I always hear about experimental metal alloys and I was wondering would it be possible to apply such metals for the purpose of reducing friction between rail and wheel or scientifically engineering steel for greater strength to weight ratio? Finally would it be possible to change how rails put into the ground by say using a paving machine and laying rails out in there molten state similar to how roads are paved, the advantage of this would be no welding or joining with the result being a smoother more continuous surface.
Steel rails are special alloys, the metal in a rail is not homogenous from the Ball (contact area), through the Web, to the Base. They are carefully cooled, and normally under a vacuum, to keep tiny voids from forming in the surface. The idea is to achieve a hard surface to the rail without making the rail brittle. The metallurgy in rails in much more specific than in typical structural steels. This article from the UK is a good introduction to steel rail metallurgy.
Needs desperately to spend a week at Pueblo. First at the steel mill (ERVAZ/RMSM/CF&I), then at the AAR/TTCI test track.
Hint#1: Does OnThe realize that rail is rolled and hammered many times to gain strength?
Hint#2: I don’t want to see the size of the ingot/billet needed for OnThe’s industrial size playdoh machine.
Hint#3: The heat involved and the energy involved to fire up the arc furnace? Where do you plug that rascal in?..so much for wood ties (charcoal?)
The only place asphalt paving belongs is under the ballast.(for a smoother ride)…rail is only a part of an engineered system that the shiny playthings roll over.
The problem with casting rails in place as you suggest is that environmental factors greatly effect how the metal hardens…From what I gather, even in a he controlled environment of a steel mill this is an intricate process,try it out in the weather with flucuating heat and cold and you’d lose quality control…
Maybe someday there will be a sci-fi like application of this idea, a mobile nanotechnology based factory that produces carbon diamanoid rails to order,just the thing for those antimatter fueled steam locomotives that BNSFUPCSXNS (the Canadian government won’t allow CN and CP to merge into the megarail system) to run on…
Of course by then all the freight will travel through tubes at hypersonic speeds…
Those guys at the Taggert Transcontinental Railroad seem to like their Rearden Metal rails.
Oh…wait…
It seems you are suggesting it would be desirable to reduce the friction between a steel wheel and the rail it rides on. In the case of locomotion this is known as adhesion and locomotives are dependent upon it to exert the drawbar pull necessary to start and move a train without slipping. Simply apply oil to the rails and the rolling friction between the wheels and the rails could be decreased but this would be counterproductive since the locomotive would lose adhesion and therefore be unable to start and move its train.
Mark
The properties of steel rails interfaced with steel tires above them, with those tires supporting all the weight of the locomotive, is what makes rail transport so marvellously efficient. Apart from their being unfortunately slippery, and much worse with severe conditions such as grades, curves, wet leaves, grease, etc., the rolling resistance is almost negligible at that interface due to the near-rigid materials only having to roll, and not slide.
As the gentleman above notes, you most definitely do NOT want to give up traction to make the rails slippery…it’s already a borderline condition. You may recall how easily high-drivered steamers would slip, even lifting modest or small passenger consists, when the rails were slippery. Instead, you trade off a lot of traction by using the two metals against each other, but you get excellent rolling properties that allow a nicely graded right of way to move many thousands of tons of traffic more easily and efficiently, with much less carbon production and thermal loss, than any other way except afloat.
Crandell