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A fishplate, splice bar or joint bar is a metal connecting plate used to bolt the ends of two rails into a continuous track. The name is derived from fish, [1] a wooden reinforcement of a "built-up" ship's mast that helped round out its desired profile. [2] The top and bottom faces taper inwards along their short dimensions to create an even ...
History of the railway track. Section of timber track from a 16th-century gold mine in Transylvania. The wagons were guided by the pronounced flange on the wooden wheels, and the narrow gauge of 480 mm (187⁄8 in) allowed the points to be altered by swinging the single switch rail. [1]
A rail fastening system is a means of fixing rails to railroad ties (North America) or sleepers (British Isles, Australasia, and Africa). The terms rail anchors, tie plates, chairs and track fasteners are used to refer to parts or all of a rail fastening system. The components of a rail fastening system may also be known collectively as other ...
The rail profile is the cross sectional shape of a railway rail, perpendicular to its length. Early rails were made of wood, cast iron or wrought iron. All modern rails are hot rolled steel with a cross section (profile) approximate to an I-beam, but asymmetric about a horizontal axis (however see grooved rail below).
Heavier rail can support greater axle loads and higher train speeds without sustaining damage than lighter rail, but at a greater cost. In North America and the United Kingdom, rail is graded in pounds per yard (usually shown as pound or lb), so 130-pound rail would weigh 130 lb/yd (64 kg/m). The usual range is 115 to 141 lb/yd (57 to 70 kg/m).
The Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853–1855) were a series of explorations of the American West designed to find and document possible routes for a transcontinental railroad across North America. The expeditions included surveyors, scientists, and artists and resulted in an immense body of data covering at least 400,000 square miles (1,000,000 km ...
Reading Blue Mountain and Northern 425 is a 4-6-2 light " Pacific " type steam locomotive originally built in 1928 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Gulf, Mobile & Northern Railroad. After the GM&N was consolidated into the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio in 1940, the locomotive was renumbered No. 580 and served in passenger service before being ...
The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad (YMSPRR) is a historic 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railway with two operating steam locomotives located near Fish Camp, California, in the Sierra National Forest near the southern entrance to Yosemite National Park. [1] Rudy Stauffer organized the YMSPRR in 1961, utilizing historic railroad track ...