Track: The Basics
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 9 дек 2020
- It's the track which makes a railway a railway! Rail Story looks at the permanent way, from ancient Greek Diolokos, through the wooden railways of the eighteenth century and the plateways of the early nineteenth century to the first mainline railways. A fascinating, but often ignored. technological journey. It's a long one so grab a coffee and a croissant.
I was a volunteer at a 2 foot line in Maine about a few months ago, and we were laying track for a new 4 road engine shed. Every single time we’d place a rail, we had to do it by hand. You’d think that the small gauge of the line would make it easier, but the rails were quite heavy and required an entire permanent way gang to slide a single rail into just the proper place. I was barely even able to keep up with the laborious work aside from putting down sleepers and ballast, so I’d mostly just be doing odd jobs.
Brilliant doco. I never knew about the stone 'sleepers' before.
There is still a form of the original “sleeper” in use, primarily on the European continent, called “bi-block”, where the rail is fixed to a concrete square, and it’s counterpart opposite is fixed to it by steel bar to form a sleeper.
I loved this vidéo !! It's very rare people talking about history of railway but it's nearly as much interresting as locomotive !
The subject of the earliest railway track is really fascinating, because of just how far back the idea goes. A really fascinating read on the subject was Derek Hayes' 'The First Railroads', which has some great pictures of early waggonways and some of the fascinating infrastructure around them. The hardwood railway is really inspiring, a full sized garden railway project perhaps?
The different terminology for railroads is also really interesting, I wish to live in an alternate reality where we talk about "high speed Newcastleroads"
When I read complaints about British people saying 'railroads' I point out to them that the term originated in Britain. :-)
@@Poliss95 Hehehe!
I was once asked by a visitor from Britain why a museum I volunteered for in the states had the name "Railway", as he'd always used the term "Railroad" in the UK, it's almost a Mandela effect, although the two terms can be used pretty much interchangeably.
@@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS Perhaps even stranger, the streetcar system in Denver, Colorado was officially the Denver Tramway Corporation, and built to cape gauge. I'm not aware of another "tramway" (at least not in official naming) in the U.S.
@@furripupau That is odd! I've only seen 'tramway' applied to things like ~2ft gauge mine railways in the US, which I assume has something to do with them originally being horse railways.
Cape gauge on an American street railway is also interesting, since most that I'm familiar with are either standard or 5' gauge (The latter being a decision to make it impossible for standard railroad cars to be left in the street, and to make the cars more stable as people move on or off.)
@@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS The 3'6" gauge was common for cable car lines (SF's cable car lines are still 3'6" gauge) due to the technical requirements of the underground infrastructure. However, Denver's use of the gauge pre-dates the adoption of cable cars, and it's unknown why it was chosen.
Very interesting history about railway track.
Thanks Good enjoy to watch rail nice good to knowing about
With an L shaped profile, the distance between the inside of the rails to make 4'8" (56") would be exactly 1.5 yards (54"). Or given the "flexibility" of 18th century measures, it may have been intended to be 1.5 yards between the rails. A yard and a half seems logical for the origin.
4’8” was the standard track width for road carts from Roman times.
Did not think this was something I'd ever really learn much about, but I'd be lying if I said this isn't one of the most interesting videos I've seen in quite a while
Thanks for this one. I just recently re-read William Brown's history of the First Locomotives in America, and he repeats the story about tramways being named after Outram. It seemed like the sort of story somebody would've have made up after the fact, so I was surprised when you mentioned it. The author also mentions something about flanged plateways which I had never considered before, but which is illustrated perfectly by the photos in your video: That the flanged rails could trap rocks and dirt, preventing the rolling of wagon wheels, whereas an edge rail with flanged wheels prevents this issue.
Love the rigorous detail in this presentation. Well done. A great reference to refer others to when some weird explanations crop up.
Many thanks John
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Agreed; it is very good - thank you -
but the tinkling of some pipes in the background is a dreadful distraction!
Nice and concise! Chock full of facts and even some gentle background music! 10/10!
