Railroad tack hammer

[coolmercury]

This hammer came from a retired Atlantic Coast Line employee in Florida.  I picked it up at a garage sale about 20 years ago minus the handle.  It is marked Hubbard Special Alloy followed by 555 ACL.  The 555 and ACL appears to be hand stamped.  The hammer head is nearly unused.  I'm showing it since I picked up the handle in a wood box lot a couple of weeks ago and put it together.  The tiles in the picture are 13" each so you can get an idea of the size.

[fatfillup]

Cool, that's a long handle with a long and skinny head

I like it

[goodfellow]

Pretty cool! I assume it was used to "ping" check for cracks in running gear and frame components?

[coolmercury]

I have no idea if its use, hoping someone will tell me, good idea goodfellow!

[hickory n Steel]

It's a spike maul , they're used to drive railroad spikes and are long so don't have to be on the same side of the rail as the spike you're driving.
The head can reach over the track.


If the narrow side is also to be used for driving spikes, you gotta be pretty damn accurate with the thing and they weigh like 10+lb too.
That's sure gotta be some hard work
.

[DeadNutz]

It's a spike maul , they're used to drive railroad spikes and are long so don't have to be on the same side of the rail as the spike you're driving.
The head can reach over the track.


If the narrow side is also to be used for driving spikes, you gotta be pretty damn accurate with the thing and they weigh like 10+lb too.
That's sure gotta be some hard work
.

It could serve as a spike maul on a model railroad. Re-read the size in the first post.

[coolmercury]

Actually, the head only weighs six pounds.

[goodfellow]

I have no idea if its use, hoping someone will tell me, good idea goodfellow!

Not sure about this one, but old-time railroaders used to use long handled hammers to ping the rods, drive couplings, chassis and wheels on engines, cars and coaches. Longer handles facilitated the reach into running gear and chassis components underneath. A clear ping was an indication of a sound component; while a thud or clunk indicated a crack or bushing failure. It was part of a routine inspection procedure on steam engines and rolling stock. Steam engines were often inspected daily by the engineer, while rolling stock was inspected while sitting in the rail yards. 

[hickory n Steel]

Actually, the head only weighs six pounds.

Interesting.
That's definitely lighter than a spike maul would tend to be, maybe it's not one.

[jabberwoki]

Wow 20 years waiting for a handle...gotta be a record right? 

[slip knot]

I've got a pin driver that looks similiar. you hold it up against a pin and smack the back of it with a BFSH. kinda keeps the fingers out of the kill zone.  We used it to take the bucket pins out of track loader buckets.