Rail road tracks

I walked the tracks the other day near my home and there is a lot of small pcs. of iron the RR has discarded. Are these illegal to recycle? There small pcs. about 10" sq. that the track sits on top and then the spikes go through the corners to hold them down. They throw them to the side as they replace them along with the spikes. And I counted at least 10 pcs of old track laying in the woods. Anybody ever tried this?

Dont touch it! Bunch of red -tape if your gonna try and sell it to scrap yard.

Pick it up but your new home wont be by the railroad tracks. The good old gray bar hotel is where you will be shacking up.

Old dude don't forget about the richest man in America. His fortunes would make bill gates and buffet look like hobos. Andrew Carnegie and Henry frick. They owned 90 percent of the steel being produced and all of the coke used for steelmaking back in the day. I usually save any piece of steel with Carnegie stamped on it the history of those two alone still fascinates me to this day.

there were 13 men in all who were thr minions of the Rothchild, family but to go any farther would rise the ire of the anti tin foil hat crowd so ....

Olddude i always love hearin yer factoids. Just like my old man.

I totay agree with about half of what RP wants, don't agree with the other half, but the fact is probably all of what he says is totally true.

my uncle uses a 2 foot piece of track as an anvil in his sheet metal shop. has for last 30 years.

I asked him once where he got it. he told me that he found it I don't believe him.

I live within a 1/4 mile of a railroad hub for the Indiana railroad. There are several huge piles of rr iron in various locales .....that you don't touch! Even with having an eye for scrap (you know, that "what was that shiney thing in the ditch while i'm doing 65 on the highway") i have trained myself to not even notice the rr "Property".

Originally Posted by 12oclock

I live within a 1/4 mile of a railroad hub for the Indiana railroad. There are several huge piles of rr iron in various locales .....that you don't touch! Even with having an eye for scrap (you know, that "what was that shiney thing in the ditch while i'm doing 65 on the highway") i have trained myself to not even notice the rr "Property".

yeah they are like shopping carts you just drive past them on the street

It's not worth it if it's active railway property. If you can find abandoned ROW and it's not private property it's worth a look. I scrap casually and I collect glass insulators so it's a byproduct of hunting for them. It's nice not to come home empty handed.

I am close to a couple of ones that have been abandoned for 25 years and are public rec trails. Found a couple of good spots - 65 tie plates buried in the weeds and a motherlode of spikes and these other type of heavy plates which weighed about 20lbs. The second one was close to where a railway station used to be and appeared to be in small wooden barrels as the all that was left was round metal rings. I got a few hundred lbs worth out but someone else discovered it and cleaned it out. Must have been there for 50 years and the condition was not bad. I also found a 20' 80lb rail in another spot but it's beyond my capability.

I thought I would have questions at the scrap yard but there were none. I don't think anyone would think of them as stolen as they were fairly old looking with 1930 dates on them. Was surprised me more was that the heavy melt pile had brand new looking tie plates that someone else dropped off.

I live right next to a track and I don't touch them. I have a few spikes I picked up as a kid, also coal and the glass insulators from when the telegraph lines ran along the tracks. However, the rail, majority of spikes, plates, etc. I just leave be. I drive pass a section of rail just tossed to the side of the track every day. Granted, I so want to cut it up and use or recycle it but I just drive by. Before the county widened and paved the road my family owned the land right up to the right-of-way. So many times over the years stuff was tossed on "our" side of the property line. Now it's all RR or county property. Can still find items if I pulled out my metal detector and went lookin. Highly doubt the scrap yards would take it. Even if they did I'd get a visit from the city/county metal theft officer. That officer's sole job is to find metal theifs or people suspected of such thefts. I applaud it, but also keep waiting to get a visit from them. Why I take pictures and document everything I get. Location, time, date, etc.

We call that stuff OTM (other track material). It is great scrap...super dense and already prepared. However, no honest yard would take that or rail without proper documentation. Pass on it, it'll just be a legal headache if you get caught.

Originally Posted by PistoneScrapProcessing

Old dude don't forget about the richest man in America. His fortunes would make bill gates and buffet look like hobos. Andrew Carnegie and Henry frick. They owned 90 percent of the steel being produced and all of the coke used for steelmaking back in the day. I usually save any piece of steel with Carnegie stamped on it the history of those two alone still fascinates me to this day.

I am not a scrapper but am at a loss. I'm trying to find enough Carnegie steel to turn into a wedding band. Could you help? I'd pay.

Originally Posted by ScrapmanIndustries

If this in an old post my bad but It all depends on your location, and the rail roads location, also how uncaring your local yards may be. I have a few new yards here that visually inspect nearly everything, have a radiation detector on the incoming side of the scale, and make you get the sticker on freon units, needless to say I wouldn't suggest taking Rail Roads to a yard like that, but if abandoned, like say by the "rail trail" bike path, i would gather that up and go to the yard down the road. They usually take just about anything, even the more questionable items, usually no questions asked. sorta like a don't ask don't tell policy. they put up signs around the yard saying what needs to happen, or what they can't take (like stolen goods for example) but if they don't ask if its stolen and you don't say you stole it they can't claim anything wasn't yours to begin with. There used to be a young hispanic guy come in with a slammed honda civic with 10 buckets of copper literally every day and no one even questioned him. I almost said something, but didn't want to get involved in something like that being just out of high school.

Uh what happened to the young Hispanic guy.

RR steel is out of bounds unless you can prove Providence.