Rose : This is a good question with an interesting answer. The crushed stones are what is known as ballast. Their purpose is to hold the wooden cross ties in place, which in turn hold the rails in place. Think about the engineering challenge faced by running miles of narrow ribbons of steel track on top of the ground: they are subject to heat expansion and contraction, ground movement and vibration, precipitation buildup from rough weather, and weed and plant growth from underneath.
Now keep in mind that while 99 percent of the time they are just sitting there unburdened, the remaining one percent of the time they are subject to moving loads as heavy as one million pounds the weight of a Union Pacific Big Boy locomotive and its tender.
Put all this together, and you have yourself a really, really interesting problem that was first solved nearly years ago, and hasn't been significantly improved since. The answer is to start with the bare ground, and then build up a foundation to raise the track high enough so it won't get flooded. On top of the foundation, you deposit a load of crushed stone the ballast.
On top of the stone, you lay down perpendicular to the direction of the track a line of wooden beams on You then continue to dump crushed stone all around the beams.
The sharp edges of the stone make it difficult for them to slide over each other in the way that smooth, round pebbles would , thus effectively locking them in place. The beams are made of hardwood usually oak or hickory , and impregnated with creosote for weather protection.
In the U. Railroad tracks are private property. They are not public property. It is illegal to shoot on railroad tracks. It is virtually impossible for the railroad companies to cover every inch of track with signs that warn them that they are trespassing.
In the early days of railway modeling, some O scale modelers the dominant scale at the time , made use of an outside third rail and a shoe pickup system for power. This system had the benefit of being more realistic by removing the central third rail common to O scale track, while retaining an effective power source. O27 is shorter and made of a thinner metal.
Lionel and MTH track is the most popular since the starter sets are purchased with the track and you simply add on more track as your layout grows. Gargraves and AtlasO Track are sometimes chosen when building advanced layouts. If you have questions on Atlas O or Gargraves track, please call us. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Physics What happens if you put a rock on a train track?
Ben Davis September 15, What happens if you put a rock on a train track? How hard is it to derail a train? Could a rock derail a train? Why is salt on railroad tracks illegal?
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