When they say new rail is installed to handle higher loads,What changes on the new rail,thicker web,wider base,height change?,stronger steel.It looks the same to the untrained eye.Things your mind asks when yoou have a lot of time .thank you in advance.
http://www.akrailroad.com/rail_cross_sec.html
As you can see, the “heavier” the rail, the taller and thicker it becomes in many aspects.
Ed
…Didn’t realize there were so many different “angle bars”…but I understand why there is. It makes one wonder how confusion is avoided to get the correct bars for the certain weight of rail one might be working with.
But with CWR I suppose that’s not much of a problem.
There seems to be so much geometry issues with rail design…Makes one wonder back in railroad construction beginnings how much was really known of what would be required of rail design.
On the rail, the head (ball) of the rail had to be held firmly in placewith the fillet curves that attached to the web of the rail and likewise, the web to the base of the rail. Those radii tend to increase. One of the big reasons that the railway engineers (AREA/AREMA) split from the civil engineers(ASCE). The civil engineers had a poor rail design standard and wouldn’t change. 110# rail that was t
Some had to learn the hard way. In England were rails began it they had designed a rail with a railhead on top AND bottum. These rails were held in chairs. The idea was that when the railhead eventualy weirs out you just go and turn the rail upside down in the chair and the rail should have a new life. Well that did not work for so amny reasons. Learning curve #1.
Mud’s comments are as usual appropriate.
We don’t recommend anything with less than a 6" base for 286K loads. 136 RE CC is fine for low density traffic, high-tonnage lines.
Many Class Is had unique sections, some of which weren’t very satisfactory in the long term, e.g. NYC’s Dudley sections and SP’s Head-Free sections. When PC and Conrail were pulling up redundant main track they accummulated a substantial tonnage of second-hand Dudley that had some life in it still, most of which was sold second-hand to other Class Is for relay such as Rio Grande and KCS.
Not unusual on a secondary main or heavy-tonnage branch line to find 10 or 20 different sections on the main track.
S. Hadid
What would be your recommendation for high-density, high-tonnage lines? Or for a line that is mainly high speed passenger traffic?
(Gosh, this gets interesting)
141 RE for freight. For passenger, 115 RE gives a better ride than the stiff sections such as 141.
S. Hadid
Is all rail available as CWR? The two websites that I have looked at both list rail as various lengths, such as 39’ or 80’.
Wouldn’t you have an inherent weak spot where each of these different rails met?
Why would it be weaker than any other joint?
question time what does CWR mean, im sure its a stupid question?
I was thinking along the lines of 2 different profiles.sizes, and weights being connected end to end.
Not stupid at all. It means Continuous Welded Rail.
Continuous Welded Rail (or the initials of our trainmaster. I’ll leave that at that.)
Some of the CSX line in my area is made up of stick rail welded into CWR, complete with bolt holes. Some of the rail dates to the 40’s.
No questions are stupid. That’s the way people learn. CWR= continuous welded rail.
It’s called a compromise joint, but I don’t remember where I’ve got that picture… Not exactly uncommon.
Well, I’ve certainly seen it often enough (and I don’t even get out to the tracks that much). Perhaps you are right. If the smaller rail needed to be shimmed to adjust the height, I could see that it could indeed be weaker.
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