Off Topic The weather

Don’t think longer lengths save money, isn’t the reason for it to cut down on noise from the tracks?

 

awful nights sleep

 

I had a **** days sleep at home but a cracking sleep on nights at work
We’ve got air con

 

this is off that link i posted

• As most track is made up of long pieces of rail that are stretched and welded together, there is much less chance of buckling in very high temperatures because there is reduced compression.
• When a track is made up from short rails bolted together, we leave small gaps between each one so that expansion doesn’t cause a problem.

i reckon its a cost cutting exercise. might be to cut down the noise? but either way the longer lengths cant cope with the extremes of temps we are getting if they made them able to withstand the severe heat then they claim they would be fooked at very low temps. i very rarely use the train but i seem to remember not hearing that familiar cla-clack, cla-clack. as much. btw that was my best trainline impersonation. wonder what happens in countries such as italy where there is snow and ice on them and a few months later temps as high as what were experiencing now.

 

They use longer rails in countries with greater extremes of weather, hot and cold, than we have. Maybe better systems of managing contraction and expansion than we have.

 

i noticed they said where they use slabs of concrete to mount the rails they cope better than the usual sleepers on stones. which is obvious really. i cant see them re mounting all their rails on concrete slabs.
i cant understand why they cant devise a system where they can have gaps to allow for expansion and a secure way in which to connect them. maybe bed the rails on slabs only at the joints? and a way to reduce noise. which surely only happens when they are out of line?

 

It's raining. Take a raincoat tonight and a bucket.

 

Dry in Punch, Vicky Square.

 

Fortunately I was in a hotel with amazing aircon Monday & Tuesday this week. I've never been so happy in my life

 

Run out have they?

 

Across the UK rail network yesterday there was 9km more rail than normal due to expansion
I guess the fact it’s fastened down in places means it’s buckles

 

Did you mean 5.592341 miles?

 

Not particularly
I meant 9km because that’s what I remembered they’d said
Found it now

 

so a 3mm gap for expansion every 10 metres would reduce or even eliminate buckling.

 

It's poor business sense on their part not to grab the excess while it's there and get it weighed in.

 

Can’t remember who, but someone replied to ask if we could have it up here!

 

Surprised they haven’t thought of that.

To be fair they are saying they need to review the whole network due to increased likelihood of higher temperatures so maybe that will be a potential answer

 

However, that would increase the noise levels dramatically.

Prestressing the rails does the same without the higher noise levels.

 

Don't forget that rails also contract in winter. Railways set up to cope with 40 degree weather will struggle when they get to minus 20.