#Railroad spike maul free

The spike is to prevent lateral movement and not to prevent rail movement day and night by temperature change. I have learned that 1/16 or in between is okay as long as the spike does not lock onto the rail. There is a gap of 1/8 inch for several reasons. The most important thing is the final position and placement of the spike:Īs in the diagram attached, note the railroad requirement that the bottom heads of the spike does not touch the rail or tie plate. The spike is not to hold a rail down, only to prevent lateral movement, not vertical movement.

#Railroad spike maul free

When the spike of over hammered, it causes some of those fiber to reverse and break free of holding the spike down. Those cut wood fibers should all be facing down and will grab onto the spike to prevent it from coming loose for the next 50 years. Killing the spike damages the spike purpose and loosens the wood fiber that is cut by the point of the spike. One video of a Gardening Company doing track repair work showed them driving many spikes on an angle and over driving and killing some of the spikes.Ī spike must never be driven so hard that the head of the spike is bent up against the rail or plate. It can work up and out of its hole in the wood just because of its angle. The spike is designed to prevent lateral movement so if the spike is on a 10 degree angle off of vertical, that spike will only be good for 90% of its value, and not 100% that it could provide. Because of the design of the head of the spike it must be driven exactly vertical, not on any angle. Conrail was mostly using the engineering data from Pennsylvania RR. This taper match the taper rolled into the base of the rail as seen in the attached diagram by Conrail. Look at the design of a new spike and you will see a slanted taper on the bottom of the head. I am not being critical of the good work being done but only wish to identify the exact details of the art to truly place the spike in the correct manor so if you match up the actual location of the defect, don’t relay this as a complaint but pass on the correct method. I need not name the locations but they are in New Mexico, many places in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Maine, New York, and other states. For the last several years I have viewed a number of video of newly built track in museums and I see that we have many very capable young men and even women getting a hold on an air hammer and building track by spiking down the rails.