Railway Track

Permanent way
The combination of rails, fitted on sleepers

& resting on ballast & subgrade is called

the railway track or permanent way.

Rails

Rails
Rails are steel girders which provide the

hard & smooth surface for movement of

wheels of a locomotive & railway vehicles.

Sleepers

Sleepers are the members laid transversely

under the rails which are meant to support

the rails over them & transfer the loads
from rails to ballast.

Ballast
It is the granular material packed under &

around the sleepers to transfer loads from

sleepers to ballast. It helps in providing
elasticity to the track.

UNIFORMITY OF GAUGES

RAILWAY TRACK CROSSSECTION

CONING OF WHEELS
Coning of wheels is a method of beveling

the wheels to avoid depreciation to the

wheels and rims. Normally the wheels are
conned by a cone of semi-angle. It is based
on the theorem of coning.

Railway wheels are usually beveled by means

of a cone semi-angle of the arrangement of

1/20 (rad.). The rails are also fixed at this
identical angle to the perpendicular. The
width of the wheel is generally 140 mm and
the rail top is approximately 80 mm. The
proportions of the region of liaison between
an encumbered wheel and rail reckon on the
exact shapes of the wheel pace and rail
head. It also depends on the extent of the
load occupied.

The space between the inner borders of

wheel rims is by and large kept less than the

measurement of the track. This results in a
gap between the wheel rims and running
ends of the rails which is approximately equal
to 1 cm, (3/8) on both side. More often than
not, the tread of wheels is perfectly the dead
centre of the beginning of the rail, since the
wheel is chamfered to keep it in this middle
position involuntarily. Thus the wheels are
beveled at an inclination of 1 in 20.

Advantages of coning the wheels

Coning the wheels reduces the depreciation
of the wheel rims and rails. Depreciation is
caused because of the friction action of
rims with inner faces of the rail top.
Coning also gives an option of lateral drift
of the hinge with is wheels.
Coning also prevents, to some extent, the
slipping of the wheels.

Theory of Coning
On a railway level track, the moment the axle
moves towards one rail, the wheel tread width
above the rail steps-up but reduces over the other
rail. This forbids the auxiliary movement and hinge
pulls back to its original position. This is possible
only if the diameters on both rails are equal and
the pressure on both the rails is also equal.
On a coiled path, because of rigidity of the wheel
bottom either of the wheels has to slip by a
measure equal to the differentiation of length or
else the axle has to move outward a bit so that a
tread with longer diameter is formed over the
outer rail whereas a slighter diameter tread is
formed over the inner rail.

If the diameter of the tread on both the

rails is equal, then:
Calculation
Slip = (R2 R1)
The outer Radius, R2 = R+G/2
Inner Radius, R1=R-G/2
G =Gauge of Railway Track
= Angle at centre in radians
Therefore Slip = x G

For B.G. track; G = 1.676 meters

and Slip = 2o/360 x 1.676
Where o= angle centre in degrees about 1
Slip =0.029 (roughly for 1 of central angel)
Therefore, the slip is about 0.029 m per
degree of central angle.

Chamfering of wheels on bends is not

useful as the principal axle if owing to

centrifugal force proceeds towards the
outward rail the back axle will precede
towards the inside rail and the complete
benefit of coning wheels cannot be availed.
Put differently, there will be no free
sidelong movement of wheels. This results
in the following disadvantages:

The outer rail will have more pressure while

the inner rail will have lesser pressure.

Owing to the centrifugal strength, the
parallel components incline to turn the rail
out and gauge has broadening tendency.
Due to this condition if the voids sleepers
have no base plate beneath the edge of the
rail they will be damaged.

In order to get rid of or minimize the supra

mentioned faults angling/tilting of rails is

done. When the rails are tilted then the
base plate or sleeper is not placed
horizontal. It is laid at a slope of 1 in 20
towards the inner side. This is known as
adzing of sleepers which means that the
timbers are dressed roughly with an ax like
tool.