite pronounced in most of the images. 

 

CNR 1939 Maintenance of Way, Rules & Instructions - Rail Failure Reports

Imagine the task of standardizing the maintenance of thousands of miles of individual bolted rails across Canada. That was just one of the goals of this book of rules and instructions. Standard new rails were 39 feet long in 1939, however the book also prescribed expansion gaps for older 33 foot rail. A couple of decades earlier, the CNR had inherited the lines, equipment and employees of many different railways.

In most cases in 1939, railway lines in Canada were maintained by section gangs whose sections (patrol areas) were numbered, beginning from Mile 0.0 of a subdivision. The section gang was supervised by a section foreman. Section foremen reported to the roadmaster. In this book, by rule, the section foreman was personally to travel over his section twice per week. 

It is reasonable to conclude that most transportation for section gangs during this era was provided by muscle power applied to a hand car. Rules are provided for motor cars, but gas-powered speeders were probably not common until after World War 2 - particularly on Canada's thousands of miles of secondary lines and branches.

The pages below first deal with the specific identification of rails (eg. recording which manufacturer, date, lot, etc) when defects were found. Obviously, one could not dump all the examples of a bad batch of rails on the roadmaster's desk, so he could send them to headquarters, so accounting could demand compensation. There had to be a reliable system on paper - particularly to allow headquarters to identify when many defects were developing in a particular batch, for the sake of safety.

The next group of pages is particularly interesting as it has many photographs showing what the various defects looked like. Back in the days when Canada's steel industry was populated by 'bounty hunters' (the nickname given to companies cashing in on generous government subsidies to promote domestic steel production) steel metallurgy was less sophisticated and all kinds of interesting defects occurred in rails. Early diagnostic pre-failure features and actual failure classifications are illustrated by photos and diagrams.

Unique to the period of steam locomotive operation is the extensive rail damage which could be done by poorly-balanced steam locomotive driving wheels (i.e. a shop maintenance error) or unauthorized over-speed operation of a given type. The safety risk to workers associated with unspiking this type of damaged rail is also interesting to consider.

... In the late 1950s, with the regular transport of dead steam locomotives, driving rods removed, in trains, to scrapping centres ... there were extensive cautions and restrictive speed limits published in employee timetables to govern these movements of locomotives with unbalanced driving wheels.

Back to 1939: If you were wondering ... Dr Elmer A Sperry had been contracting his company's unique rail defect detecting services to some American railroads for around a decade. However, there is no mention of rail defect detector cars in this book. 

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This particular book was addressed for pickup by either our father, or Eric, or me, as a gift from our photo finisher of long standing - 30 years ago. By the early 1990s, it was quite apparent to him that an old book from his former employer would be of interest to people who took such an awful lot of train photographs ... including photos of the markings on the sides of rails !

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