jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 8, 2015 17:43:51 GMT -5
Found today. Along the RR tracks. Don't tell broseph82. Found them today where I told you guys to go yesterday. We smoked you guys.  |
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Post by Pat on Mar 8, 2015 18:49:50 GMT -5
Marbles? Dented marbles:)
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snuffy
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Post by snuffy on Mar 8, 2015 18:59:04 GMT -5
Glass bearings.Really marbles used to roll heavy freight on,so they say
snuffy
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Post by broseph82 on Mar 8, 2015 19:11:06 GMT -5
Nice mate! We looked for a few but wanted glass instead
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Post by jakesrocks on Mar 8, 2015 19:18:23 GMT -5
James, do the train tracks run anywhere near to a factory that makes fiberglass insulation ? Years ago I worked at Johns Manville making insulation. We used to get huge vats of the very same marbles which were melted & sprayed on big rollers to make the glass fibers. Hottest, nastiest job I ever worked at.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 8, 2015 21:18:55 GMT -5
James, do the train tracks run anywhere near to a factory that makes fiberglass insulation ? Years ago I worked at Johns Manville making insulation. We used to get huge vats of the very same marbles which were melted & sprayed on big rollers to make the glass fibers. Hottest, nastiest job I ever worked at. That may create a dilemma; there is an Owens Corning fiberglass insulation plant within a couple of miles of where these were found Don. And they use a bunch of glass. And that plant has been there a long time. I tell you what I thought they were. Old rail road sign reflective marbles. Let me see if I can find images. Here is a sign with marbles:  And the third possibility is freight rolling marbles as snuffy mentioned.i found freight marbles on Ebay and they look the same as these. Freight marbles: " Glass agates can be found along stretches of the Cumberland Branch of the B and O. These marbles were first used between 1885 and 1890. As the story goes a railroad offical wanted the Wheeling Glass Works to make a glass agate the could carry 500 lbs Marbles were purchased by the tons and used to move freight in depots and freight storage houses." I thought they were used in signs. Well, I opened this can of worms and do not know what to say. For making glass fiber insulation ?? For railroad signage ?? For rolling rail freight ?? |
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Mar 8, 2015 21:34:53 GMT -5
Old stop signs too...................
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 8, 2015 22:24:53 GMT -5
Old stop signs too................... so used on highway stop signs too. hmm |
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Post by broseph82 on Mar 8, 2015 22:59:03 GMT -5
String them together to make anal beads. jamesp |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 8, 2015 23:12:10 GMT -5
String them together to make anal beads. jamespJimi Jimi Jimi. Hey, you could do slag film. Denise says your pissed because you didn't find any. Will you post a photo of that blue quatrzed granitoid ? |
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Post by snowmom on Mar 9, 2015 6:06:28 GMT -5
sometimes I think people just make stuff up to make it sound more interesting when they try to sell things on the internet. freight marbles doesn't make sense...how did the workers keep from killing themselves when using those?
not that I am skeptical  I need to see pictures of them in use or some sort of documentation, not just "the story says"... my kin are from Missouri (I've got to be shown). Going to do a search now... if I find anything besides rumor and innuendo, i'll post it! curiosity running wild.....
www.railroadiana.org/hw/pgMarbles.php
obvious quote from this article, which seems to be a quote from another article. No citations given as to sources of information. |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 9, 2015 7:23:06 GMT -5
I first found dark green marbles the same 1 inch size on these same tracks Deb. years ago. Then I was fishing on Lake Lanier and found light blue marbles the same size where the lake had covered up an old rail way. also years ago. I mentioned them to broseph82 and he was aware of 'railroad' marbles. So Mrs and I walk the tracks yesterday hoping not to get caught and found these six. One inch marbles do exist along the railways. Each of three times I found them they perplexed me. Funny that Don jakesrocks mentioned fiberglass insulation plants using similar marbles. I get slag glass from the Owens Corning plant that uses this rail not 2 miles away. Most of the slag is the same colors as the marbles in this thread and dark green like the other marbles I found on this stretch of tracks. Well Denise and I were hunting them at old road/rail intersections thinking they were railroad sign marbles used for old signs. Like remains of the old signs that got trashed for some reason. I did find 3 of the six marbles in a 10 foot area. I just thought an old sign got trashed in that spot. I read (I think it was a Wiki article) on the marbles made for rolling freight by Wheeling Glassworks as mentioned in your linked article. ebay has people selling 'railroad marbles', but descriptions are vague. Some were decorative souvenirs in bags, but some look the same as these we found. I suggest you do a little cross tie walking, we found all kinds of weird stuff. Just don't get caught. There was piles of spikes and rail retainers. If the crack folks have not carried it away it must be policed. Or the scrap yards have been ordered not to receive railroad scrap(like they disallow manhole covers). I did steal a couple of short rail sections. They make great jewelry anvils par excellent. But the mysterious marbles do exist on rail lines. |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 9, 2015 7:31:34 GMT -5
