Heat Effects on Rail

[NW Mailing List]

I remember one of Granddad's (W.R. Bloyd) stories about working on the  
Virginian as a young fireman in the summer of 1924 (one of the hottest summers  
on record, BTW). The work train he was firing on was eastbound from 
Victoria  when it hit a place where the rails had buckled from the heat. The 
engineer  panicked and jumped off when the engine crunched down on the ties, 
leaving  Granddad and the head-end brakeman in the cab. They got the train 
stopped and  climbed down to survey the damages. The engineer had climbed back up  
to the tracks and was accosted by the conductor, who grabbed him by  the 
collar and shook him, saying "No wonder the G.D.'d Germans were so hard to  
whup, they must have had cowards like you fightin' 'em!"
 
Greg Harrod
 
 
In a message dated 07/19/2013 8:23:19 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org writes:

The last few days have brought warnings of commuter trains having  to 
reduce speed because of the heat effects on the rails. Are all trains  affected? 
Is the condition worse with modern continuous rail or has it always  been 
the case regardless of the type of rail. I would suspect so, but then I'm  no 
metal expert (I would use the long word starting with "metal," but my  
speller isn't working this morning).~~Bernie  Hylton


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