Do railroads really need to have rocks on it?
I guess the rocks don't need to be there, but it sure helps things. Early railroads certainly didn't have the rocks. But trains since have gotten longer and heavier. The rocks are called ballast, and ballast serves a few functions. Tracks want to shift and move laterally - not all at once - but gradually over a period of time. This comes from temperature extremes and the acceleration and braking forces of trains. The ballast helps to anchor the track down against these forces. Also, the ballast can't hold water and rain water drains on through. This adds years to the life expectancy of the ties. In very cold climates (like where I live) the ground is frozen 6 months out of the year. Just as with lake ice, frozen ground heaves and moves too. The ballast which does not freeze as a solid piece, retains it's ability to act as a cushion between a straight line track above, and shifting movements of the ground below.
Just how do the railroads do this?
The two previous answers are completely incorrect. I wish people would not post wild, uninformed guesses on here. Track construction techniques are very much more modern than they were 100 years ago, and most rail is now welded rail in most parts of the world. Welded rail has been very common in the USA since the early 1950s. The welding equipment used to splice rail is specially built for the purpose and is much larger than the "regular ol' welder." There are rail welding plants that weld rail into lengths like 300 feet, and the spliced rails are carried out to the track construction site in gondolas with ends that fold down. The joints are ordinary butt joints welded all the way around, and a special automatically controlled machine grinds the joints down so that the running surfaces of the rails are of a perfectly uniform profile. You can see the beads at the joint running up the sides of the upright part of the rail, which is called the "web" of the rail, but the "crown" of the rail is ground smooth. It's pretty noisy in these plants. The rail sections are lifted off onto the ground by a crane, and set in place by special track construction equipment that aligns and spikes the rails as they are installed. Mobile welding units splice the 300 foot (thereabouts) sections into longer sections, so that there may not be a butt joint between rails more often than once every couple of miles. These mobile welding units are much more powerful than the common farm/shop welder.
How long are u typically away from home working as a railroad employee?
Where I work you go up one day since you can not work over 12 hours by the Federal Rail Administration. You go up get your sleep. If you work all 12 hours you can not be called back in for 10 hours. Anything less you can be called in after 8. Then a 12 hour train ride home. If you don't make it in the 12 hours you get drove the rest of the way and a crew relieves you. Also Union deals pay us 24 bucks per hour after we are sitting in an away hotel for over 16 hours as a way to motivate the railroad to get you home in a reasonable time. Sometimes in 10 hours sometimes its 48 but you get paid decent if it is. Also there is nothing saying you don't get home and 10 hours later get a call to go back. If you are thinking about it for the money though just keep in mind the railroad is very dependent on the economy. Like now if its bad you are out of work and they have no problem laying people off. One other thing you pay union dues, job insurance, Health Insurance, Railroad Retirement, Tier 1 and Tier 2, and Then state/Fed tax, So over 1/3 of what you make is gone before you ever see it. It also takes about 10 years of being a Conductor before you will have the seniority to go to engine school to become and engineer. Usually when you first start you work in a yard switching cars 8 hour days 5 days a week like a normal job and slowly move up the chain to brakeman and conductor but say you have been there for 10 years and want a nice easy summer use your seniority and go to the yard work your 8 hour days home every night. Then when winter comes and nothing is going on go back on the road as a conductor make better money and stay warm and dry. That's the way UP Con/Eng are set up at least
Why do cars stall on railroad tracks?
Well, usually operator error - or poor maintenance (which is still a form of operator error.)A lot of times railroad tracks are higher then the surrounding land for drainage - the tracks are built up on a strong stone/dirt foundation so that water drains down and away from the tracks. This creates a bit of a hill that people have to drive up and over, and if you hit it too fast, the car could become airborne (a little bit), which shakes up everyone inside. If you try and go up the hill too slowly, then the car stalls, and doesn’t make it up the hill.Older cars had carburetors - devices that mixed liquid gas and fresh air, turning it into a mist to be burned in the engine. It was possible to flood the carburetor by giving it too much gas - for example, the engine was working hard, using lots of gas (trying to climb the hill up to the railroad tracks), then at the top of the hill, the engine suddenly doesn’t have as much work to do, but the carburetor is still full of gas.Now the car is stuck on the train tracks, and can’t be quickly started.Cars also just plain stall out at intersections, in heavy traffic, and at other times too - but in those situations, it’s possible to get out and push the car off to the side of the road. When the car is stuck on the train tracks, and a train is coming, the wreckage of the car makes it to tomorrows TV or printed news.
How do railroad ties work?
The short answer is that they just lay there, and hold the steel rails in place.Railroad ties are traditionally large oak, or hardwood timbers, usually at least 8x12 inches, and anywhere from 8–15 feet long. The ties are commonly treated with a preservative called creosote. It’s stinky and sticky, but it works pretty darn well. You don’t want to touch it, since it can give you a chemical burn, or at least a nasty rash.The railroad ties sit on a bed of small stones called ballast. The ballast supports the ties, and provides drainage so there’s a solid base for the ties to sit on.On each tie a metal plate is spiked to the tie with two large railroad spikes. This plate holds the rail in place, and increases the surface area where the rail touches the tie. Then the rail is spiked in place with two more spikes.Using different tools (shovels, picks, and lining bars if working by hand, or special tamping machines, jacks, and hydraulics), the gravel under the ties in manupulated/compacted/added/dug out so that each rail is at the same height, and the track is as straight as it can be (or equally curved to go around a bend.)Wooden ties are still used because they do have some give or spring to them - watch a train go over a section of track, and you’ll see the rails and ties move up and down as the wheels move over them (a little bit.)Early railroads used stone or granite ties, but they tended to crack and break over time (and were also heavy, and expensive to manufacture.) Some places use steel bars instead of wooden ties, and many railroads are now using concrete ties, since they tend to be more rigid then wooden ties, and last a little bit longer. They’re also much easier to recycle - grind them down and make new concrete. (A concrete tie weights 400 pounds or so though - so they’re a real pain to change by hand. A wooden tie is 250 pounds or so - not light, but two people can man-handle one into place.)