link to a forum( www.trainorders.com )debating/discussing rail road marbles LOL: " I switched the fiberglass plant in Winder GA regularly when working the X board out of Atlanta, and they got in a bunch of these cars a day. THere are several uses for these things, they can be remelted to make bottles, windows, fiberglass, whatever. The balls they got in were usually off clear, or more regularly a turqouise color, like that of insulators on old power lines. This particular plant would crush the balls, and make fiberglass insulation out of the stuff. It was pretty interesting switching in there, as the rails/ballast/roads/walkways were covered in crushed green glass, and there were huge piles of the crushed product stacked up here and there. I believe the beads mentioned earlier that are used in polishing things are more chalk colored, I remember my boss has a jar of them on his desk from a plant he served at one time. Dont remember particulars though. TR El Centro CA" " Date: 12/13/02 16:25 Railroads and Marbles? Author: AMTK157 This is a strange topic, but I hope someone has an answer: One of my teachers told us that a few years ago, a student brought in about two-dozen marbles that he claims he found on or near the railroad tracks. My teacher is offering extra credit if we bring in marbles for a project we're doing, and I'd like to know if the railroads use marbles for anything, and if anyone would even find anything if they looked. I've been telling my classmates that I've been hanging around railroads for 11 years, and have never seen or heard of this before. I could easily buy some at Target, but I was just curious. Thanks." |
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lparker
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Post by lparker on Mar 9, 2015 7:45:37 GMT -5
search bing or maybe google for - glass marbles on railroad tracks - lots to read.
Lee #1
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Post by broseph82 on Mar 9, 2015 7:57:40 GMT -5
String them together to make anal beads. jamespJimi Jimi Jimi. Hey, you could do slag film. Denise says your pissed because you didn't find any. Will you post a photo of that blue quatrzed granitoid ? Check the trips and show section. Already posted there in the first post |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 9, 2015 8:06:09 GMT -5
search bing or maybe google for - glass marbles on railroad tracks - lots to read. Lee #1 There is a lot of info Lee. Seems like most opinions lead to using them for re-melt for glass manufacturing operations. The shape made them easy to move on conveyers and small size easy to crush and melt. |
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Post by johnjsgems on Mar 9, 2015 12:13:16 GMT -5
We used to collect buckets of them at Lavic siding before they put in the new tracks. Now the tracks are too smooth. I've heard people collect them at the road crossings here in Newberry. A guy from our old rock club called the rail road years ago and was passed on to a glass company back east. They told him they shipped glass that way across country because it was easy to load and transport. After arriving in the west it was used to manufacture whatever kind of glass products. It bounces out of open cars wherever the track is rough. Fun to collect and one club member faceted one for fun. The old "freight loading" story was pretty much the accepted story though.
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Post by jakesrocks on Mar 9, 2015 12:43:52 GMT -5
search bing or maybe google for - glass marbles on railroad tracks - lots to read. Lee #1 There is a lot of info Lee. Seems like most opinions lead to using them for re-melt for glass manufacturing operations. The shape made them easy to move on conveyers and small size easy to crush and melt. No crush needed. They just load them in the melting pots. In the fiberglass insulation industry, on the hot end of the machines, the pot tenders work 1/2 hr on, 1/2 hr off shifts because of the extreme heat. On the cool end where I worked, it averaged 120 degrees. We got 4 breaks + lunch, just so we could cool off. We got the marbles in tri wall cardboard boxes 4 ft square & tall, banded all around with steel straps and wood lath. Each box was about a ton of marbles. |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Mar 9, 2015 12:54:47 GMT -5
johnjsgems and jakesrocks thanks for the input. I will ask Owens Corning employees if they use the marbles for process. They live around me. They too said it is hot in that place. Glass furnace is a monster. Big appetite for nat gas. Strange that a train forum was wondering around with this subject. I saw lumps and bumps in the tracks, namely around intersections that deposited stuff. There is 6-7 road intersections in about 4 miles of track where we were hunting.
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Post by gingerkid on Mar 9, 2015 15:58:26 GMT -5
Enjoying your RR marble finds and interesting thread, jamesp. Haven't ever seen RR 'marbles.' Fascinating stuff and like the signs with them, too. |
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I need to see pictures of them in use or some sort of documentation, not just "the story says"... my kin are from Missouri (I've got to be shown). Going to do a search now... if I find anything besides rumor and innuendo, i'll post it! curiosity running wild.....
