The LNER Encyclopedia

Due to the excessive heat that is predicted especially tomorrow Tuesday 19th July 2022 of a temperature of 40c and maybe even 41c a Network Rail spokes person turned up on BBC radio 4 this morning and said that the ECML would 'close down' tomorrow Tuesday 20th between Kings Cross, York & Leeds and he also went on to say about the possibly of painting the rails 'white' in future to keep them cooler in the heat. I have heard of this before about a year ago but in reality that would be a massive job of work to undertake to paint the whole of the rails along the ECML & WCML white. I presume a special train that could 'spray paint the insides and the outsides of the rails white' as it travelled along a certain route would be how it would be done?.

From https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/18/network- ... -17021528/

In a bid to prevent tracks from becoming too hot, Network Rail uses a number of techniques including painting certain parts of the rail white so they absorb less heat.

Painted tracks can stay 5°C to 10°C cooler than unpainted rails.

Other methods used by the rail operator include leaving small gaps between rails allowing them to expand safely

I think the last idea is brilliant! Tiddely pom, tiddely pom.

John

With the rails and all the fixtures & fittings being coloured 'white' at least you wouldn't tend to trip over the rails so easily in the dark?. I presume the H&S would go for that.

Sure I saw switches of points at KX, and a few other places I think, painted white for this reason at least 15 years ago - so-called 'Golden assets' I think (if failed, capable of causing the most disruption).

Many people would be astonished how high the temperatures in hot day sun-exposed rails can reach compared with the ambient air temperature.

Good Lord! Is there no end to the problems that British railways dream up?

First it was 'the wrong type of leaves', then 'leaf fall' during Autumn. Now it's this.

How do countries such as Spain and Italy cope with temperatures regularly much warmer than those in the UK?

Pyewipe Junction wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 12:49 am Good Lord! Is there no end to the problems that British railways dream up?

First it was 'the wrong type of leaves', then 'leaf fall' during Autumn. Now it's this.

How do countries such as Spain and Italy cope with temperatures regularly much warmer than those in the UK?

The Rails in Italy are White !!

It may have been a nice little touch coming from Network Rail...

Thinking back to the infamous British Rail media annoucement of "The wrong kind of snow" which I actually heard 'made live' at the time that it was made which was back in 1981 after a rather heavy fall of 'dry powdery snow' in London and the south east of England which caused problems on the railways especially on the Southern Region from memory and in general with sets of points being 'snowed in' I was wondering if Network Rail was going to annouce this time around of the closure of the ECML was due to "The wrong kind of hot sun" just to nicely balance up the wrong kind of snow media report of 40+ years ago?.

G'Day Gents

Hope the white paint works, would be a real pain if every gap in the rails had to be made bigger !!!!!!!!

Don't have many problems here in Oz with heat stressed rails, but it does happen. But 48c/50c will do that.

manna

Heard on BBC radio earlier in the week a radio presenter was asking a Network Rail spokesperson will excessively hot temperatures in the future mean that the HS2 'highspeed line' would also have to close down during very hot temperatures (I presume of 40c+?).

The Network Rail spokesperson replied "No the HS2 line will remain open in excessively hot weather due to all the rails being laid in concrete."

Never say never.

No wonder HS2 is going to be so expensive. The whole lot on slab concrete. There needed to be more explanation of what the problems are so the public know. How many times have they we seen the comments " They manage to run in Australia or Spain without any problems" Rail temperatures can be 20° higher than air temperature and as we pre stress rails in the - 10 to 35° range they struggle over 27°. Each country is different, Spain is 0°to 45° and I think Australia is 10° to 55°. While we still get minus temperatures in winter they are limited to what range they are in. We have also seen what happens when you starve an electrification scheme of money.
The ECML suffered because it didn't have gantries for OHLE. Whereas the WCML didn't suffer. Stringing a fixed wire between two masts over four tracks was a recipe for disaster. No way to maintain the tension coupled with sagging contact wires with their tensioning weights touching the ground. There was no hope. The Tyne and Wear Metro suffered with this as well.

Don't kid yourself the WCML didn't have OHLE problems. I worked on the WARP project in the 1990s which included reducing damage by installing additional gantries between existing ones in vulnerable areas.

Before you ask, WARP stood (I think) for West Coast Accelerated Route Programme but I don't think many other brainwaves from our little hut in a car park came to fruit.

John

Funny enough about 12 months ago it was mentioned on BBC radio in a conversation about the difference between the older 1960s WCML 25.000kv overhead electrification and the later 1970s & 1980s ECML 25.000kv overhead electrification in regards to if any damage that was sustained to the track underneath either the WCML OHL that was carried on fixed steel gantries that crossed the running lines at regular intervals or the ECML OHL that is strung between two 'up right steel posts' and hung on a wire between the two up right steel posts at regular intervals along the line with the answer being that the ECML electrification was 'cheaper and quicker to install' and it could be altered quicker if the track below was damaged and maybe had to be relayed although the older WCML electrification being carried on steel gantries took longer to alter if the track below had to be replaced although the opinion of the person who was talking about the subject he appeared to believe that the better of the two options in the long run was the older WCML electrification with the OHL being carried on steel gantries as opposed to being strung across the running line(s) on wires as on the ECML.