How do you tell if railroad tracks are still in use?
The question seems to have been rewritten, or else I misread it. I wrote the following answer on how to tell if a rail line is NOT in use:There are several ways:If the tops of the rails are well rusted. (Rails can rust up quickly after rain or high humidity, so if lightly rusted, can still be in use.)If the flangeways at grade crossings are filled in with dirt and debris.If plant growth is growing over the rails and shows no sign of having been crushed by the passage of recent trains.If trees are growing between the rails.If any sections of rails are missing in places or else are out of alignment.If a bridge has shifted or collapsed.If grade crossing crossbucks have a sign attached reading "EXEMPT".I used some of the above methods recently to determine whether a portion of a rail line was in use. However, I also found out that further on down this dead end rail line, the line was in use. The portion that was out of use was the only way the equipment being used further on down could reach the outside world. I also remember a case when I was working for the railroad where portions of the line our train was running on could not even be seen underneath the growth of grass and weeds—it was like the train was running across an unballasted trackless prairie—we could only see the track at bridges.So just because a portion of a line is not in use does not mean it might not be put to use at any moment. Always assume that any rail line is active.
What do they do with old railroad ties?
Old railroad ties are sorted to either be recycled, or thrown out.Railroad ties on main line tracks are changed out fairly frequently to make sure that the track stays in good shape. These ties are often re-used on secondary lines or sidings, since the tie still has a lot of useful life left in it. (For example, a tie might be on a main line for 2–5 years, and then on a siding for another 15+ years.)Some railroad ties are sent to garden centers for use as landscape timbers.Old ties are sent off to be thrown out. Some end up in landfills, and some are burned at special power plants that have filtration to capture the creosote (the preserving agent that keeps the tie from rotting.)Concrete ties, I would assume, are completely recycled - the concrete is ground up again, and the rebar is sent for scrap.
How do railroad signals work?
North American Railroad signals are electrically powered by batteries. Most commonly incandescent bulbs with 12V systems. The batteries are kept charged to the 12V level with the use of battery chargers. If commercial power is lost there are enough batteries to keep the signals operational for several hours. The signal lights are configured to display aspects (colors) to the train crew in relation to the track conditions ahead of their train. This is achieved by track circuits, powered by a separate source from the signals. Track circuits and their associated signals are spaced to allow trains the ability to stop with normal braking application. Track circuits are usually about 2 miles in length, but can vary based on the operating speed or terrain of a railroad. Track circuits can be monitored/ activated and deactivated by Relay circuits or by coding/decoding equipment. When a train travels along the track it is essentially turning track circuits off. The track circuit battery energy cannot flow due to the axles of the train on the track. This is called shunting. As a train leaves a track circuit, it returns to an energized state. Signal programming designed by that railroads engineering team will determine what aspect a signal will display for a specified condition. The entire system is based on keeping trains safely spaced apart while moving. Stopping trains, if an unsafe track condition arises.This is a very basic description. Wikipedia has a very good description:North American railroad signals - Wikipedia .
What do Railroad companies usually transport like what do they transport the most?
1. Coal 2. Consumer products (everything you buy at walmart, yes everything) loaded via internodal containers (semi trailers loaded on trains) 3. Grain. Corn, wheat and the like 4. Industrial products, chemicals, and raw goods like steel shapes. Yes the decrease in demand for fossil fuels will hurt the rail roads, however that is very unlikely to happen. Even if the U.S has a paradigm shift and starts to aggressive build alternative energy producing utilities such as wind and solar and couples that with aggressive building of natural gas plants, there still will be enough demand for coal to sustain the rail roads. As the American population expands and our propensity for electric cars grows, power will be in ever increasing demand. So even tough coal as a percentage of total energy produced in the country may decrease, consumption will increase to such a level that it offsets. Furthermore even if it does not, China builds a coal fired power plant every week, so all of that Wyoming coal will just go to China instead of U.S utilities.
What should you do if your vehicle dies on a railroad track?
First of, I have to warn everyone: the actions described in this answer will probably cause Americans and OSHA people to have a stroke or cry.This is the official course of action recommended by the Hungarian State Railway (MÁV):If your car is stuck on a crossing, and no train is coming, you should first of ask for help to get the vehicle off the tracks. If the vehicle is immobile for some reason (eg. wheel falls off or something), and there is a station nearby, you should run to the station and notify the stationmaster. (We do not have a centralised train control center, instead every station is responsible for a set amount of track around their stations.) The stationmaster can notify incoming trains to stop.If there is no station nearby, 2 people should run on both directions on the track, about 1 - 1.5 km (distance displayed on stone posts every 100 m) from the stuck vehicle, and stand guard. If a train comes, they should wave anything brightly colored (or a light source moved in a circular motion at night) to notify the driver to stop. They should inform the driver of what happened, who can radio the station responsible for the stretch of track.If a train is coming, the occupants of the vehicle should be evacuated and the crossing area cleared of people to prevent flying debris from striking anything or anyone. If you can see the direction the train is coming from, you should run towards it, waving a brightly colored cloth or object. If there are multiple tracks, or the direction the train is approaching from is unknown, 2 people should run in both directions to secure the crossing. If the vehicle is removed from the crossings, the trains should still be halted or proceed at a slow rate so that everyone can clear the tracks safely.If a collission does occur, and the train driver becomes incapacitated, the same method should be used to secure the tracks ahead and behind the accident site.