In a somewhat related practice, some roads in the Tour de France this year have been painted with "white shit" (rider Tom Pidcock's words) in order to combat the asphalt melting in the heat, with the unfortunate side-effect that it seems to be slippery and several riders (including Tom Pidcock) crashed going around a corner when the lost traction.
But of course, this was done in response to past serious crashes that occured because the asphalt melted. So, it's sort of a damned if you do damned if you dont scenario for the organizers.
Pepe's Towing in Los Angeles reports asphalt collapses where loaded semitrailers are parked with the landing gear down. On hot days the concentrated load of the landing gear sometimes punches through the asphalt.[1]
This is why truck dock areas are usually paved with concrete.
Years ago Chicago started putting concrete pads on the road at bus stops because the busses stopping in the exact same spot repeatedly was carving ruts into the asphalt.
Yeah, my city is currently going through every bus stop in the city, redoing the pavement in concrete. Construction season has been nasty for us this year :p
Also if a vehicle is stopped and the driver turns the wheel (with power steering this isn't hard) - it will eventually drill holes in asphalt - you can sometimes see this in house driveways where someone turns around.
Motorcycle riders also report their sidestands sinking into asphalt on very hot days, to the extent that many of them carry some kind of wide weight-spreading thing to put under the stand. Apparently a face plate (?) for an electrical junction box works great.
Usually, a crushed soda can is good enough to prevent the kickstand to sync in the pavement. You can usually find a can in a random parking lot. That, or find a strip of concrete. That's why sometimes motorcycle park on the sidewalk in front of big box stores on a hot day.
> But of course, this was done in response to past serious crashes that occurred because the asphalt melted. So, it's sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario for the organizers.
Well, not entirely. You always have the option of repaving the roads with cobblestone or something.
Just go slower! We don't want to pay for maintenance. What's the worst that could happen? You derail and your toxic payload catches fire and poisons the neighbourhood?
It's funny you mention that, since I mentally associate Union Pacific with the worst of US rail disinvestment. They're the ones that were patient zero for the "precision scheduled railroading" brainworm that led all our railroads to downgrade track and lengthen trains to insane lengths[1]. Or at the very least, they were at the top of Amtrak's delay-shaming list until a few years ago[0] when they somehow improved???
...anyway, I'm now genuinely wondering how the hell rail in such an awful state can still maintain the correct gauge for trains to run on!?
[1] Salt Lake City is trisected by Union Pacific freight rail. We have some of the largest city blocks in North America, but they're still not long enough to avoid a single stopped Union Pacific train blocking multiple crossings for hours on end. If you want to really, REALLY hate trains, move to the west side of SLC.
Also, talk to your politician about the Rio Grande Plan.
> “When people first saw it, they said, ‘Why haven’t we been doing this for a hundred years?’” Doerr said. “That’s the kind of question I love to hear, because it means the culture of safety innovation is alive and well.”
Union Pacific haven’t been doing this precisely because they don’t have a culture of innovation…
I think the safety officer meant that white paint prevents the rail from heating up. The heating of rails contributes to problems with derailment. If the heat isn't a contributor, that heat is one less thing you have to fight (as in account for).
But the photo caption paraphrases him and says that the white paint fights (as in prevents) the heat, which uses similar words but a different logic to it (but the same overall meaning).
If I've got that right, then I think the blame lies on whoever wrote this article for making it confusing.
But that's backwards. I took it to mean the rails or the engineers are no longer fighting (coping with) heat input from the sun because the rail never receives that heat when it's reflected away by the paint.
Why couldn't this also help with continuous-welded rail?
Your own video points out that it's still prone to trade-offs: rail breaks in the cold are better than buckling in the heat, but what if you could reduce the high point with white paint so you could expand the practical temperature range?
Trucks and trains serve different purposes. My understanding is the US has a higher percentage than most of freight carried by rail. Indeed at the expense of its passenger rail
Not sure what you're thinking of, but these widgets you linked won't solve the problem of long rail sections heating up in the sun, buckling, and derailing freight trains travelling at normal speeds.
Mostly because it doesn't stay white and looks bad. But it doesn't stop people from painting their siding white, for example.
Why paint the sides of the rails? Well you can paint the tops, but it tends to gum up the wheels and get worn off.
You want a paint with high reflectivity and high emissivity. Just be sure you aren't using infrared light temp measurement as to measure and make claims about differences in temperature, emissivity is something to watch out for when measuring temperature in that way.
