When a 20 m rail is 20 m long?

Perhaps I’m splitting hairs here, but it is a fair question to ask: When a 20 m rail is 20 m long? Please, have your say and feel free to comment below, after voting! And this is not a trap question like “Which weighs more: 1 kg of steel rail or 1 kg of feathers?”. Later edit: By…

Modern Railway Track

Motto: Tolle lege! Perhaps the best and most complete technical book about track is “Modern Railway Track” written by Dr Coenraad Esveld, Professor of Railway Engineering at Delft University of Technology.  A detailed Table of Contents of the second edition can be found here together with a brief selection of the book. The second edition, written…

Relative position of adjacent tracks

General considerations The relative position of  railway double or multiple adjacent lines is of critical importance for level crossings. On canted tracks, the road traffic is affected if the level crossing does not provide a good riding plane, especially for long vehicles or the (sometimes expensive) low profile ones. This is why the design of…