Old Rail ?

[Etched Pixels]

This was repurposed as a lintel and would be of some considerable age. Looking at the profile and the weight (it's very dense) I'm wondering

 

a) is this old track of some form perhaps old mine rail as this is south wales

b) is it of any historical relevance or does it just got to the scrappie

 

Wanted to check so I don't accidentally bin something interesting

 

 

 

[Mike_Walker]

Looks to me rather like Broad Gauge bridge rail.

[Wickham Green too]

There's still a fair bit around as fence posts and other re-purposes ........... but they'll all be gone one day !

[Paul H Vigor]

14 minutes ago, Etched Pixels said:

This was repurposed as a lintel and would be of some considerable age. Looking at the profile and the weight (it's very dense) I'm wondering

 

a) is this old track of some form perhaps old mine rail as this is south wales

b) is it of any historical relevance or does it just got to the scrappie

 

Wanted to check so I don't accidentally bin something interesting

 

 

 

Deffo a keeper!

 

Got some more reused as bridge decking near Rhos.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Paul H Vigor
to add information

[Etched Pixels]

Well if you'd like it or know a heritage site or something that would it's too heavy to post but I'm in Swansea proper

 

[The Stationmaster]

On 05/12/2023 at 11:28, Wickham Green too said:

There's still a fair bit around as fence posts and other re-purposes ........... but they'll all be gone one day !

Although I doubt anybody will ever find the example well hidden in a very overgrown g fence not far from here!  And of course reputedly bridge rail was still being rolled long after the briad gaige had gone.

[didcot]

Many long lengths of bridge rail were recovered from fences that eventually ended up laid at Didcot. 

I think a similar profile is also known a crane rail these days. 

[Paul H Vigor]

On 05/12/2023 at 11:38, Etched Pixels said:

Well if you'd like it or know a heritage site or something that would it's too heavy to post but I'm in Swansea proper

 

Might be worth contacting the guys at the Gwili Railway?

[Fat Controller]

10 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Although I doubt anybody will ever find the example well hidden in a very overgrown g fence not far from here!  And of course reputedly bridge rail was still being rolled long after the briad gaige had gone.

Bridge rail is still produced, to order.at the former BSC plant at Scunthorpe; its main use is for overhead crane tracks

[Forward!]

Difficult to get a sense of scale from the photo, but it looks a little light for GWR bridge rail, which is fairly hefty stuff. I think it is certainly a section of bridge rail, but suspect it's more likely to be of industrial/mining origin.

[Southernman46]

Common as sparrows that Bridge rail - now what you want off the GW is a nice piece o' Barlow Rail - did that nice train shed at St, Pancrarse -'e did 👍

 

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by Southernman46

[Stoke West]

4 hours ago, Southernman46 said:

Common as sparrows that Bridge rail - now what you want off the GW is a nice piece o' Barlow Rail - did that nice train shed at St, Pancrarse -'e did 👍

 

 

There are some nice examples of that standing guard in the entrance / exit to Chippenham station 

[didcot]

Strange stuff Barlow rail. We collected some from a garden in Compton. No idea how it got there. It was meant to be buried and ballasted to gauge with no other means of maintaining said gauge. It was seen as a cheaper alternative to the standard Broad Gauge ( see what I did there) baulk road. However as one might expect accidents occurred. There is an account of it in one of Brian Arman's books on Broad gauge locos.

[Artless Bodger]

There were 4 lengths of what looked like Barlow rail covering a cess catch pit at the end of Mortimer station a few (10?) years back. Clevedon Pier was constructed from redundant Barlow rail - not sure if any remains since restoration.

[Tom Burnham]

William Barlow's brother, Peter Barlow, was engineer to the South Eastern Railway in the 1840s and introduced his own design of cast iron sleepers, which he hoped would last longer but in practice were prone to fracture and did not grip the ballast as well. Evidently novel track construction was a Barlow family thing.

[Southernman46]

13 hours ago, Artless Bodger said:

There were 4 lengths of what looked like Barlow rail covering a cess catch pit at the end of Mortimer station a few (10?) years back. Clevedon Pier was constructed from redundant Barlow rail - not sure if any remains since restoration.

Aye - it got removed when the pit was upgraded when a couple of concrete rings were added in 2007 as part of a scheme to a) cope with the run-off from the adjacent industrial site b) prevent damage from OTP access from the station forecourt area. The track drainage at Mortimer was a nightmare during 2008 / 2009 due to what ultimately proved to be a collapsed longitudinal culvert through the OB at the Reading end. The track on both lines was frequently full of wet beds and very hard to maintain any sort of decent track geometry - some days watching a container train passing at linespeed would have me 😬 & 🤞. 

Many of the fence posts on the route were still Barlow rail at that time - my sample came from there. There was also a pit at Bramley station with Barlow rail as it's cover too - might still be there.

Couple of photos showing the culvert & site below.

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Southernman46

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Southernman46 said:

Aye - it got removed when the pit was upgraded when a couple of concrete rings were added in 2007 as part of a scheme to a) cope with the run-off from the adjacent industrial site b) prevent damage from OTP access from the station forecourt area. The track drainage at Mortimer was a nightmare during 2008 / 2009 due to what ultimately proved to be a collapsed longitudinal culvert through the OB at the Reading end. The track on both lines was frequently full of wet beds and very hard to maintain any sort of decent track geometry - some days watching a container train passing at linespeed would have me 😬 & 🤞. 

Many of the fence posts on the route were still Barlow rail at that time - my sample came from there. There was also a pit at Bramley station with Barlow rail as it's cover too - might still be there.

Couple of photos showing the culvert & site below.

 

That photo at the bottom could have been taken thos week in at least half a dozen places on the GWML east of Twyford  - last Monday there were (at long  last0 four or five EROS restrictions on the Up Main between Twyfordd and West Drayton and - not surprisingly - broken rails are now occurring.  At Slough West there;s a wet bed through a good part of the toe end of a running junction connection which was laid less than 10 years ago and just west of there there. a breather switch is in a

similar state.  

 

NR answer seem to be to shovel in some fresh ballast and hope it will go away where in some places it is very clear than when teh track was laid there was insufficient or incorrect blanketing to cope with the longstanding known problem in this part of the Thames Valley.  I don't know how bad the Down Relief is but there's some very poor riding in places on plain line.- even on a 387 and they are far better riding than the Liz Line 345s or  the 8XX IETs.  It's just like going backe to when it first happened in the late 1960s after cwr was first installed and deep digs were done to get better ballast depth but no blanketing was done ; the whole lot - miles of it - had to be completely relaid then with proper blanketing first.

[Southernman46]

Aye - there is simply no excuse for allowing wet-beds to develop unless there is a fundamental issue like a defective renewal or failed drainage. Even track that has excessive fines in the ballast can be kept wet-bed free by applying the right maintenance processes until ballast cleaning or renewal.

That section of the BKE through Mortimer always was poor and often Super-Red out of the back of the track-recording train until we got to grips with the drainage. Never had to unexpectedly block it though.

A.I.M.W.I.D.E.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Southernman46

[LBRJ]

Talking of bridge rail.

A fence post at a location somewhere in the south west ;)

[The Stationmaster]

19 hours ago, LBRJ said:

Talking of bridge rail.

A fence post at a location somewhere in the south west ;)

Standard bridge rail - the Western used it for fenvce strain9ing posts for years.  It only went out of new work when they went over to using concrete fence posts in post & wire fences but even then the old straining posts sometimes survived with new intermediate posts.

[LBRJ]

That is the path to Coombe, from the level crossing.

I guess that it has been there for rather a long time.