20 degrees is surprising, I sure wish my car was white in the summer.
I wonder if you have okay effects with white rails in the winter?
> Why paint the sides of the rails? Well you can paint the tops, but it tends to gum up the wheels and get worn off.
Tops of rails are already pretty shiny for any mainline track seeing a couple dozen trains a day. I'd bet they are more reflective than white paint could be. And the paint would be gone after the first train passes through anyways.
They rust pretty quick, but with regular use it doesn't build up much since it's constantly being worn off from the wheel friction.
Thank you, I was wondering why the need for paint rather than side polishing and the added knowledge that this blend of Steel rusts would ruin that for the non-contact surfaces.
Painting it cheeper than polishing. But I wanted to know the reason they needed to / that made it so.
In a somewhat related practice, some roads in the Tour de France this year have been painted with "white shit" (rider Tom Pidcock's words) in order to combat the asphalt melting in the heat, with the unfortunate side-effect that it seems to be slippery and several riders (including Tom Pidcock) crashed going around a corner when the lost traction.
Coverage here: https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/tour-de-fran...
But of course, this was done in response to past serious crashes that occured because the asphalt melted. So, it's sort of a damned if you do damned if you dont scenario for the organizers.
Pepe's Towing in Los Angeles reports asphalt collapses where loaded semitrailers are parked with the landing gear down. On hot days the concentrated load of the landing gear sometimes punches through the asphalt.[1]
This is why truck dock areas are usually paved with concrete.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBrULmCGJfc
Years ago Chicago started putting concrete pads on the road at bus stops because the busses stopping in the exact same spot repeatedly was carving ruts into the asphalt.
Yeah, my city is currently going through every bus stop in the city, redoing the pavement in concrete. Construction season has been nasty for us this year :p
A city I used to live in did the same thing when they refurbished all the major bus stops. I always wondered why
Also if a vehicle is stopped and the driver turns the wheel (with power steering this isn't hard) - it will eventually drill holes in asphalt - you can sometimes see this in house driveways where someone turns around.
Motorcycle riders also report their sidestands sinking into asphalt on very hot days, to the extent that many of them carry some kind of wide weight-spreading thing to put under the stand. Apparently a face plate (?) for an electrical junction box works great.
Usually, a crushed soda can is good enough to prevent the kickstand to sync in the pavement. You can usually find a can in a random parking lot. That, or find a strip of concrete. That's why sometimes motorcycle park on the sidewalk in front of big box stores on a hot day.
Yep, I use a soda can and have never had any issues.
My bicycle did this as kid in the summer
> But of course, this was done in response to past serious crashes that occurred because the asphalt melted. So, it's sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't scenario for the organizers.
Well, not entirely. You always have the option of repaving the roads with cobblestone or something.
Or just have the cyclists use fatter tyres.
At least they're doing something.
I couldn't believe the state of US railtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2A2f6E5DI
Just go slower! We don't want to pay for maintenance. What's the worst that could happen? You derail and your toxic payload catches fire and poisons the neighbourhood?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Palestine,_Ohio,_train_de...
Maintenance is expensive, profits are now!
I hate that you are both correct.
It's funny you mention that, since I mentally associate Union Pacific with the worst of US rail disinvestment. They're the ones that were patient zero for the "precision scheduled railroading" brainworm that led all our railroads to downgrade track and lengthen trains to insane lengths[1]. Or at the very least, they were at the top of Amtrak's delay-shaming list until a few years ago[0] when they somehow improved???
...anyway, I'm now genuinely wondering how the hell rail in such an awful state can still maintain the correct gauge for trains to run on!?
[0] https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
[1] Salt Lake City is trisected by Union Pacific freight rail. We have some of the largest city blocks in North America, but they're still not long enough to avoid a single stopped Union Pacific train blocking multiple crossings for hours on end. If you want to really, REALLY hate trains, move to the west side of SLC.
Also, talk to your politician about the Rio Grande Plan.
> “When people first saw it, they said, ‘Why haven’t we been doing this for a hundred years?’” Doerr said. “That’s the kind of question I love to hear, because it means the culture of safety innovation is alive and well.”
Union Pacific haven’t been doing this precisely because they don’t have a culture of innovation…
This of course beeing the effect of seemlessly welded together rail with nowhere to go..
"That’s huge. If you’re not fighting the sun’s heat, you dramatically reduce the risk of the rail shifting.”
Am I misreading or does this say the opposite of what they meant?
I think the safety officer meant that white paint prevents the rail from heating up. The heating of rails contributes to problems with derailment. If the heat isn't a contributor, that heat is one less thing you have to fight (as in account for).
But the photo caption paraphrases him and says that the white paint fights (as in prevents) the heat, which uses similar words but a different logic to it (but the same overall meaning).
If I've got that right, then I think the blame lies on whoever wrote this article for making it confusing.
You are misreading. Basically the white paint is "fighting the sun's heat".
But that's backwards. I took it to mean the rails or the engineers are no longer fighting (coping with) heat input from the sun because the rail never receives that heat when it's reflected away by the paint.
I love a simple solution to billion dollar problems
this isn’t the point of the story, but is that paint truck driving on the railroad tracks?
Yes, they're called "high-rail" or "road-rail" vehicles. They have rail wheels that can be lowered down to drive on tracks or raised up for road use.
And sometimes the axel is short (narrow), so the tires are on the rail. It's funny to see them on a standard road.
Practical Engineering already explained the correct solution to this problem:
https://youtu.be/zqmOSMAtadc?si=UUlmnk9sI-leq0SV
But of course, American infrastructure was built on the cheap, and is not maintained correctly. This is why we can't have nice things.
Why couldn't this also help with continuous-welded rail?
Your own video points out that it's still prone to trade-offs: rail breaks in the cold are better than buckling in the heat, but what if you could reduce the high point with white paint so you could expand the practical temperature range?
We have like 220,000 miles of railroad. We do have nice things: a working freight railroad system that helps reduce transit costs.
If the freight rail system were as good as it should be, long distance trucking would be a rounding error instead of the dominant freight mode.
Trucks and trains serve different purposes. My understanding is the US has a higher percentage than most of freight carried by rail. Indeed at the expense of its passenger rail
Airlines killed passenger rail, not freight. Prior to it all being rolled into Amtrak virtually every railroad was losing money on passenger service.
Reducing derailment by decreasing track movement by painting the does of the track white, to reflect heat absorbed from the sun.
You can literally buy derailers[1]. People will find away around this, making white paint useless. Engineers need to engineer.
1. https://www.aldonco.com/product-category/derails/
this is tackling regular natural derailment incidents not terrorism
Derailers are common and are placed where people are working on tracks so a runaway car will go off the tracks instead of hitting the workers.
OK, but a heatwave isn't going to buy a derailer
> Union Pacific Is Tackling Rail Heat to Keep America’s Freight on Track
Someone talked to an LLM which convinced them they had a brilliant idea.
Just a guess ...
- maybe consider electrifying the entire freight network of the USA like some of the other countries have done (mind you very large countries)
- then you might not have to worry increasing heat levels that much
Why would electrification prevent track from warping due to heat from the sun?
cuts down carbon footpriunt which in the long run ll help cut down temperatures
There's a lot more low hanging fruit with higher payoff than optimizing all rail in the USA.
Also, a guess, but I think you might benefit from checking out the actual size of countries vs the Mercator projection size of countries.
Paint everything white! Why stop at rails?
Mostly because it doesn't stay white and looks bad. But it doesn't stop people from painting their siding white, for example.
Why paint the sides of the rails? Well you can paint the tops, but it tends to gum up the wheels and get worn off.
You want a paint with high reflectivity and high emissivity. Just be sure you aren't using infrared light temp measurement as to measure and make claims about differences in temperature, emissivity is something to watch out for when measuring temperature in that way.
20 degrees is surprising, I sure wish my car was white in the summer.
I wonder if you have okay effects with white rails in the winter?
> Why paint the sides of the rails? Well you can paint the tops, but it tends to gum up the wheels and get worn off.
Tops of rails are already pretty shiny for any mainline track seeing a couple dozen trains a day. I'd bet they are more reflective than white paint could be. And the paint would be gone after the first train passes through anyways.
They rust pretty quick, but with regular use it doesn't build up much since it's constantly being worn off from the wheel friction.
Thank you, I was wondering why the need for paint rather than side polishing and the added knowledge that this blend of Steel rusts would ruin that for the non-contact surfaces.
Painting it cheeper than polishing. But I wanted to know the reason they needed to / that made it so.
The top of the rail is already white!!!
It's just polished, so that it is reflective.
If you sanded it with your 180 grit paper, you would get the scattering which appears white.