Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

Discussion (7 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

atourgates•about 1 hour ago

In a somewhat related practice, some roads in the Tour de France this year have been painted with "white shit" (rider Tom Pidcock's words) in order to combat the asphalt melting in the heat, with the unfortunate side-effect that it seems to be slippery and several riders (including Tom Pidcock) crashed going around a corner when the lost traction.

Coverage here: https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/tour-de-fran...

But of course, this was done in response to past serious crashes that occured because the asphalt melted. So, it's sort of a damned if you do damned if you dont scenario for the organizers.

Animats•about 1 hour ago

Pepe's Towing in Los Angeles reports asphalt collapses where loaded semitrailers are parked with the landing gear down. On hot days the concentrated load of the landing gear sometimes punches through the asphalt.[1]

This is why truck dock areas are usually paved with concrete.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBrULmCGJfc

kylehotchkiss•41 minutes ago

I love a simple solution to billion dollar problems

dnemmers•about 4 hours ago

Reducing derailment by decreasing track movement by painting the does of the track white, to reflect heat absorbed from the sun.

jeffrallen•about 1 hour ago

Practical Engineering already explained the correct solution to this problem:

https://youtu.be/zqmOSMAtadc?si=UUlmnk9sI-leq0SV

But of course, American infrastructure was built on the cheap, and is not maintained correctly. This is why we can't have nice things.

anonymars•33 minutes ago

Why couldn't this also help with continuous-welded rail?

Your own video points out that it's still prone to trade-offs: rail breaks in the cold are better than buckling in the heat, but what if you could reduce the high point with white paint so you could expand the practical temperature range?

kylehotchkiss•39 minutes ago

We have like 220,000 miles of railroad. We do have nice things: a working freight railroad system that helps reduce transit costs.

Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

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Discussion (7 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews