Rail.
A horizontal or inclined piece of wood or metal connecting two posts or uprights; as,—
1. (
Joinery.)
a. One of the pieces connecting the
posts of a bedstead.
Known as
head-rail, foot-rail, side-rail, according to position.
b. A horizontal piece in a frame, as of a door, sash, or other paneled work.
In a door, the
rails are mortised into the
stiles, and together with the latter surround the
panel. In
sash, the
panel is absent or may be said to consist of a pane or panes of glass.
c. the upper piece into which the balusters of a stair or balustrade are mortised.
2. (
Shipbuilding.)
a. The top of the bulwarks proper; that part continued around the stern is the
taffrail. When it crowns the top-gallant bulwarks it is the
top-gallant rail.
b. A curved timber extending from the bow of a ship to support the knee of the head.
3. (
Railway.) the bar supported on sleepers and affording a track for car-wheels.
The history of the
rail commences with paving and tramways, the latter being smooth stone blocks for the wheels on each side of a rougher track for the horses.
These ways came to be made of timbers, and eventually of iron, being at the first but flat strips laid on continuous sleepers, but eventually of bars which are sufficiently strong to span the distance between transverse sleepers.
The work of improvement began in earnest in the
English collieries.
Wooden railways were laid at
Newcastle in 1602.
These were laid parallel and imbedded in the ordinary road.
“The rollers of the carts were made to fit the rails.”
（North, 1676.) After a while the rails were laid on cross-ties and pinned thereto.
In 1716 flat plates of malleable iron were nailed to the wooden rails. (
a, flat rail.)
In 1767 the Coalbrookdale works laid down flat cast-iron rails.
In 1776 cast-iron rails, with an upright flange, were laid on wooden sleepers and used at the
Duke of
Norfolk's colliery, near
Sheffield.
（
Carr's patent,
b.) They were spiked down.
The flange was put on the rail before it was put on the wheel.
In 1789
Loughborough's cast-iron edge-rail, with flanges on the wagon wheels.
In 1793 stone bearers were substituted for wooden sleepers at Little Eaton, in
Derbyshire.
Wrought-iron bars, two or three inches in thickness, spiked to longitudinal sleepers, were then used in connection with flanged wheels.
Wyatt's cast edge-rail of oval section (
c) was then used in connection with grooved wheels at
Penrhyn slate quarries, in 1800.
Jessop used this rail in 1789, and added the chair (
d), a block of iron slotted to receive the ends of adjacent rails.
The wheel had a tread of 2 1/3 inches, and a flange to keep it on the rail.
The sleepers were of wood.
Woodhouse's hollow rail (
e), with a channel for the rounded edge of the wheel, 1803.
The fish-bellied rail at
Penrhyn, 1805.
Blenkinsop's rack-rail (
f), 1811.
See
Fig. 2984, page 1344.
A square-bodied cast rail (
g), 1810.
Losh and
Stephenson's flanged rail (
h), 1816.
This was a lapping continuous rail.
Hawk's cast-iron face upon a wrought-iron base.
1817.
Birkenshaw's malleable face upon a cast base, 1820.
Birkenshaw, of Bedlington,
Durham, invented the rolled rail; the iron, while hot, being passed between grooved rollers of the required pattern (
i j k l).
m n o p are respectively the
Spanish,
Marseilles,
Strasburg, and Great Western (
England) patterns.
q,
Durham and
Sunderland, England.
r,
Berlin and
Potsdam, Prussia.
s,
London and Blackwall,
England.
t,
Manchester and
Birmingham, England.
u,
Saint-Etienne to
Lyon, France.
v,
Wilmington and
Susquehanna, United States.
w, Great Western (Old),
England.
x,
London and
Croydon, England, which first dispensed
 |
|
Railway-rails. |
with longitudinal sleepers and chairs.
y,
Morris and
Prevost,
England.
z,
Birmingham and
Gloucester, England.
a′,
London and
Birmingham, England.
b′,
London and
Brighton, England.
c′,
Midland counties,
England.
d′, contractor's rail.
e′, street-car rail.
f′, locomotive street-rail.
g′, continuous rail.
h′, tubular rail.
j′,
King's rail, with steel cap.
k′,
Potter's rail, with steel facing rolled in.
l′, Hymer's rail, with a steel upper section, iron foot, and fish-plates.
m′,
Ashcroft's rail, with a steel tread and double foot.
n′,
Jones's rail, with a steel tread and forked foot.
o′,
Booth's rail, with an overlapping steel tread-plate See fagot:
Fig. 1914, page 823.
p′, Losh's fish-bellied rail and chair (1816); the rail fastened with keys.
q′, Brunton and Shield's rail and chair.
r′, English rail and chair, 1840.
s′, Samuel's cast-iron sleeper.
t′,
Barlow's rail (
English).
u′, tubular socketed rail.
v′,
Seaton's saddle-rail.
w′, elastic rail.
x′,
Pierce's rail, on high standard.
y′, Greave's pot-sleeper.
z′,
Reynold's continuous bearing.
a′,
Stephenson's chair and rail.
b′,
Adams's rail.
c′,
Button's rail, with steel top.
d′,
Brooks's steel-capped rail.
e′,
Lewis's rail.
f′,
Hanmer and Grim's steel-topped rail.
g′,
Hagan's rail
h′, Chamber's rail, on elastic webs.
i′,
Robinson's double rail.
j′,
Pierce's rail.
k′,
Peckham's rail.
l′,
Perkins's rail.
[
1858]
m′,
Shephard's steel-top rail.
n′, Day and
Mercer's rail.
o′,
Dwight's rail.
p′,
Zahn's rail.
q′,
Johnston's rail.
r′,
Stephens and
Jenkins's rail.
s′,
Sanborn's tubular rail.
t′,
Sanborn's rail.
u′,
Angle's L-rail on continuous sleeper.
v′,
Dean and
Coleman's street-car rail.
w′, rail and sleeper, for the
East Indies.
The sleeper is bent from a plate of wroughtiron to resist the attacks of insects which destroy wooden sleepers.
Parkin's vitrified sleeper, patented in
England in 1835, consists of hard sleepers of molded and baked blocks laid in continuity, tongues and recesses on adjacent blocks serving to lock them together.
A timber strip was interposed between the row of blocks and the rail.
Grime's English patent, 1831, specified a hollow rail charged with steam from stationary boilers at intervals of two or three miles, and intended to keep them clear of ice and snow.
The first steel rail was made in 1857, by Mushet, at the Ebbw-Vale Iron Co.'s Works in
South Wales.
It was rolled from cast blooms of
Bessemer steel and laid down at
Derby, England, and remained sixteen years, during which time 250 trains and at least 250 detached engines and tenders passed over it daily.
Taking 312 working days in each year, we have the total of 1,252,000 trains and 1,252,000 detached engines and tenders which passed over it from the time it was first laid before it was removed to be worked over.
The substitution of steel for iron, to an extent rendered possible by the Bessemer process, has worked a great and abiding change in the condition of our ways, giving greater endurance both in respect of wear and in resistance to breaking strains and jars.
Two steel rails of twenty-one feet in length were laid on the 2d of May, 1862, at the
Chalk Farm Bridge, side by side with two ordinary rails.
After having outlasted sixteen faces of the ordinary rails, the steel ones were taken up and examined, and it was found that at the expiration of three years and three months, the surface was evenly worn to the extent of only a little more than a quarter of an inch, and to all appearance they were capable of enduring a great deal more work.
These two rails had, during the period of little more than three years, been exposed to the traffic of 9,550,000 engines, trucks, and carriages, and 95,577,240 tons.
It is an amount of traffic equal to nearly ten times that which destroyed the Great Northern rails in three years. The result of this trial was to induce the
London and Northwestern to enter very extensively into the employment of steel rails.
Railway rails are made of puddled steel at the
Hoerder Iron and Steel Works,
Westphalia.
The process consists in bringing a number of balls together to a heavy hammer (say a 12-ton steamham-mer), which welds them together into a homogeneous bloom.
The faces of the hammer and anvil are hollow, so as to keep the metal together, and the bloom is sent at the same heat to the rolls.
A number of puddled steel balls are welded into one, in a furnace, as a single puddled ball is not large enough to make a rail.
Weight. The tendency to increase the stability of the track by increasing the weight has led to a deterioration in the quality of the rail, and the lamination and wear have more than compensated for any immobility due to weight.
Mr. Holley, after the great wear endured by the 45-pound rails made by the
Ebbw-Vale Company for the Philadelphia and Reading Railway Company, in 1837, and comparing the long life of the 45-pound rail with that of the 64 and 68 pound rails which replaced them, goes into a consideration of the substitution of lighter for heavier rails on many of the
English railways.
“The true course,” he remarks, “is in the use of the best of iron in moderately light rails.
The cost per ton is increased but by a comparatively small amount, while the durability may be doubled.
One advantage of a light rail is, that its very size ensures more work being expended upon it.”
The reduction in weight has been in the head and stem of the rails.
The same depth is preserved, about five inches.
Length. Rails are made in
England from 15 to 21 feet long, the latter being usual.
One railroad is said to be furnished with rails of 30 feet. A Welsh rolling-mill furnished a Barlow rail 52 1/2 feet long, but it was done as a trophy.
Wrought-iron rafters were rolled at
Phoenixville, Pa., for the
United States Capitol, having a length of 51 1/6 feet. Iron plates for the
Collins steamers were rolled at
Troy, N. Y., 60 feet in length, from piles of 700 pounds weight.
Depth. The depth of the most lasting English rails is stated to be from 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 inches, mostly 5 inches.
The
Sandwich rail is made with a depth of 8 inches, the web being very deep, and from 1/4 to 3/8 inch thick.
