I had this piece of track given to me last year and it has just been sitting out in my garage. I was told that at one time it had been used as an anvil. It was covered with different colors of paint and other gunk. I decided to strip the paint off of it and clean it up to make it look better. When I did I was able to see and read the markings on it. I don't know anything about them so I thought I would post the pictures and see if anyone would mind telling me about them. It looks pretty old so I am curious about it.






Thank you everyone.

Randy

Hi Randy,

Nice artifact.

I'll have to as others about it. Hard to say. Railroads cast rail with symbols indicating the initials of the railroad, the date of the casting, and the weight of the rail. I don't know if that practice was universal.

What part of the symbols could be are the initials of the railroad - the two left-most - and the rest become the year, per roman numerals. If the letter to the right of the "C" is a "M", then I think the series is "MCMVIII," or 1908. I suspect that the rail casting has the left-most letters are perhaps the railroad, the left "M.C." is a standard date, and the rest is created per year, thus looking rough. And perhaps it is MCMIIII for 1909, if the crew did not use "XI" for 9? Just speculating here. The "80" may be the rail weight (per yard).

But that letter under the right hole just doesn't look like an "M". And the spacing of the periods indicates something else after the "C".

I will have to ask someone else.

Thank you for the information Fred. I'm glad that I picked it up and kept it. Kind of an oddity to go along with all of my other "treasures". Hopefully you will be able to find out some information on it. I would like to know more about it.

Thanks,
Randy