Word Finder - rails

definition

A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing.

definition

The metal bar that makes the track for a railroad.

definition

A railroad; a railway, as a means of transportation.

example

We travelled to the seaside by rail.

definition

A horizontal piece of wood that serves to separate sections of a door or window.

definition

One of the lengthwise edges of a surfboard.

definition

A vertical section on one side of a web page.

example

We're experimenting with ads in the right-hand rail.

definition

A large line (portion or serving of a powdery illegal drug).

definition

To travel by railway.

definition

To enclose with rails or a railing.

definition

To range in a line.

definition

To criticize severely.

definition

Any of several birds in the family Rallidae.

definition

To complain violently (against, about).

definition

An item of clothing; a cloak or other garment; a dress.

definition

Specifically, a woman's headscarf or neckerchief.

definition

(of a liquid) To gush, flow.

The manufacture of steel rails, carried on first at Terni and afterwards at Savona, began in Italy in 1886.

New Zealand has also yielded many flightless birds, notably the numerous species and genera of Dinornithidae, some of which survived into the 19th century; Pseudapteryx allied to the Kiwi; Cnemiornis, a big, flightless goose; Aptornis and Notornis, flightless rails; and Harpagornis, a truly gigantic bird of prey with tremendous wings and talons.

So intensely aristocratic (hence his nickname 6 AoXoiSopos, "he who rails at the people") was his temperament that he declined to exercise the regal-hieratic office of 1 3avLAeus which was hereditary in his family, and presented it to his brother.

But the iron sheathing was not strong enough to resist buckling under the passage of the loaded wagons, and to remedy this defect the plan, was tried of making the rails wholly of iron.

In 1767 the Colebrookdale Iron Works cast a batch of iron rails or plates, each 3 ft.

This line was originally designed as a " plateway " on the Outram system, but objections were raised to rails with upstanding ledges or flanges FIG.

Jessop thus produced what was virtually the flanged wheel of to-day, having the flanges inside the rails,.

The manufacture of the rails themselves was gradually improved.

By making them in longer lengths a reduction was effected in the number of joints - always the weakest part of the line; and another advance consisted in the substitution of wrought iron for cast iron, though that material did not gain wide adoption until after the patent for an improved method of rolling rails granted in 1820 to John Birkinshaw, of the Bedlington Ironworks, Durham.

His rails were wedge-shaped in section, much wider at the top than at the bottom, with the intermediate portion or web thinner still, and he recommended that they should be made 18 ft.

The fishbellied rails, however, were found to break near the chairs, and from 1834 they began to be replaced with parallel rails weighing 50 lb to the yard.

There was a waste of metal in these early rails owing to the excessive thickness of the vertical web, and subsequent improvements have consisted in adjusting the dimensions so as to combine strength with economy of metal, as well as in the substitution of steel for wrought iron (after the introduction of the Bessemer process) and in minute attention to the composition of the steel employed.

Bridges Adams, the intention being by " fishing " the joints to convert the rails into continuous beams. In the original design two chairs were placed, one under each rail, a few inches apart, as in fig.

The joint was thus suspended between the two chairs, and two keys of iron, called " fishes," fitting the side channels of the rails, were driven in on each side between the chairs and the rails.

In subsequent modifications the fishes were, as they continue to be, bolted to and through the rails, the sleepers being placed rather further apart and the joint being generally suspended between them.

Thus it may fairly be said that the railway system of the United States was reconstructed between 1896 and 1905, so far as concerns rails, sleepers, ballast and the general capacity of a given group of lines to perform work.

The act of 1871 further renders it obligatory upon every railway company to send notice to the Board of Trade in the case of (1) any accident attended with loss of life or personal injury to any person whatsoever; (2) any collision where one of the trains is a passenger train; (3) any passenger train or part of such train leaving the rails; (4) any other accident likely to have caused loss of life or personal injury, and specified on that ground by any order made from time to time by the Board of Trade.

From the falling of rails, sleepers, &c., when at work on the line .

Passenger trains or parts of passenger trains leaving the rails 8.

Goods trains or parts of goods trains, lightengines, &c., leaving the rails 9.

The theoretical limit is about i in 16; between I in 20 and 1 in 16 a steam locomotive depending on the adhesion between its wheels and the rails can only haul about its own weight.

Blenkinsop placed the teeth on the outer side of one of the running rails, and his reason for adopting a rack was the belief that an engine with smooth wheels running on smooth rails would not have sufficient adhesion to draw the load required.

Two lines may be drawn from this point, one to each of the two rails, in a plane normal to the rails, and the ends of these lines, where they meet the rails, may be joined to complete a triangle, which may conveniently be regarded as a rigid frame resting on the rails.

Simultaneously the frame as a whole tends to slide horizontally athwart the rails,.

