How to remove fish plates without damaging your rails, or your fingers.
If you’ve ever tried removing fish plates from old track you’ll be familiar with the problems.
At best, the fish plates (rail joiners) are ruined.
Your fingers can get ripped and at worst the rails can be bent.
The better way to remove fish plates
But there’s a really easy solution, helpfully described by Andrew Oram:
Essentially, it’s a matter of sliding a spare end of the rail into the rail joiner to be removed, gripping the sides of the joiner with pliers, gently pinching it tight around the rail, and then pulling it off.
An even better rail joiner remover
It’s a simple but effective technique but we can make it better.
I pushed and glued a spare rail into an old wooden File handle (see top picture) to make holding the rail joiner easier. With this, I just slide it into the joiner, crimp it slightly and pull.
The file handle allows you to hold the rail more comfortably and pull the joiner free with more force if needed.
With it, I can remove old rail joiners without damaging them, my track, or my fingers.
Of course, you now have to push the rail joiners onto the new track and for this I made another tool to help.
- And if there are any 009 society members reading this, yes that was the June ’16 issue newsletter in the background. I happened to be reading it when I took the photo.