Statkowski wrote:You should note the many differences between American practice and British. For example: the length of trains. British freight trains never reach the sort of extreme lengths found in some parts of America, and they are a good deal faster, to avoid slowing the passenger trains. Second, Passenger trains are much more frequent. Thus even quite fast lines may have several trains per hour. Almost all lines,except those in the periphery of Scotland and Wales, are at least double track.David Benton wrote:I would think English rail is alot lighter and lower profile than heavy haul American rail.Lighter, yes, but not by too much. Went searching on-line and it appears the newest "heavy" rail for British rails is 120-pound rail while 132-pound rail appears to be the norm for North American lines.
The PRR had some 155-pound rail, but that's no longer produced. Locally, where I live, R.J. Corman has been putting in 127-pound rail on an as-needed basis on one of its branch lines in Pennsylvania. Much of the trackage is still jointed rail, so there's plenty of room for rail expansion in hot weather. Their biggest concern, and limiting factor, is a 14-degree curve at the base of a 0.8% descending grade. Too much train weight pushing the train down the hill and the outside rail on the curve will lay over on its side. Current operation has four SD40-2s pulling 65 loaded coal cars over the line.
Today, the day after the longest day, has been cooler by about 10oC.
Last edited by george matthews on Fri Jun 23, 2017 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.