Traveling by train around cities and towns, you can find out a lot of interesting and interesting things about the world of the railway.
More than once traveling people asked questions about where this or that railway route leads. This is interesting. And what does the train driver manage when the train just starts or arrives at the station? How and where do metal cars come from and what are the ways of railway transport?
What a good railway
Each person was at least once on the station platform, and maybe even rode in a compartment car alone with a cheerful company, singing songs until the morning and not letting the rest of the passengers fall asleep. And for some reason, during such trips on the endless railroad, special feelings arise in the soul: freedom, mystery, and lightness. Friends also appear, with whom lies a long, one-way journey. A path that is good in all respects, because it is not boring, runs through Russia, built with high quality and works properly.
What is a railway
A railway track is the construction of a whole complex of engineering facilities that perform the unified function of passing trains through a certain section at a designated speed.
Railways are characterized by the presence of a pair of long metal strips located in parallel along the entire route. The created smooth and strong surface with low running resistance, especially horizontal, makes it possible to transport huge masses without the use of significant traction.
Obligatory companions of railway tracks are always stations, signaling and other equipment requiring careful current maintenance.
The operation of the rolling stock depends on the technical condition of the tracks:
- safety and uninterrupted movement of trains;
- the effectiveness of the operation of general technical means of railways.
The main components of the railway
Among the main components of the railway track are two buildings: lower and upper.
The structure of the lower structure includes the following elements: land; ditches intended for runoff; all kinds of artificially created structures.
All unnatural structures in this case are a series of objects erected by a person on the way of laying the railway bed:
- bridges are needed to overcome water obstacles - straits, streams, rivers;
- pipes are designed to pass medium-sized watercourses under the tracks;
- air viaducts - viaducts and viaducts - replace huge embankments in places of forcing solid gullies and dry valleys, promote safe multilevel traffic at the intersection of railways and highways, as well as pedestrian crossings;
- tunnels open up the possibility of laying tracks through mountain ranges, hills and hillocks;
- retaining walls are necessary to maintain earthen slopes;
- village-slopes and special galleries are established in places unfavorable for mudflows and rockfalls.
The upper structure of the path includes:
- rails;
- rail bases: reinforced concrete blocks, frames, slabs, sleepers;
- rail fastenings and anti-theft elements;
- ballast layer;
- bars: bridge and transfer (reinforced concrete base under switch unit);
- deaf unarmed intersections and turnouts elements.
Ballast layer
The rail-sleeper grid consists of rails and the base: plates, blocks, sleepers. The base is laid on a ballast layer consisting of two or one layer.
As a rule, a ballast prism consisting of a pair of layers is installed. The main layer is solid crushed stone, and under it another - in the form of a pillow of sand or a sand-gravel mixture. In a single-layer construction, in addition to the above, the use of slag, shell rock or industrial asbestos waste is allowed.
The ballast layer is needed for the transverse and longitudinal stability of the rail-sleeper grid, the elasticity of the transfer of pressure from the rolling stock to the subgrade, and the removal of water from the upper structures.
Rails and rail fasteners
Rails are of various types. It all depends on the railway line. Both in straight and in curved sections of the main track, the rails should orient the progress of the wheels and directly perceive the heaviness from passing trains, transmitted through sleepers and a layer of ballast to the soil under them.
The size range of rails, weight characteristics, chemical composition of the metal and other parameters are set by the State Standard. The nominal footage of the rails is 25 m.
The design of the railway track involves the connection of rails with each other and with sleepers by means of butt and intermediate rail fasteners. To connect using bolts, pads and linings. So from a single rail links a single continuous structure with butt gaps between the rails is formed. The gaps left are needed at temperature extremes, since the metal has the property of being compressed, expanded, and exposed to them. Rail joints - places of frequent tension of the railway. The jointless way is considered more progressive when rail lashes of 800 m are welded, and three or four butt rail links are laid between them.
Turnouts
In the process of using railways, turnouts are used to connect them together. Cross and ordinary arrows are used to connect rails or their branches. Thanks to the arrow design, the rolling stock has the ability to move along different paths. Blind intersections are operated at ordinary rail intersections, where the train does not need to switch to another track.
