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Dave:
RE is short for AREA, which stood for American Railway Engineering Association. AREA (now AREMA) sets many standards for US Railroads, and one of them was standard rail sections. That is why you will see the letters RE on rail sections such as 112 RE, 131
RE and 136 RE on alignment charts. You may also see ARA on small rail sizes such as 90#, and I think ARA may have been a predecessor to RE.
TR is short for Torsion Resistant. This was strictly a CB&Q rail, and the Q even had a patent on it. There were only two rail sizes that I know of: 112 TR and 129 TR. Most of this rail was laid in 39' sections, but there were also substantial amounts of
78' rails. I think they started using TR rail in the early 40's, perhaps mid 40's. The 129 # section was used as a standard heavy rail section until the Q adopted 136#RE in (I think) 1961. 129# was also the first continuous welded rail (CWR) on the Q, although
it was only installed as CWR in the Boysen Tunnel (in 1950).
If you can obtain a copy of CB&Q Standard Plans, compare the cross-sections of the various rail sizes. TR rails have a narrower, less pronounced head, and thicker filets at the interfaces of the head and base with the stem. This was (some say) good and (some
say) bad. Former Q roadmasters always said TR stood for "tough rail". I once observed (in 1990) some 129TR west of Burlington that had been laid in the 1950's as 78' rail, and subsequently "Holland" (in place) welded, and it looked almost perfect, in spite
of what must have been a phenomenal amount of tonnage by that time. The roadmaster told me that he wished he had all of his 129# rail back instead of the 132# that BN had replaced it with.
The bad news: BN was never going to extend the use of TR rail, because it was no longer standard, and you can't transpose it (swap the rails) due to curve wear. The Q did not do a lot of transposing, having a fairly straight railroad. The BN had a lot of
curves where transposing was a precursor to replacing stick rail with CWR.
Glen Haug
From: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io> on behalf of Dave Lotz <Dave_Lotz@bellsouth.net>
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2025 6:12 PM
To: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io>
Subject: [CBQ] Rail Question
Hello all,
On the Q’s alignment charts I see abbreviations for the rails laid, TR and RE. Will someone please instruct me as to what they stand for?
Thanks!
Dave
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