Rich
I suspect you’ll see more and more of these as CWR temperature-adjusted for higher peak temperatures without kink comes into adoption. (Not necessarily relevant to this specific case, which might be GCC; am I drawing reasonable conclusions from what I think I see in the metallurgical appearance of the broken end?
(Also looks to me like a number of trains ran over the break before it was discovered!)
RME
I have wondered about that type of rail. In Western, Mass right now, a lot of one quarter mile long sections of 136 lb ribbon rail have been laid down outside the main line in my area. I guess they are waiting for spring or warner weather before ripping out the old and putting in the new. I hope to be able to see the rig that comes through to do this. Ties, ballast, etc.
Rich
Interesting cracked right over the tie plate. Is that unusual ?
No - it can happen anyplace. Over a tie plate is just like breaking a branch across your knee - the rail is bent downward slightly on each side, so the top / head of the rail is in tension, and any existing surface or internal flaw or defect provides a starting place from which a crack can propagate into a full break.
These breaks are often associated with fatigue, or frequent high-level stress reversals (like breaking a wire by bending nt repeatedly in opposite directions). Just as likely they can occur between the ties/ tie plates, too.
I’d want to see a better photo, but it kind of looks like a wedge-shaped piece dropped out of the bottom ?!?
- Paul North.
Pandrol plate fixed to something other than a tie…Pull apart due to cold snap? If you have a nick in the base, it’s tough for the rail detector to see it.
Rail and by extension track - does not respond all that well to the extremes of weather. Heat & cold. When weather gets hot in the extreme (90+ in most places) rail must expand because of the heat, this expansion puts stress on the track structure and when the structure fails you have what are known as ‘sun kinks’.
When the other extreme, cold, comes into play the rail will contract from the cold. This puts a tension force on the rail and the track structure. The continued force of the tension can take a small metallurgical flaw in the rail to the point of failure, it can pull apart bolted rail joints, it can make the rail more prone to break when subject to a striking forces (hammer effect of a flat wheel). The older rail gets (and old relates more to tonnage moved over the rail than just simple age) whatever minor flaws that existed in the rail when cast begin to grow, eventually, after millions upon millions of tons of traffic passing, they become a failure.
The effects of expansion and contraction of rail can be minimized by originally laying the rail at a specific ‘normalized temperature’. On my carrier that is 80 degrees on the Northern part of the property, 90 degrees on the Southern part of the property and 95 degrees on some narrowly specified parts of the property. Nothing is foolproof.
I never thought I would see a kinky and cracked thread on this website.
Do the benefits of continuously-welded rail outweigh the dangers of kinks and cracking? Our DC Metro has had both recently.
Perhaps the best way to answer this is to look at some of the available material.
FRA has changed their server system recently; here are the present (I believe) links:
RME
oops
Rich; it looks like tired iron to me. Cracked and kink or otherwise not normal.
Jim