How might a broken rail be discovered?

Don't forget, it also depends on the lengths of rail available, what can be transported by the work equipment, etc.

It wouldn't surprise me to find a "standard" cut section is 8 or 10 feet, simply because that's the standard size of a replacement section ...

(if you brought in replacement rail, 10 feet long, already drilled for bolt holes, you can save a lot of time)

A better question is ... are rail breaks typically fixed with bolted sections, or welded sections?

It would depend if it was a"clean" break(pull apart) or a fracture of the rail head,"cutting and splicing" a rail section
is done at times, sometimes drilling the rail and using Joint bars is the "fix".
That is the Track Dept Foreman's call

Now that's interesting... it would never have occurred to me that you could simply bolt a break back together ...

Somehow, I figured that the metal in the area of the break would be considered compromised or something ...