While the Adler was the first successful steam locomotive in Germany, there had been two locomotives built 1816 and 1817 by Königliche Eisengießerei Berlin, smaller copies of the Blenkinsop cogwheel locomotive. They had various problems (leaks in boiler and cylinders, wheelsets dimensioned too weak to carry the cast iron boiler) so they never entered regular service and the plans to introduce steam power to the horse-drawn mine railways were given up for the time being. The second of these locomotive ("Geislauterner Dampfwagen") was reconstructed in 2014 as a non-working full scale model preserved in the transport museum of Nürnberg.
The first successful steam locomotive built in Germany was the Saxonia of 1838, larger and more powerful than the Patentee locomotives. It was built for the Leipzig-Dresdner Eisenbahn which however preferred mostly English-built locomotives in the beginning.
I have seen the Ajax (oldest locomotive preserved on the European continent) in the technical museum of Vienna. I never thought of it as a Patentee since it has two coupled wheelsets.
All this talk of wooden railways does nothing but take me back to Thomas wooden railway, but it's nice to know they were functional full size in history!
Another excellent video. Thank you.
My pleasure
Very enjoyable and informative, thank you!
Thankyou. Glad you enjoyed it :-)
Another excellent video Mr Dawson. Very much looking forward to the rolling stock video as well. Something you may find interesting is that the advantage bullhead has over flat bottomed rail is that its much easier to curve. Bullhead can simply be barred across with chairs and sleepers attached, whereas flat bottomed need special equipment.
Interesting point. If you try to bend a bullhead (or a narrow I-beam) section it should bend symmetrically, whereas a flat-bottom rail section will certainly try to twist because of the far greater lateral rigidity of the flat bottom.
Nice work as always
In one of the next episodes, could you do
The first locomotive of the first railway of italy "Bayard"?
It's a very long time since I left Watford, but where the old station was, north of the St.Albans Road bridge, the embankment, down to the formation was built up with old sleeper blocks, with the bored holes for the chair bolts visible.
Thanks for the video. Most enlightening.
I have the book 'The Railway - British Track since 1804'. Still trying to get hold of Early Wooden Railways at a reasonable price.
I already knew a lot about the later period, but very little about wooden railways, apart from what was written in a page or two of The Pictorial Encyclopaedia of Railways by Hamilton Ellis.
I think an important point in the development of track was discovered at Chat Moss, where the L&MR had to be diverted, when they found that the rails lasted a lot longer over the springy trackbed which led to the idea that resilience of the trackbed was much better than setting the rails on a rigid structure.
Brunel had to go his own way with track, as he did in most things, using bridge rails instead of a solid piece of iron.
I read in The Railway - British Track since 1804 that modern railways are returning to the original idea of a very rigid track base meaning that the suspension on trains has to be much better.
Thanks for that Anthony, there's a lot there I didn't know.
I sometimes get frustrated debunking the common myth that the width of a horse's backside led directly to Roman carts, to Stephenson's standard gauge, to the diameter of Saturn rocket boosters (apparently shipped by rail, which then demands an explanation of the difference between track gauge and loading gauge...)
One thing you omitted to mention about sleepers, was their function in keeping the track accurately to gauge, even if it moves or creeps on its trackbed - something e.g. stone blocks won't do.
Yeah stone blocks are quite apt to spread. Which is why some lines used wrought iron tie rods between the blocks to keep them to gauge. Then again iron rails and stone blocks as devised by Outram and/or John Curr in the 1790s were not intended for heavy locomotives and fast speeds....the fact they were able to sustain locomotive working is a testament to over engineering.
Cracking video, cheers
I've always found the idea of metal rails on ballast, called a permanent way.
The term derives from the "temporary" and "permanent" way the temporary way being the contractors line and the permanent way the finished job.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Thanks for the information.
I have a selection of bridge rail sections mounted on oak, making perfect weights for my tailoring activities. When Brassey, Peto and Betts got to work on the Grand Crimea Railway, it was done so fast and efficiently (unlike the army commissariat), that the bridge rails (more suitable for quick and easy laying onto anything counting as a sleeper) were still warm from the rollings as they were loaded aboard ship.
One trusts you side cross-legged on your table. But, funny you should mention the Balaklava Railway as I've written one book on it and am completing a much longer academic work on it. One of the very tired, and easily disproved myths about the Crimea is that the Commissariat was not " fast and efficient" and that Sir William Filder was incompetent: not so. The blame lays entirely at the door of Lord Raglan. Filder, since August 1854, had been asking Raglan what preparations he should make for a winter campaign. Raglan said no point; not even any point in having the tents inspected as they wouldn't be needed. Meanwhile Marechal Saint Arnaud was laying in enormous stocks of bread, biscuit, tents, boots, you name it. It wasn't until the end of October 1854 that Raglan told Filder to start preparing for a Winter Campaign. It's worth remembering that Filder was unable to purchase anything until it had been approved back in London. And, its also worth remembering that the British Army stores system worked on a "just in time" method. For example, clothing was issue twice a year in October and April. So there was no magazines full of spare greatcoats or boots - the whole system was set up to issue at specific points and not outside them (unlike the French, for example who had magazines full of boots or greatcoats). My Master's Thesis was a study of British and French logistics in the Crimea and many of the myths created by the likes of W H Russell of The Times - who was writing with a political agenda - are just not true.
The Balaklava Railway was laid with flat-bottomed Vignoles rail and not Bridge Rails. All of the contemporary photorgraphs show Vignoles rail. At first it was simply spiked to the sleepers and instead of fish plates joint-chairs were used. However the whole lot had to be re-laid at great expense and labour over the Summer of 1855 as the permanent way had pretty much collapsed under the weight of traffic. Even then, by winter 1855 the railway was useless due to the weather conditions with everything having to go by road.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Thank you for clearing up my knowledge about the type of rail.
Excellent video, but, the bells, the bells! That backing track derailed my flangeless centre driver!...
Ta.
A decade ago i was in Austria at Voestalpine where i saw steel being forged into HST rail profile between hydraulic rollers.
Nowadys the entire relaying of a track is almost automated by a worktrain. Its an enginering symphonie you must see if you like enginering. At the front the old track in the middle resurfacing the trackbed at the end a completly new track in fresh ballast!
Then remember that in the 19 and early 20 century were 95% of all tracks where built, almost everything the trackbed and tracks where build and laid down by manual labour!
excellent
Wow, this was great Anthony! I really enjoyed the etymologies and the description of the evolution of the track. According to a biography of Brunel I found, he was one of the first of those who thought. While the Diolkos was possible be built with grooves for wheels, Roman road did not have that feature prebuilt, but it can be that the carriage available at that time "dug" them slowly. Moreover, these carriages had no steering device at all, therefore some kind of guiding track might have been useful. What is known is that a carriage that should have circulated in places like Pompei should have respected some sort of gauge, else it could not pass in the slots supplied in the pedestrian passages.
Next time I should engage a spellchecker.
Anthony don't know if you are aware of this, but it was around 1850 that wrought iron double headed 45lb/yard rail in 24 foot lengths. 1857 saw the introduction rolled steel bullhead rail, the Settle-Carlisle route was laid with 83lb/yard rail of 24ft long sections. By 1915 rail lengths of 30ft, 36ft, 40ft, 45ft, 48ft, and 60ft were all in use. The LNWR and NER were using the 60ft lengths.
In the pre-grouping era timber sleepers became more or less standardised at 9ft by 10in by 5in on plain track, on point sleeper were widened to 12in and thickened to 6in. Although railways in Scotland and the GER tended to use interlaced sleepers on their points instead of the larger timbers. After the grouping sleepers were shortened to 8ft 6in.
In all cases you could still find rail lengths and sleepers until relatively recently on little used lines and sidings.m
Do you have any more insight into the iron-strap-surmounted wooden rails, popularly known in America as "strap rail", and particularly the difficulties in fastening the ends of two straps together? Popular myth has it that the continuous force of train wheels passing over these straps would gradually coax them into bending and wanting to curl up like a spring, eventually generating so much force at the joints as to cause the end of a strap to spring up, sometimes punching through the floor of a passing train carriage, a phenomenon known as a "snakehead".
Also, what motivated the decision in early American railways to do away with chairs and use simple, crude spikes driven directly into the wooden sleeper to secure the rail?
If I may, the simple answer to the last question is that it was just cheaper. The use of wooden ties was initially motivated by cost too. The first few miles of the B&O were built using various techniques, including mounting the rail on stone or wood, and wood proved the winner early on.