It is prevented from lateral deflection by side sleepers which clamp the web, and the head of the rail rests on the side supports.
The great depth saves the rail from vertical deflection, and the longitudinal sleepers preserve it laterally.
The rail is
double-headed.
A rail is an iron beam, and the stiffness is as the cube of the depth; the result being modified by the flanges.
Width. The width of rails is from 2 1/4 to 3 inches. The top has a curve of a radius of 5 to 5 1/4 inches.
Form. The resistance of wrought-iron to extension and compression is as 90 of the first to 66 of the second.
These proportions should therefore exist in a rail when it is not to be reversed.
The life of iron rails of best quality has been found to be 35,000,000 tons over a double line or 17,000,000 over each single rail, and many from the best makers stand only 5,500,000 to 15,000,000 tons, the greatest wear being in cuttings and tunnels where there is the least elasticity.
The average life of an iron rail being 15,000,000 tons, or equal to 100,000 trains of 150 tons each, independently of the length of time of the traffic, the wear may be estimated as the 1-100000th part of the value of the rail each time a train goes over it; and if the value of a mile of iron rails be taken at $5,000, the wear would be 5 cents per train mile.
On the Great Northern Railway, at Barnet, the life of an iron rail was 5 years, with 13,484,661 tons of fast trains, and 38,303,028 tons slow traffic.
Steel rails were only half worn out with 95,577,240 tons traffic.
As the life of an iron rail is but 1-6th of a steel rail, it must follow that a great excess of mechanical work, represented in destruction of the iron rails by the rolling stock, must ensue.
Locomotive power depending mainly on the resistance to traction (due to the deflection of track and abrasion) costs 25 cents to 31 cents per train mile, and anything which will reduce this by 1-5th or 1-6th will soon effect a saving equal to the whole cost of the rails.
On falling gradients, with the traffic, the wear is greatest, owing to the momentum acquired; on a falling gradient of 1 in 130, a mixed traffic of 62,399 trains, gross tonnage 12,451,784 tons, wore out the best samples of iron rails in 7 1/4 years; on a level, with a heavy all-one-way traffic, same description of rails required 203,122 trains, and 38,803,128 tons, to wear them out in 7 1/4 years.
The destructive effects of high speed, with the same engine and everything similar, were such that the same rails required more than three times the traffic to wear them out at the lower speeds; and for equal quantities of traffic the wear of the rail is in the ratio of the square of the velocity (the matter in front compressed by the weight of the wheel is in proportion to the shortness of the time of passage, the resistance being as the square of the velocity).
On mineral roads, with heavy up and down grades, with diminished speed up grade, and accelerated speed down grade, the wear and tear is considerably greater than if the same space is traversed at a uniform speed equal to the average speed.
The wear of a rail placed upon a chair upon a tie was similar to the effect of pounding a rail upon an anvil, the end flattens into a fan shape, while, if suspended, being sustained by fish-plates, the hammering action of the train, being over a void, falls harmless on the ends of the rail. —Engineering.
Allowance for expansion of joints of a 20-foot rail:—
| At 100° Fah. place them in contact. |
| 90° Fah. at a distance of | .016 inch. |
| 80° Fah. at a distance of | .032 inch. |
| 70° Fah. at a distance of | .049 inch. |
| 60° Fah. at a distance of | .065 inch. |
| 50° Fah. at a distance of | .082 inch. |
| 40° Fah. at a distance of | .098 inch. |
| 30° Fah. at a distance of | .104 inch. |
| 20° Fah. at a distance of | .131 inch. |
| 10° Fah. at a distance of | .147 inch. |
| 0° Fah. at a distance of | .163 inch. |
| -10° Fah. at a distance of | .179 inch. |
| -20° Fah. at a distance of | .212 inch. |
| -30° Fah. at a distance of | .296 inch. |
See under the following list, which includes other than railway rails:—
| Barn-door rail. | Frog. |
| Belly-rail. | Guard-rail. |
| Bridge-rail. | Guide-rail. |
| Capped rail. | Hand-rail. |
| Center-rail. | Head-rail. |
| Champignon-rail. | Hollow-rail. |
| Compound rail. | I-rail. |
| Continuous rail. | Lock-rail. |
| Crossing-rail. | Plate-rail. |
| Double-headed rail. | Rack-rail. |
| Edge-rail. | Rail-coupling. |
| False rail. | Rail-guard. |
| Fish-bellied rail. | Rail-jack. |
| Flange-rail. | Railway. |
| Flat rail. | Railway-rail. |
| Foot-rail. | Saddle-rail. |
[
1859]
| Safety-way. | Three-headed rail. |
| Sash-rail. | Track-rail. |
| Side-way. | T-rail. |
| Slide-rail. | Tram-plate. |
| Splice. | Tubular rail. |
| Steel-headed rail. | Wing-rail. |
| Steel-topped rail. | Wooden rail. |
| Switch. |
 |
|
Rail and traversing-wheel propeller. |
