Tramway track

Tramway track is used on tramways or light rail operations. Grooved rails (or girder rails) are often used to provide a protective flangeway in the trackwork in city streets. Like standard rail tracks, tram tracks consist of two parallel steel rails.

"Tram track" redirects here. For the medical usage of the term, see Tram track (medicine).
Track gauge
By transport mode
By size (list)
Minimum
  Fifteen inch 381 mm (15 in)
Narrow
 
  • 600 mm
  • 610 mm
  • (1 ft ​11 5⁄8 in)
  • (2 ft)
 
  • 750 mm
  • 760 mm
  • 762 mm
  • (2 ft ​5 1⁄2 in)
  • (2 ft ​5 15⁄16 in)
  • (2 ft 6 in)
 
  • 891 mm
  • 900 mm
  • 914 mm
  • (2 ft ​11 3⁄32 in)
  • (2 ft ​11 7⁄16 in)
  • (3 ft)
  Metre 1,000 mm (3 ft ​3 3⁄8 in)
  Three foot six inch 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in)
  Standard 1,435 mm (4 ft ​8 1⁄2 in)
Broad
  Dresden gauge 1,450 mm (4 ft ​9 3⁄32 in)
  Leipzig gauge 1,458 mm (4 ft ​9 13⁄32 in)
  Toronto gauge 1,495 mm (4 ft ​10 7⁄8 in)
 
  • 1,520 mm
  • 1,524 mm
  • (4 ft ​11 7⁄8 in)
  • (5 ft)
 
  • 1,581 mm
  • 1,588 mm
  • 1,600 mm
  • (5 ft ​2 1⁄4 in)
  • (5 ft ​2 1⁄2 in)
  • (5 ft 3 in)
  Baltimore gauge 1,638 mm (5 ft ​4 1⁄2 in)
 
  • 1,668 mm
  • 1,676 mm
  • (5 ft ​5 21⁄32 in)
  • (5 ft 6 in)
Change of gauge
By location
Part of a series on
Rail transport

Tram rails can be placed on several surfaces, such as with standard rails on sleepers like railway tracks, or with grooved rails on concrete sleepers into street surfaces (pavement) for street running. Tram rails in street have the disadvantage that they pose a risk to cyclists.[1] An environmentally friendly or ecologically friendly alternative is to lay tracks into grass turf surfaces; this is known as grassed track (or track in a lawn), first used in Liverpool in 1924.

History

Tramway tracks have been in existence since the mid-16th century. They were previously made of wood, but during the late 18th century iron and later steel came into use prominently.

The first street tramways were laid in 1832 in New York by John Stephenson to assist horses pulling buses on dirt roads, especially when the roads were muddy from wet weather. The rails enabled a horse to easily pull a load of 10 tonnes compared to 1 tonne on a dirt road. The evolution of street tramway tracks paralleled the transition from horse power to mechanical and electric power. In a dirt road, the rails needed a foundation, usually a mass concrete raft. Highway authorities often made tramway companies pave the rest of the road, usually with granite or similar stone blocks, at extra cost.

The first tramways had a rail projecting above the road surface, or a step set into the road, both of which were apt to catch the narrow tyres of horse-drawn carriages. The invention by Alphonse Loubat in 1852 of grooved rail enabled tramways to be laid without causing a nuisance to other road users, except unsuspecting cyclists, who could get their wheels caught in the groove.

Grooved rail
See also: Rail profile § Grooved rail

A grooved rail, groove rail, or girder rail is a special rail with a groove designed for tramway or railway track in pavement or grassed surfaces (grassed track or track in a lawn). The rail has the railhead on one side and the guard on the other. The guard provides accommodation for the flange. The guard carries no weight, but may act as a checkrail.

