Welded rail

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

>   Bellevue welded rail into 1440 ft strips.  When installed, I believe the 

>strips

>   were coupled with rail joints.  Are the joints now made using a field 

>weld ?

>                                                                       

>Harry Bundy



Depends on installation.  General maintenance usually gets a thermite weld, 
but look for these to get phased as advances in portable flash butt welding  
and/or advances in gas pressure welding.  Larger installations will get a 
specialized rolling machine that flash butt welds the rails (i.e, it holds 
the rails together under pressure then applies current to them).

Robb Fisher