What are the Purpose and Elements of the Railway Track?

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- In one of the previous videos we talked about rail signaling as one of the key elements of the railway system. Today, we’ll talk about another such element, also crucial for the existence and functioning of the railway traffic. The railway track.

Railway track is a multilayered construction which typicaly includes rails, fish plates (also called joint bars or splice bars), rail fastening system, sleepers (also called ties), ballast and optionally a so called sub-ballast.

In this video we discuss the purpose of each of these elemets in the railway track, but also the role of the railway track as a whole.

All elements of the railway track must be able to absorb and transfer all forces resulting from the movements of trains (heavy static pressure plus dynamic impacts), and that from rails to sleepers, from sleepers to ballast, and finally from ballast to the base layer of the railway track.

At the end of the video, we briefly explained the ballast-less track (slab track), a type of modern and advanced railway track, in which the traditional elastic combination of sleepers and ballast is replaced by a rigid construction made of concrete or asphalt.

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[johnjones]

Great video again. Just one remark: Beside jointed rails with fishplates there is also continuous welded rail. Welded rails are more expensive to lay than jointed rails, but have much lower maintenance costs.

[davefuelling]

I do want to correct you on the wheel to track depiction. The flanges on the wheels do not make contact with the rail under normal operation. There is a gap between the flange and rail head. The part of the wheel that rides on the track is tapered where the diameter of the wheel is greatest at the flange. This taper causes the wheel set to center itself while rolling. When going around a curve, the wheel on the outside of the curve moves toward the flange, the taper causes the outside wheel to increase it's diameter at the contact point with the rail and the inside wheel's diameter to decrease, thus causing the wheel set to follow the curve without the flange rubbing on the track. The only time the flange makes contact with the rail is during extreme cornering, such as when changing tracks while going through a set of points. When you hear that high pitched squeal when a train is moving, that's the flange rubbing on the rail head. If it did this all of the time, the wheels and rails would wear out quite quickly and would need to be replaced way more often then they are now.

[andrewpaddock]

Learning how the stuff actually works and the names was enjoyable. Some of this stuff I'd heard of before but didn't understand. I have a better appreciation for the engineering involved in an element I never gave much thought to. I didn't understand the math, of course, as I wasn't taught that level of math at school, never mind physics. I got the gist of it, though. Thanks for the video!

[alejandrocastillotrujillo]

Keep up this excellent work guys! Im an urban planning student in Colombia and your videos have helped me understand lots of the engeneering aspects of trains... I hope one day we can bring back trains to my country :)

[xouxoful]

A fishplate (french : éclisse) was also the cause of the brétigny accident. It was lacking some bolt so it detached itself and got stuck inside a switch, making a train derail (with victims among people waiting for the RER nearby.)

[michaeleverett]

The video doesn't mention that most steel wheeled metro systems use ballastless railway tracks especially in the underground and elevated segments. Although, the at ground segments including metro systems and other types of trains frequently use railway track with ballast.

[captainkeyboard]

This was the best railroad show I have seen. I learned more about the railroad track I have not learned before. I thought that a sleeper is only a concrete rail tie. The modern track that was shown is suitable for track with welded rails, except on trestles. Your show enhances my appreciation for the railroad. Thank you for clean, clear and thorough explanations about the railroad track.

[AaronSmith-kryf]

Here on US freight railways they're ripping out concrete ties on some section of track and going back to wooden. They were supposed to be more durable than wood but ended up cracking/falling apart earlier. Word is the company who made the ties defrauded the rail roads by using the wrong mix(ie cheaper) of concrete. Or could be that the rail roads spec'd a cheap grade of concrete that didn't last. Whatever the case there is a lot of finger pointing/blame going around and its cost the rail roads a lot more money than if they had just stuck with wooden ties.

[EarlJohn]

So few gauges, in Australia there are at least 14, although I will admit that only 3 are used for mainline operations.

[robertperrella]

brilliant well researched video which sad to say most people take for granted

[EdwardPlantagenet]

Great content, thank you for explaining basics of railways so beautiful & easily 🥰

[AshishSaxena]

Just amazing as always....
A topic for a future video:-All Track Gauges Explained
Keep it up :)

[trainstrains]

Another great video and one I will use to teach my trainees. Thank you again.

[mustafaothman]

Many thanks for the great and simplified information.

[haroldramone]

Thanks. Keep the Railways Explained videos coming.

[DanielsUKT]

Good to hear about the components that go into railway track and until I saw this video I thought it was all done by ballast underneath

[amirbrotzki]

Another great video as always. Thank you!!!

[v.m.]

Man kann viel aus euren Videos lernen! Wie immer, gut erklärt! 🙂

[nikolapetrovic]

Good job, keep doing what you are doing.

[RazielKainus]

nice, now I kinda understand how come the rails stay in place despite such big loads :)