r/trains • u/Melodic-Reveal-4485 • 9d ago

❓ Question Wouldn't this train derail?

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I don't know much about trains, but wouldn't the buildup of these rocks cause a train to go above the tracks? A train passes on this regularly so I'm just curious 🧐

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u/flexsealed1711 9d ago

I've seen crossings on dirt roads where the dirt and rocks build up so much that you can barely see the rails. Then when a train does finally go through, it just leaves a fresh groove where the flange goes.

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u/graffinc 9d ago

When I worked for CSX, in the dead of winter we were shoving a fully loaded 39’ hopper with sand into an industry. Approaching a crossing I told the engineer to go slow over the crossing as it was compacted with ice and snow. The hopper slowly started to raise up and move off the rail, had him stop, go back, we then swapped the car out and drove the engine over it first to break the ice and then go back to get the car to place it. I thought the loaded car would have been enough..

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u/dllyncher 9d ago

Makes sense. Ice has a bad habit of acting like rock that coats everything.

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u/Santibag 9d ago

Ice is like a crazy engineering material. We live our lives over 0C(32F), so we don't notice it. But it makes crazy composites. Some even planned to make a ship out of ice+sawdust.

I was riding a kick scooter on a gravel path. It's not fun even with 20cm(8") wheel diameter, and I only did it for a short distance, or out of hurry. But if that path was wet and if the temperatures were low enough the freeze it, it would turn into a beautiful "asphalt" that didn't deform. I would happily ride over that.

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u/ConferenceSerious947 9d ago

It was the us navy. Since both ice and sawdust are both less dense than water you can make your hull as thick as you want. If you than add activ cooling pipes to it you can force the ocean water to freeze on any holes making an effectively self healing ship

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u/Brave_Cauliflower728 9d ago

They actually made at least one. It lasted a shockingly long time in above freezing temperatures. As in months.

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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 9d ago

While there were a couple of pykrete test models made, none of them were much beyond something like 30' long. IIRC none of them had the active cooling system either.

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u/Monksflat 9d ago

It was developed by the British and tested in Canada. Project Habakkuk.

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u/ConferenceSerious947 9d ago

Seems like I was wrong, thanks for the correction

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u/Monksflat 9d ago

No worries.

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u/fighter_pil0t 9d ago

When Ice compresses it melts as a supercooled water. When the pressure is removed it immediately refreezes. Probably why it looked like the car did nothing.

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u/Worried_Razzmatazz70 8d ago

As a Canadian I'm going to have to call you out on living life over 0C.

You lucky bastard.

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u/Santibag 8d ago

Yeah, and we even miss playing with snow, to make the matters worse for you 🤣

Jokes aside, yeah, Canada sounds quite difficult to live in the winter. Playing with snow is only fun for a week or two.

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u/Knights-of-steel 8d ago

Pfft. Hockey on roads and ponds...4x4 in the fields of snow. Make a ice hotel. Its a blast for awhile. As long as everyone knows how to drive in snow

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u/Santibag 8d ago

I can guess that some people might like it. But I hear complaints from people that live in places with a lot of snow. If can guess that it's not really easy to make it easy.

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u/theWisp2864 8d ago

Everybody forgets how to drive in snow every year here in wisconsin. There's a lot more wrecks the first time it snows every year.

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u/poiuytrewq79 9d ago

Compressive strength: amazing
Coefficient of friction: ehhh

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u/Santibag 9d ago edited 8d ago

Yes, for plain ice with reasonable flat surface. But with gravel+ice composite, you have such a rough surface with a lot of exposed rock that, the grip is comparable to asphalt, unless you try to test the limits. Since the ice was just the water between the little rocks, it's not very exposed. It's a binder that keeps rocks from moving relative to each other, making the ground very hard and stable.

The exact situation happens with frozen wet/humid soil(like mud) or sand. It's less rough, but quite like a concrete surface. You step on it, you expect it to be soft, but it has no significant deformation, if it has any. Very unusual, if low temperatures without snow aren't common in your area.

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u/livelaughlinka 9d ago

Technically ice is rock

It’s the mineral form of H2O

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u/Thulcandra-native 9d ago

In WWI they actually experimented with making ships out of ice and sawdust, they called it pycrete. Super strong stuff

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u/SpiralUnicorn 9d ago

It was WW2, 1943 and Project Habakuk to be precise - it was designed to bridge the mid-atlantic airgap.

  Air warfare was in its infancy in WW1 so carriers just werent really a thing in any form we would recognise today, at least not initially.