Ultimately wooden "rail" capped with iron strap disappeared because of the maintenance costs, and because its use precluded the use of heavy locomotives, limiting the efficiency of the road. One of the reasons the venerable Hinkley Lion of 1846 survived long enough to make it into preservation is that the Palmer and Machiasport never converted the road to iron rail, using wooden stringers capped with iron strap until the very end in 1892 (look at photos of when the Lion was removed for scrap in 1897, and the wooden track is still in evidence). When the Lion was severely damaged by fire in 1880, no modern replacement light enough could be found, so the Lion was rebuilt and put back into service despite its age. Today the loco sits on an accurate reconstruction of the track it worked on all its life.
I've never come accross anything like that about iron straps springing up. They were used sparingly due to the cost, usually on curves crossings etc which could expect heavy wear. If anything, instead of springing up, they were forced down into the wooden rail, and the nails securing them often fell out and needed a lot of maintenance to hammer them back home. The earliest Bar Rails were screwed to the top of longitudinal timbers - such as on the Lake Lock Rail Road of 1798.
Not using chairs and spiking the rail direct to a wooden sleeper was cheap, quick and easy. With a broad foot the load was spread over a large surface area and a timber sleeper would be elastic. What amazes me is often the lack of ballast on American railways - ballast performs two really important functions in terms of an elastic cushion and drainage. Whilst Vignoles rail could be laid without chairs and therefore cheaper, it is much much harder to bend than Bull Head rail. Which would make it more expensive and time consuming to lay out proper curves with good geometry. Modern flat-bottomed rail is usually laid on concrete sleepers, secured with clips and with a large block of rubber between the rail and sleeper to provide the needed elasticity. It's fascinating stuff but so overlooked.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory I’ve seen several descriptions of strap rail in books on American 19th century railways. One of the first railroads in Wisconsin about 1850 was originally laid with second hand strap rails. There are woodcut illustrations from magazines of the period about a ‘snakehead’ violently puncturing the floor of a coach. The weight of wheels would eventually deform the strap. causing it to curve upwards at the ends.
Speed. Early American railways were built quickly and crudely. In the book "Mixed Train Daily," Lucius Beebe includes a photo of a short line still existing in the late 40's where the ground was smoothed and the ties plunked down with NO ballast! Apparently this line had operated this way since...forever. He also found a short line where some of the rail had "Sheffield" stamped into it, indicating both that the rail had been made in Sheffield, England, and that it was incredibly old. Personally, I've thought for some time that the "snakehead" story was a bit of an exaggeration as the iron straps would likely have been too short to hit a car bottom, but they must have caused a lot of (low speed) derailments.
Loved it great video, just wanted to ad that George Stephenson also used the same gauge in 1830 here in Belgium.
Great information on early rail systems! The "Leitnagel" (guide pin) is pronounced like "lite", not "leet" ;-)
When was the 1/2" added to Killingworth gauge?
Yea, what he said!! Lol
We don't really know. The Liverpool & Manchester (1830) was laid to 4 ft 8 ins and it probably gained the extra half inch when it was completely relaid with new rails 1836, the extra half inch to ease the curves. The Leeds & Selby (1834), however, was built at 4ft 8 1/2ins which probably makes it not only the first Mainline Railway to be worked entirely by locomotives but also the first modern standard gauge mainline.
Will you ever do a video on the evolution of rolling stock?
What about concrete railroad ties or sleepers whatever you want to call them have you ever heard train coming down a rail line that using concrete sleepers and you can hear the metal of the Rails like screeching and groaning you can hear the wheels grip the rail through the rail have you ever experienced that and why does that happen just curious piece out into World have a great day you're a great researcher thank you for showing us stuff in English and French railroad history on a tangent there's this channel called streamliners I think it was on his second Channel called streamliners to and it showed us French Northern class 484 passenger steam locomotive I never knew French railroads ever had in Northern class I knew you guys had a mountain 482 Class steam locomotive that tripped me out I've never seen that locomotive before awesome videos peace out
I think there could be a part 2 of this covering such evolutionary dead ends as the the bridge rail on baulks, the MacDonnells rail and the Barlow rail.
Aside of the eventual evolution into steel, I wonder if there have been experiments with other materials? Longevity and dynamics is a very tough sort of call.
They Hay Tor Granite Railway famously used granite rails.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Stone hewn rails is indeed an interesting concept.