If therefore the outer rail is laid at a level above that of the inner rail at the curve, overturning will be resisted more than would be the case if both rails were in the same horizontal plane, since the tilting of the vehicle due to this " superelevation " diminishes the overturning moment, and also increases the restoring moment, by shortening in the one case and lengthening in the other the lever arms at which the respective forces act.

The amount of superelevation required to prevent derailment at a curve can be calculated under perfect running conditions, given the radius of curvature, the weight of the vehicle, the height of the centre of gravity, the distance between the rails, and the speed; but great experience 1 See The Times Engineering Supplement (August 22, 1906), p. 265.

The gauge of a railway is the distance between the inner edges of the two rails upon which the wheels run.

Sleepers, called ties or cross-ties in America, are the blocks or slabs on which the rails are carried.

There are two main ways of attaching the rails to the sleepers, corresponding to two main types of rails - the bull-headed rail A B FIG.

The keys which hold the rail in the chairs are usually of oak and are placed outside the rails; the inside position has also been employed, but has the disadvantage of detracting from the elasticity of the road since the weight of a passing train presses the rails up against a rigid mass of metal instead of against a slightly yielding block of wood.

The rails, which for heavy main line traffic may weigh as much as too lb per yard, or even more, are rolled in lengths of from 30 to 60 ft., and sleepers are placed under them at intervals of between 2 and 3 ft.

Preferably, they are so arranged that those in both lines of rails come opposite each other and are placed between the same pair of sleepers.

Flat-bottomed rails are fastened to the sleepers by hookheaded spikes, the heads of which project over the flanges.

In the United States the spikes are simply driven in with a maul, and the rails stand upright, little care being taken to prepare seats for them on the sleepers, on which they soon seat themselves.

The joints of flanged rails are similar to those employed with bull-headed rails.

The substitution of steel for iron as the material for rails which made possible the axle loads and the speeds of Lto-day, and, by reducing the cost of maintenance, contributed enormously to the economic efficiency of railways, was one of the most important events in the history of railways, and a scarcely less important element of progressive economy has been the continued improvement of the steel rail in stiffness of section and in toughness and hardness of material.

The specifications for bull-headed rails issued by the British Engineering Standards Committee in 1904 provided for a carbon-content ranging from 0-35 to 0-50%, with a phosphorus maximum of 0.075%.

In the United States a committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers, appointed to consider the question of rail manufacture in consequence of an increase in the number of rail-failures, issued an interim report in 1907 in which it suggested a range of carbon from 0-55 to 0-65% for the heaviest sections of Bessemer steel flange rails, with a phosphorus maximum of 0.085%; while the specifications of the American Society for Testing Materials, current at the same period, put the carbon limits at o 45 to 0-55%, and the phosphorus limit at o io.

For rails of basic open-hearth steel, which is rapidly ousting Bessemer steel, the Civil Engineers' specifications allowed from o 65 to 0-75% of carbon with 0-05% of phosphorus, while the specifications of the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association provided for a range of 0.75 to 0-85% of carbon, with a maximum of 0.03% of phosphorus.

The rail-failures mentioned above also drew renewed attention to the importance of the thermal treatment of the steel from the time of melting to the last passage through the rolling mill and to the necessity of the finishing temperature being sufficiently low if the product is to be fine grained, homogeneous and tough; and to permit of this requirement being met there was a tendency to increase the thickness of the metal in the web and flanges of the rails.

The standard specification adopted by the Pennsylvania railway in 1908 provided that in rails weighing Ioo lb to the yard 41% of the metal should be in the head, 18-6% in the web, and 40-4% in the base, while for 85 lb rails 42.2% was to be in the head, 17-8% in the web and 40.0% in the base.

According to the specification for 85 lb rails adopted by the Canadian Pacific railway about the same time, 36-77% of the metal was to be in the head, 22'21% in the web and 41 02% in the base.

To enable trains to be transferred from one pair of rails to another pair, as from the main line to a siding, " points " or " switches " are provided.

Where, as at a double-line junction, one pair of rails crosses another pair, " diamond " crossings (p) are formed.

At both types of crossing, check rails (c) must be provided to guide the wheel-flanges, and if these are not accurately placed the safety of the trains will be endangered.

The position of the main buildings - ticket offices, waiting and refreshment-rooms, parcels offices, &c. - relative to the direction of the lines of rails may be used as a means of classifying terminal stations.

They are placed either on the departure side parallel to the platform (" side " stations) or at right angles to the rails and platforms (" end " stations).

In other countries they are generally lower; in the United States they are commonly level with, or only a few inches higher than, the top of the rails.

In both types pits are constructed between the rails on which the engines stand to afford easy access for the inspection and cleaning of their mechanism.

The shed may have a single pair of rails for wagons running through it along one side of a raised platform, there being a roadway for carts on the other side; or if more accommodation is required there may be two tracks, one on each side of the platform, which is then approached by carts at the end.