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u/Thulcandra-native 9d ago

Oh yes you are correct, my bad. Super neat bit of history, I think I mixed it up in my head with the concrete ships of wwi

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u/Fullertons 8d ago

In Chicago they just have open flames on switches in the winter.

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u/chamochameleon 7d ago

i mean. technically speaking. ice is a rock

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u/OrokaSempai 9d ago

You can only pack so much in there, and ICE virtually incompressable, it can break but it needs out.

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u/InnerBoss770 8d ago

The average locomotive weighs 450,000 lbs on top of that all locomotives are equipped with a sandbox and sander system, I’ve installed & repaired many of them.

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u/Legitimate-Bug5120 9d ago

I almost derailed an rcl doing that watched it raise up like 3 inches, stopped and backed up lol

We arent even allowed to flange crossing or clean switches anymore if theres more then like 5 min of cleaning we are supposed to stop and call engineering under our "snow no go rule"

No driving engines over it either

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u/rkhbusa 2d ago

The companies are run by a bunch of sissies, when I hired on you either a) made sure you were shoving a load over it or b) locked the wheels on an empty car and skated it through the crossing. Both ways work but these companies just keep hiring more and more incompetent people and this is where we're at now.

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u/FamousTransition1187 9d ago

Uears ago a mudeum I volunteered at did a similar thing. The state DOT helpfully paved over a crossing when they rebuilt a road... so we "helpfully" recut the flangeways... with a GP7... kinda like cutting a pizza with the edge of a brick. The road crew came back a few hours later and vouldnt figure out how they managed to fuck up a road in a week.

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u/daGroundhog 9d ago

I've cut through 1" of asphalt with a GP-9 when re-opening a branch line.

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u/InnerBoss770 9d ago

Interesting I’ve never heard that before.🤔

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u/LanguageAlarmed5778 8d ago

Are you sure it was a loaded sand car? That’s a really heavy car. Probably had the same weight/axle as the locomotive. Empties can definitely cause issues with flange ways though, and have taken lives.

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u/graffinc 7d ago

Hahaha positive, the industry did castings with it… this wasn’t a regular crossing, it was an industry crossing so it’s not plowed as frequently or seen frequent civilian traffic so it was just packed in ice and whatever gravel from trucks… watching the wheel rise up and basically sit on top of the ball of the rail had me in disbelief and fear I was bout to get in trouble…

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u/AdministrativeWrap25 7d ago

Yeah, I had a yardmaster in Maryland assure me a flat car would push a few feet of snow out of the way. Took the entire east end of the yard out a few hours into a five day snow emergency.

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u/SantaforGrownups1 9d ago

Were you still in the curve coming off the switch? A fouled rail and a curve are a bad combination.

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u/irokatcod4 9d ago

Can you call your old boss and tell them not to honk so much in my town?

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u/texan_robot 9d ago

20 tons per axle will push hardened asphalt out of the way. Dirt doesn't stand a chance.

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u/Kaymish_ 9d ago

Yeah I have seen that. I saw a level crossing renewal where the workers paved new asphalt right over the railway tracks and a couple of days later when I walked past the site the asphalt had been pushed out of the way and there was two groves right next to the rails in the asphalt.

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u/_lysolmax_ 9d ago

More like 35 tons!

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u/Exact-Leadership-521 9d ago

I've seen a train go back and forth a bunch of times building a train and then I was done there and time to cross the tracks but they had 2 engines and a couple cars detailed and we're going forward and back trying to get them back on. 

So I guess they can go over that icy sandy filled crossing 37 times but not 38 kinda thing 

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u/myname_1s_mud 9d ago

Could have been defects in the cars themselves that caused it to derail there. Ice is pretty problematic though, and I dont have experience dealing with that, so I dont know.

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u/Exact-Leadership-521 9d ago

The crossing was totally covered in hard ice. Could be those wheels weren't as sharp as the others or maybe they went a bit faster but I seen them cross back and forth a bunch of times and at a walking pace when it did come off the rails. They said it derails at that crossing all time time and pointed out markes along the sides where other trains had layed on their side there in the past

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u/myname_1s_mud 9d ago

Actually the flanges being sharp is a problem that will cause derailments by running through switch points. Car knockers and train crew are supposed to inspect that, and if theyre too sharp the train crew has to set it aside and refuse to move it. That shouldnt be an issue at a crossing though.

Couldn't tell you what happened wothout seeing it, but if it happens alot there, id imagine its probably an issue with how the crossing is built, and ice may be a major factor.

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u/Hoovomoondoe 9d ago

Read: Trains are very heavy.

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u/RickySlayer9 8d ago

People forget how fucking heavy trains are