"Oppie" wrote:


"Mike" wrote in message
...

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:05:35 GMT, "Oppie" wrote:

Yes, the rail is thermite welded to a continuous rail except for insulated
signaling joints. They ship it as 1000ft sections though.


1000ft?

How?
It rather amazed the crud out of me to see these long flatbed cars - about
ten altogether, with the rails laid in grooves on the deck. I guess there is
a limit on how many rails they can cary and still make it around a curve...

How does this deal with the expansion and contraction of rails from daily
and seasonal temperature changes? Somewhere there needs to be some sort of
slip joint to deal with it.

Wes