Grooved rail was invented in 1852 by Alphonse Loubat, a French inventor who developed improvements in tram and rail equipment, and helped develop tram lines in New York City and Paris. The invention of grooved rail enabled tramways to be laid without causing a nuisance to other road users, except unsuspecting cyclists, who could get their wheels caught in the groove. The grooves may become filled with gravel and dirt (particularly if infrequently used or after a period of idleness) and need clearing from time to time, this being done by a "scrubber" tram. Failure to clear the grooves can lead to a bumpy ride for the passengers, damage to either wheel or rail and possibly derailing.

Girder guard rail
See also: Rail profile § Girder guard rail

The traditional form of grooved rail is the girder guard section illustrated below. This rail is a modified form of flanged rail and requires a special mounting for weight transfer and gauge stabilisation. If the weight is carried by the roadway subsurface, steel ties are needed at regular intervals to maintain the gauge. Installing these means that the whole surface needs to be excavated and reinstated.

Block rail
See also: Rail profile § Block rail

Block rail is a lower profile form of girder guard rail, where the web is eliminated. In profile it is more like a solid form of bridge rail with a flangeway and guard added. Simply removing the web and combining the head section directly with the foot section would result in a weak rail, so additional thickness is required in the combined section.[2]

Prefabricated grooved rail

A modern version of the grooved block rail has a lower mass and is inserted into a prefabricated spanning concrete girder such as the LR55 [3] without web but fully supported by noise reducing polyurethane grout or a girder rail such as P-CAT City Metro [4] is embedded. The prefabricated units if used with ultra light trams can be embedded into existing road base with possibly a reduced requirement for underground services diversions.

Electrification

Electrification needed other developments, most notably heavier rails to cope with electric tramcars weighing 12 tonnes rather than the 4 tonne horse-drawn variety; switching points, as electric trams could not be pulled onto the correct track by horses; and the need for electrical connections, to provide the return path for the electric current, which was usually supplied through an overhead wire.

Conduit and stud systems
Main articles: Conduit current collection and Ground-level power supply

In some cities where overhead electric cables were deemed intrusive, underground conduits with electrical conductors were used. Examples of this were New York, Washington DC, Paris, London, Brussels and Budapest. The conduit system of electrical power was very expensive to install and maintain, although Washington did not close until 1962. Attempts were made with alternative systems not needing overhead wires. There were many systems of “surface” contact, where studs were set in the road surface, and energised by a passing tram, either mechanically or magnetically, to supply power through a skate carried under the tram. Unfortunately these systems all failed due to the problem of reliability and not always turning off after the tram had passed, resulting in the occasional electrocution of horses and dogs. In the last five years a new system of surface contact has been installed in the Bordeaux tramway by Alstom.

Cable haulage

Prior to the universal introduction of electric power, many tramways were cable hauled, with a continuous cable carried in a conduit under the road, and with a slot in the road surface through which the tram could clasp the cable for motion. This system can still be seen in San Francisco in California as well as the system of the Great Orme in Wales. These needed a rather more substantial track formation.

  • Grooved rail railroad switch
  • Grassed track
  • Light rail tracks with concrete railroad ties (sleepers)
  • Joining tram tracks using an exothermic weld
  • A rough exothermic weld after removal of the mould
  • An intersection with the pavement removed, as workers repair the tracks for the Toronto streetcar system.
  • Cross section of a grooved tram rail
  • Difference in form and profile of the wheel and the rail of a train (left, blue) and a tram (right, green)
    See Railway wheel flange
  • Temporary or "Californian" points installed on tramline 81 at junction of Avenue Louise and Rue Bailli, Brussels, on 11 July 2018
  • A specialised vehicle washing the tramway track in Riga, Latvia

See also

References
  1. Vandenbulcke, Grégory (July 2013). "Predicting cycling accident risk in Brussels: an innovative spatial case-control approach". Accident Analysis and Prevention. 62: 341–57. doi:10.1016/j.aap.2013.07.001. PMID 23962661.
  2. Grooved or girder rail
  3. LR55 prefab rail
  4. P-CAT City Metro rail

Media related to Tram tracks at Wikimedia Commons

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.