The description of a railway contained an error. Flanges on wheels do not keep a train on a track: flanges are only for safety, i.e stopping a train from derailing. Wheels are conical in profile, which keeps the wheels on both sides of a bogie drawn to the inside (not the outside) This also means that the outside wheel on a bend will have a larger diameter, and the inside wheel a smaller diameter without which, one of the wheels would scrape the rail.
To understand this, just think of a car that has a differential, that allows the inside wheel on a bend to turn less than the outside wheel. As train wheels have a fixed solid axle, the conical profile of the wheels overcomes the problem that a differential does on a car.
Yes modern railway wheels are coned, and it is the coning which keeps them on the track, but in the grand scheme of things, coned railway wheels are a pretty recent innovation of the late 1820s. All railway wheels before that were not coned. Some weren't even flanged. :-)
I always wondered why railways have the absurd separation of 4 ft 8 and 1/2 inches instead of a much simpler 5 ft. I suppose it really doesn't matter.
It's entirely arbitrary, and 5 feet is only 'simpler' in Imperial measurements. (Ironically, Russia is metric but runs on 5' gauge through an accident of history). And even then, it's only a nominal figure - for example the rails may be widened slightly on tight curves etc, the distance between rail centres is different again...
@1:15 you seem to say something like "dialkos" I can't quite make it out. It would be helpful if unfamiliar words were also spelled out on the screen.
Whilst it is true that the track bed required for steam locomotives needs to be springy under load that for modern high speed services requires a greater degree of rigidity.
Yes it is. Not just for steam, however. It's all down to speed.
so some of the railway track featured here would be in use during the 1850s and early 1860s setting of the railway dectective book series then?
Bullhead certainly
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory in Australia the Victorian Railways were first laid with double headed rail in the period 1858 to perhaps 1870. I saw some in sidings being ripped up as late as 1985. Lots of others tried until vignoles flat bottom took over.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory what kind of coal stage did the Great Western railway use during those years to fill up the tenders and bunkers of their broad gauge steam locos with coke or coal?.
in one of the shorter Railway dectective stories a body of a railway Porter who was murdered the night before is discovered hidden under a heap of coal or coke early one morning at one of the Great Western railway's coal stages when a engine crew began to refuel their locomotive with more soild fuel. there is very little information on the design of the coal stage in that story. the loco crew do not feel well after finding out there's a dead body in their loco tender.
@@johnd8892 , you saw some in sidings getting ripped up in the 80's? really? where were these sidings? i saw a bent up heap of it next to the bendigo line somewhere around diggers rest in about 1976. i would have liked a sample but it was in lengths too long to fit into my eh holden. in the early 1990's i found a piece less than a metre long in, of all places, near the kewdale railway yard in perth, wa. from my own research it was never used anywhere in wa. it was getting in the way so i offered it to the bassendean railway museum. i rang them up and asked them if they'd like it. "yes please". so one sunday morning i pushed it under the front gate. i went there a few years ago expecting to see it on display. no-one knew anything about it. did one of them souvenir it for their own private collection? or did it get thrown out because they didn't know what it was? i'd strongly bet on the latter. i regret giving it away. i should have kept it. the maker's name was just visible.
@@vsvnrg3263 at photo stop run pass of triple R class to Bendigo. A station goods yard then disconnected but not yet all cleared. Pity I can't remember the name but I think north of Castlemaine. Double headed but before bullhead assymetrical rail.
nothing about 'Brodge rail'?
Bridge rail etc will be covered in a second part :-)
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory I've got a chromed and mounted piece(!!) from Sweden with a plaque stating its from the Köping -Hult railway, laid in 1853 on the stretch between Örebro-Skebäck its weight was ( my bit is only about an inch long!) approx 29 kg per Meter it was made in England of Swedish ore . I originally though it was a useless piece of modern art when I realised what I was reading on the plaque I bought it for the princely sum of about a quid (10 kronor) I've had it for 30 years now on the bookshelf :)
read BRIDGE instead of BRODGE hadnt had a cuppa for atleast an hour....
wasnt Middleton 4'1"
only after it was re-laid with patent iron rack rails by Blenkinsop.
Interesting video but had to stop watching as your background music was droning on with the same ditty. Need to remove it or only have it for start and end.