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William Dubbelde wins the day at
the Junior Rail Split
[September 02, 2026]
At 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon,
six youngsters signed up to compete in the National Railsplitting
Festival Junior Rail Split competition. The six competitors all in
their pre-teen or early-teen years were Lincoln Friedlein, Oliver
Friedlein, Colson Chambers, Clayton Chambers all of Downs, Kasey
Norin of LeRoy and William Dubbelde of Stanford.
The junior split follows the same basic rules as the professional
split with a few concessions. Instead of a whole log, the
contestants start with a half log that is about half the length of
the logs in the pro split. They are required to finish with three
clean rails with no threads joining then, and they must have their
tools cleared before calling their time.
The big concession is that there is
an assigned mentor for each competitor. That mentor or coach is
permitted to get the wedge started and can stay with the contestant
the entire time offering coaching, advice and, once in a while, a
quick hand if a log is too heavy for the kid to move. The contestant
cannot physically help split the log or clear the tools.
Like in the pro split the logs were numbered and the kids drew
numbers to find out their log assignment. Then they headed out to
the field and awaited the beginning of the event.
[to top of second column] |
This event moved quickly and
the kids had pretty decent logs to work with so it wasn’t nearly
the challenge their adult counterparts would face at the end of
the day.
Left to right: Clayton Chambers (third place), William
Dubbelde (first place) and Oliver Friedlein (second place).
William Dubbelde made an impressing finish with a time of only 4:36.
The second and third place finishers were almost three minutes
behind. Oliver Friedlein finished second at 7:09, Clayton Chambers
took third with a time of 7:23.
Railsplitter Festival junior rail split photo slideshow part 1
Railsplitter Festival junior rail split photo slideshow part 2
Railsplitter Festival junior rail split video playlist
[Nila Smith] |