Nowadays, centralized management of turnouts from a special remote control center has been established. Previously, there was no electrical centralization, the translation was carried out manually by the duty switchmen on the instructions of higher responsible officials.
Track economy
For uninterrupted and safe railway communication, it is necessary to maintain in good condition not only a rolling fleet, but also railway tracks. The work to maintain highways in good condition under all weather conditions, in the smooth movement of both passenger and freight trains is a very important area of railway transport operation services.
Over 50% of the main funds from the operation of the entire railway system are allocated to the share of track facilities. The number of railway workers exceeds 20% of the total staff.
Profession - Travel
The field of activity of workers of track facilities include:
- railway tracks in conjunction with their devices and structures;
- a number of industries and business units operating in order to maintain the condition of the railway track at the proper level, including the organization of scheduled repair work.
Professionals of railway workers exist for the safety of rail transport.
The structural links of track facilities include: track distances, roadside machine stations and sections of forest shelter belts.
Classification of Railways
There are water, air and land routes for moving people and goods. These include railways. These, in turn, are the following types of paths:
- The main ones are used to connect separate points and stations.
- Station
- Special purposes - branching off from the main non-public roads, safety branches and catching dead ends.
Station tracks are divided into types:
- loading and unloading;
- pick-up and drop-off - serve to receive, park and send trains to the stage;
- connecting;
- exhaust;
- sorting;
- running and others.
Those station tracks that continue the main branch of the line adjacent to the station and do not deviate on the turnouts are called the main station tracks. At large stations, tracks with similar functions are grouped into parks.
Non-public railways are intended for the entrance or departure of trains to industrial enterprises or to other users of railroad services on a contractual basis, as well as for railroad workers to carry out their own work. Such routes adjoin the public highway directly or through other railway entrances.
Path length
In the technical documentation of the station, two characteristics of the length of the station path are indicated - full and useful.
The full length of the railway track section is the interval between the joints of the frame elements of the arrows that limit this area of the track. For a dead end, the full length is the gap from the junction of the frame rail arrows to the stop.
The useful length of a railway track is a segment of full length, within the boundaries of which rolling stock can be delivered, if it is possible to safely move other trains along adjacent tracks.
The usable rail length is limited as follows:
- If the track section is equipped with traffic lights and electrical insulation, then on the one hand they are guided by the shunting (output) traffic light, and on the other hand, by the insulating junction of the rail section.
- When equipping the web with only traffic lights, one side is limited by a traffic light, the other by a column indicating the limit.
- In the absence of special equipment, the restriction is made by limit columns on both sides.
Rail gauge
Track is two parallel rail threads. The width of the path is the distance between the rails. The wheelset size and gauge should be consistent.
In Russia, this size is 1520 mm, in Europe - 85 mm less. A wider track makes it possible to increase both freight transport and the transport of more people by rail. It is impossible to imagine a passenger railway in Russia as small-sized. Passenger stations and station platforms accept many trains and commuter trains along the access and departure routes. For them, special ways of sedimentation of passenger rolling stock are provided. Such sections of the railway are equipped with signaling devices, warning banners, pedestrian bridges, tunnels, crossings, waiting places.
There is another type of railway line - a narrow gauge railway, familiar to many from children's railways. Narrow roads are simpler and less expensive, but still more suitable for mine, peat production, as well as cutting areas and mines. Their width can be from 0.6 to 1.2 m.
Rail dimensions
Compliance with the specified center distance between adjacent railway tracks is a prerequisite for the safe traffic of trains, as well as guarantees for the life and health of people caught between the two trunk lines. In this case, it is necessary to take into account both the dimensions of the railway transport and the presence of nearby buildings. Operating rules do not allow to exceed the following distances between intersections:
- with double-track movement - 4.1 m;
- if there are three or more paths, then between the second and third - 5 m;
- on station tracks - 4.8 m;
- in places of secondary routes and cargo areas - 4.5 m.
Today, the strings of railways have enveloped the entire Earth. Trains move along railway lines in one direction and along multi-track highways in different directions.
Do not be at the railway at least one thing, not even a pair of wheels from a train or reliable track facilities, it will cease to be a faithful companion for everyone on travel and business trips.
Good all the way!