I’d like to see more content like this from all over the public sector please.
> The hot weather forecast this week means Network Rail has activated its ‘extreme weather action teams’ (EWATs) to ensure passenger safety and that we keep our railway running as reliably as possible.
Someone was very ~~erect~~ pleased with themselves when they stumbled upon that name.
Metal expands in heat, based on average temperatures a tolerance is added to allow for expansion or contraction in the cold.
In extreme heat the rails can expand more than the tolerance and the result is the rail buckles as it has no where else to go than sideways.
I know this is the boring answer
Regards to all the Network Rail staff working out there in the extreme heat wearing full length PPE. It’s a tough environment, with little shade.
At secondary school in the 1980s I remember physics class where we were learning that metal expands with heat. The textbook had a picture of railway tracks that were all wonky, accompanied by the following limerick :
> A railway man was once sent
> To lay down some tracks across Kent
> He forgot to design
> Some gaps in the line
> And when it got hot, it went bent
Now I know that railway lines don’t have the expansion joints any more, but I thought it was appropriate
I always figured it was because my wife used those trains
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I’d like to see more content like this from all over the public sector please.
> The hot weather forecast this week means Network Rail has activated its ‘extreme weather action teams’ (EWATs) to ensure passenger safety and that we keep our railway running as reliably as possible.
Someone was very ~~erect~~ pleased with themselves when they stumbled upon that name.
Metal expands in heat, based on average temperatures a tolerance is added to allow for expansion or contraction in the cold.
In extreme heat the rails can expand more than the tolerance and the result is the rail buckles as it has no where else to go than sideways.
I know this is the boring answer
Regards to all the Network Rail staff working out there in the extreme heat wearing full length PPE. It’s a tough environment, with little shade.
At secondary school in the 1980s I remember physics class where we were learning that metal expands with heat. The textbook had a picture of railway tracks that were all wonky, accompanied by the following limerick :
> A railway man was once sent
> To lay down some tracks across Kent
> He forgot to design
> Some gaps in the line
> And when it got hot, it went bent
Now I know that railway lines don’t have the expansion joints any more, but I thought it was appropriate
I always figured it was because my wife used those trains