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Frozen Train Tracks? Set 'Em on Fire (theatlantic.com)
It might look dangerous, but flames have kept switches moving and rails intact for a century. From a report: As if the horrors of the polar vortex were not already enough -- temperatures that look like typos, Canada Goose robbers, and something called frost quakes -- the nation's railroad system took a turn for the apocalyptic this week, too. Rails broke in three different places between Baltimore and Washington on Thursday, causing severe delays. Amtrak canceled dozens of trains passing through Chicago, and viral videos appeared to show commuter tracks in the city on fire. Of course, the tracks themselves were not burning -- they are made out of steel, prized for its tendency to rarely go up in flames. But the sight is still dramatic. The videos of the fires in Chicago last week show flames smoldering in patches of melted snow around the tracks.
Fires have been employed on railroads -- and remained the preferred fix for many a winter hazard -- for most of their roughly two-century history. While railroads have developed impressive tools for dealing with snow on the tracks, extreme temperatures remain a challenge. Though steel is flame-resistant, it's subject to cold, which can jam up railroads' many moving parts. When cold weather does wreak havoc on railroads, lighting fires on train tracks can serve a couple of uses. One is to thaw the switches that determine which track a train goes down, which is what Metra, the Chicagoland commuter-rail authority, said was going on this week. Switches are moving parts, and if ice gets into them, they can freeze in place. There are various types of switch heaters, which might use electric current or gas to melt ice -- or even an open gas flame, which is what's appearing in the Metra videos. Where there aren't switch heaters, crews might use temporary torchlike devices with a flame, the railroad equivalent of the smudge pots farmers use to keep citrus groves and apple orchards from freezing on cold nights.
Fires have been employed on railroads -- and remained the preferred fix for many a winter hazard -- for most of their roughly two-century history. While railroads have developed impressive tools for dealing with snow on the tracks, extreme temperatures remain a challenge. Though steel is flame-resistant, it's subject to cold, which can jam up railroads' many moving parts. When cold weather does wreak havoc on railroads, lighting fires on train tracks can serve a couple of uses. One is to thaw the switches that determine which track a train goes down, which is what Metra, the Chicagoland commuter-rail authority, said was going on this week. Switches are moving parts, and if ice gets into them, they can freeze in place. There are various types of switch heaters, which might use electric current or gas to melt ice -- or even an open gas flame, which is what's appearing in the Metra videos. Where there aren't switch heaters, crews might use temporary torchlike devices with a flame, the railroad equivalent of the smudge pots farmers use to keep citrus groves and apple orchards from freezing on cold nights.
So lighting the tracks on fire, is a standard way of solving frozen tracks... While we all love to see fire, and it often an interments of destruction, a controlled fire, has its benefits too.
Did you also know fire fighters who are trying to stop forest fires from spreading, may actually control burn parts of the forest, to isolate it from spreading?
So fire melts Ice, or is this a conspiracy from big fire companies, who have been manipulating mankind for the last 2 million years.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Speaking as an Atlanta native, we are well aware that Northerners have plenty of experience heating up railroad tracks.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Exactly. These types of stories are offensive. Why didn't they use AI to determine which tracks were frozen and how much fire to use? Or they could use Tesla powerwalls to generate resistance heat to unfreeze the tracks. There isn't a solution that couldn't be improved by a 100x more expensive and complicated application of technology.
Those tracks in Chicago are flaming like that through most winter storms. Somebody decided it was newsworthy because of the severe cold. However, it's nothing new.
It's like saying a storm is bad because lightning hit the Sears Tower.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Doubtful. Technonerds tend to be Truthers, because they are so much smarter than all the sheep. After all, they make six figures designing websites and fixing desktop computers. They must be smart
Lawns? Lawns ! .. luxury .. when I were lad we had only had dirt
You do, of course, realize that destroying the tracks was merely an act of genocide. It was a deliberate, malicious act to destroy the economy in order to weaken the southern culture *after the war*.
If a state at war is not trying to destroy it's enemy's ability to make war, that state is ineptly led and most likely destined to lose the war. Atlanta and it's railroads were a valid military target. If you want to blame anyone for the state of the South after the war, blame Booth. He's the idiot that killed Lincoln and let the hardliners take control of Reconstruction.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Dirt! If only we had dirt! When I was a kid, all we had was gravel! And it was cold!
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Eh, my family most likely never owned slaves.
Yet you still manage to be salty about some bent railroad ties resulting from losing the war that the South started over an unforgivable practice of slavery.
Who says I was salty? I was merely making a tongue in cheek reference to Sherman and the March. However, I am of the camp that argues that boiling down the cause of the Civil War to slavery is a gross simplification. While it may have been about slavery and profits for the landowners and aristocracy behind secession, for the majority of the men behind the guns, it was about the perception (fueled by the pro-secessionist political/economic forces) that outsiders were going to come in and take away or change their way of life. That perception still exists today and can partially explain the rise of the alt-right and white nationalist movements in mainstream American politics.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
You can easily see the effect of normal fuel from the gas station if you look at the wrecks of burned out cars: In most cases, the frame of the car has sunken in under its own weight. Imagine the same steel frame with the weight of dozens of floors on top of it!
You know that one of the most common ways of shaping steel is heating so it is more malleable. It also causes steel to expand. In this case the expansion of the steel rails is what is being done to keep the joints from pulling apart. Since this is done in a controlled fashion they know not to heat the rails to the point they would deform much, just enough to get them back to their usual length. So while jet fuel(aka kerosene) isn't hot enough to melt steel, it is hot enough to cause steel to expand and possibly buckle under the pressure. Railroads often have this issue in extreme heat where the rails expand to the point that they buckle and twist up...
Did you ever think that maybe some of those physical processes that would occur when heating steel with burning jet fuel would maybe, just maybe cause some sort of structural failure?
Did you know that bridges are often damaged by fires below them from major accidents. Those fires also are not enough to melt the steel, but...they structurally damage the bridge
http://www.dot7.state.pa.us/BPR_PDF_FILES/Documents/Research/Complete%20Projects/Maintenance/Effects%20of%20Fire%20Damage.pdf Note in the introduction:
Now you go ahead and explain to me how a fuel tanker on the highway is any different than a jet fuel laden airplane? Explain to me that somehow the steel in buildings is substantially different than the steel in bridges? Tell me again why would a bridge collapse under intense heat from burning diesel and gasoline but a skyscraper would not collapse from burning jet fuel and building materials.
This is well known materials engineering stuff...
Switches with _any_ security, may that be isolated rails or axle-counters would be ruined, not to mention the modern switches have plastic rolling supports that would melt.
These were used, because the old steel plaques had to be treated with oil every day or every couple of days by hand, which costs a fortune.
So most modern railway companies use automatic electric heating when the temperature falls below a certain point. It's way cheaper than having to pay people to go there and heat them by hand.
In some countries, Belgium f.ex. they use gas heating if it's only one or a couple of switches.
PS: I have been a railway dispatcher for 40 years.
Dirt! If only we had dirt! When I was a kid, all we had was gravel! And it was cold!
Gravel? I wish we had gravel, all we had were the ground up bones of our ancestors! And they were still decomposing!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Yes to all this! And by the way, they did use jet fuel on the tracks.... aka: kerosene.
The roads are used by both tax payers and heavy commercial trucks of the 80,000 lb class. The damage done by on truck equals the wear and tear of some 9000 private cars. The cost of road and bridge project to accept 80,000 lb trucks makes them so expensive. But they get massively subsidized by the tax payers.
But there is very strongly embedded idea among the people that railroads are tax subsidized white elephants, while the commercial trucks are the epitome of free market and competition.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact