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#3194428 12-Feb-2024 20:02

The trains are Spanish, it gets pretty hot there, and they run lots of trains in heat, also high speed trains.
It seems its track design and materials as we had shallow pockets.

Now if Auckland Transport, or Government would pay for better trackwork.
KiwiRAIL would be quite happy to put it in I expect, no downside for them.

There has been an upgrade program partly complete with major disruption to services for extended periods.
Nothing about if heat problems are part of reason for this, so something this fixes.
https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/train-services/rail-network-rebuild/about-the-rail-network-rebuild/

Hopefully its old areas and upgrade fixes, though news article does not say anything on this.

Bung

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#3194438 12-Feb-2024 21:33

neb: Must be a Kiwirail special, trains in Europe don't blink at 35+ degree temps, I don't know what the track temperatures are like but I assume they'd be the same as here. I assume Kiwirail is saving the "wrong kind of snow" excuse for an extra special occasion. Or the wrong kind of sunlight.

With continuously welded rail you have to pick a temperature range when the rail is being installed and prestress the track to suit. If the rail is hotter it gets longer and could buckle, colder it shrinks and could break. The acceptable variation depends on the way the track is ballasted. Apparently spraying the rail with white paint in summer to reduce heat build up is a thing in some countries.

"Some countries’ railways are able to cope with such high temperature variation by using solid concrete slabs to contain the higher forces created. But slab tracks costs approximately four times as much to install as standard ballasted track."

sir1963

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#3194439 12-Feb-2024 21:36

Bung:

neb: Must be a Kiwirail special, trains in Europe don't blink at 35+ degree temps, I don't know what the track temperatures are like but I assume they'd be the same as here. I assume Kiwirail is saving the "wrong kind of snow" excuse for an extra special occasion. Or the wrong kind of sunlight.

With continuously welded rail you have to pick a temperature range when the rail is being installed and prestress the track to suit. If the rail is hotter it gets longer and could buckle, colder it shrinks and could break. The acceptable variation depends on the way the track is ballasted. Apparently spraying the rail with white paint in summer to reduce heat build up is a thing in some countries.

"Some countries’ railways are able to cope with such high temperature variation by using solid concrete slabs to contain the higher forces created. But slab tracks costs approximately four times as much to install as standard ballasted track."

What we need is hyperloop 😂

neb

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#3194440 12-Feb-2024 21:48

sir1963:
What we need is hyperloop 😂

Why are you using the Musk spelling with the superfluous 'r'?

elpenguino

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#3194521 13-Feb-2024 09:05

neb:
ezbee:

Trains cancelled across Auckland due to ‘heat’
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/trains-cancelled-across-auckland-due-to-heat/FTQVJQEM5ZD4ZNTYHMUCGUNWOA/

""
“Some train services on Eastern, Western, and Southern lines have been cancelled due to weather (heat) conditions,” Auckland Transport posted to social media.

Must be a Kiwirail special, trains in Europe don't blink at 35+ degree temps, I don't know what the track temperatures are like but I assume they'd be the same as here. I assume Kiwirail is saving the "wrong kind of snow" excuse for an extra special occasion. Or the wrong kind of sunlight.

I was tempted to agree with you but then I remembered I saw this video. It talks about welding train tracks which removes the expansion gaps.

IIRC To weld tracks without expansion joints the tracks are stretched to their 'hot' length. I'm thinking kiwirail might not have done this to their network and other networks have ?

https://youtu.be/zqmOSMAtadc

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

SomeoneSomewhere

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#3194780 13-Feb-2024 17:08

elpenguino:

I was tempted to agree with you but then I remembered I saw this video. It talks about welding train tracks which removes the expansion gaps.

IIRC To weld tracks without expansion joints the tracks are stretched to their 'hot' length. I'm thinking kiwirail might not have done this to their network and other networks have ?

https://youtu.be/zqmOSMAtadc

As per above, the issue is probably not just that you have to stretch them or weld them on a hot day, but the requirement to define 'hot'. There's (hopefully) a design temperature, and it was presumably exceeded. Raising that design temperature increases the amount of work (pre-heating/pre-stressing) that has to be done to lay or join rail, and also raises the stresses in the rail at cooler temperature. There are presumably ways to deal with this and we've probably been able to avoid the more extreme options in the past.

As things heat up and peak temperatures become more spiky, expect more and more infrastructure to fail/be capacity limited due to heat stress on the hottest of days. Wellington had issues with fixed tension overhead (essentially obsolete worldwide) because of the same issues: cables get tight and break/pull things over in the cold, and get loose and sag in the heat. Balance weight tension solves this, and has been rolled out in many areas, but it costs money.

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elpenguino

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#3194786 13-Feb-2024 17:27

Bung:

neb: Must be a Kiwirail special, trains in Europe don't blink at 35+ degree temps, I don't know what the track temperatures are like but I assume they'd be the same as here. I assume Kiwirail is saving the "wrong kind of snow" excuse for an extra special occasion. Or the wrong kind of sunlight.

With continuously welded rail you have to pick a temperature range when the rail is being installed and prestress the track to suit. If the rail is hotter it gets longer and could buckle, colder it shrinks and could break. The acceptable variation depends on the way the track is ballasted. Apparently spraying the rail with white paint in summer to reduce heat build up is a thing in some countries.

"Some countries’ railways are able to cope with such high temperature variation by using solid concrete slabs to contain the higher forces created. But slab tracks costs approximately four times as much to install as standard ballasted track."

How did I miss your post from the night before mine that discusses the same topic ? What the ......

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

frankv

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#3194995 14-Feb-2024 10:58

SomeoneSomewhere:

Raising that design temperature increases the amount of work (pre-heating/pre-stressing) that has to be done to lay or join rail, and also raises the stresses in the rail at cooler temperature.

Or, to put it another way, we've saved money in the short term, without thinking about the long-term. Just like roads. Just like Auckland public transport.

richms

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#3195016 14-Feb-2024 11:35

Perhaps they should water cool the tracks or something.

Richard rich.ms

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#3195031 14-Feb-2024 12:20

You mean, like rain? /joke

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#3195054 14-Feb-2024 13:49

richms:

Perhaps they should water cool the tracks or something.

We don't have enough spare water in Wellington - unfortunately, this is NOT a joke.

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geoffwnz

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#3195056 14-Feb-2024 13:50

jamesrt:

richms:

Perhaps they should water cool the tracks or something.

We don't have enough spare water in Wellington - unfortunately, this is NOT a joke.

Just pipe all the leaks to the tracks. Sorted.

MotorDrive Rallying

cshwone

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#3195060 14-Feb-2024 14:03

SomeoneSomewhere:

elpenguino:

I was tempted to agree with you but then I remembered I saw this video. It talks about welding train tracks which removes the expansion gaps.

IIRC To weld tracks without expansion joints the tracks are stretched to their 'hot' length. I'm thinking kiwirail might not have done this to their network and other networks have ?

https://youtu.be/zqmOSMAtadc

As per above, the issue is probably not just that you have to stretch them or weld them on a hot day, but the requirement to define 'hot'. There's (hopefully) a design temperature, and it was presumably exceeded. Raising that design temperature increases the amount of work (pre-heating/pre-stressing) that has to be done to lay or join rail, and also raises the stresses in the rail at cooler temperature. There are presumably ways to deal with this and we've probably been able to avoid the more extreme options in the past.

As things heat up and peak temperatures become more spiky, expect more and more infrastructure to fail/be capacity limited due to heat stress on the hottest of days. Wellington had issues with fixed tension overhead (essentially obsolete worldwide) because of the same issues: cables get tight and break/pull things over in the cold, and get loose and sag in the heat. Balance weight tension solves this, and has been rolled out in many areas, but it costs money.

This is not new. The Wairarapa line has had these track heat issues for years

elpenguino

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#3195064 14-Feb-2024 14:11

geoffwnz:

jamesrt:

We don't have enough spare water in Wellington - unfortunately, this is NOT a joke.

Just pipe all the leaks to the tracks. Sorted.

It's this kind of lateral thinking which is missing from local politics. Please stand in the next election cycle.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

geoffwnz

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#3195065 14-Feb-2024 14:16

elpenguino:

It's this kind of lateral thinking which is missing from local politics. Please stand in the next election cycle.

@#$%^&* NO.

MotorDrive Rallying

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