Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

up.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 100 posts

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#81

Post by gattilorenz »

According to the Dutch railway maintainer, it's not needed there, and the effect is not really proven: https://www.prorail.nl/veelgestelde-vragen/zomer/waarom-zijn...

Same for the Swiss, according to the natioanl railway company the results of their tests were “inconclusive”, but other operators of the Swiss network say that it depends on the exposure and other factors (but the challenge is keeping them clean, in a week they are already too dirty). https://www.rsi.ch/info/svizzera/I-binari-sbiancati-non-serv...

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#82

Post by euroderf »

pixl97 wrote: post #10
amiga386 wrote: post #9

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!

A new mantra for Wall Street.

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#83

Post by OptionOfT »

gattilorenz wrote: post #81

According to the Dutch railway maintainer, it's not needed there, and the effect is not really proven: https://www.prorail.nl/veelgestelde-vragen/zomer/waarom-zijn... Same for the Swiss, according to the natioanl railway company the results of their tests were “inconclusive”, but other operators of the Swiss network say that it depends on the exposure and other factors (but the challenge is keeping them clean, in a w…

Sorry, but both Switserland and definitly the Netherlands are further North vs a significant percentage of the USA.

Bern, Switzerland is very close to the same latitude as Quebec City, CA or Fargo, ND, USA.

The Netherlands is even further North. Due to the lower angle of the sun hitting them they might get completely different results vs here in the South-Western USA.

Also weird in the article:

> Het aanbrengen is behoorlijk arbeidsintensief.

Really? How is driving a machine over the rail labor-intensive?

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#84

Post by olyjohn »

throw1234567891 wrote: post #78
Dah00n wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a new thing in the Tour and it is normally not a problem, but since someone crashed on it then it must be the "white shit" that caused it. Not one of the hundreds of other variables - like the rider.

Paint is usually slippery. There are special standards for how slippery a paint painted on the tarmac can be. But it’s calculated for cars, not racing bicycles with teeny-weeny tires. Could have been easily the paint.

I mean, one of the first things they teach in motorcycle safety classes is that the road stripes are slippery and could cause a crash, especially in the rain. Even if there us a standard for how slippery it can be, it still doesn't match the traction of the road surface.

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#85

Post by olyjohn »

londons_explore wrote: post #59

Hopefully they have a sandblaster mounted to the same train to clean the rails first, else they're gonna have to do this again every year...

Or they have a heavy rust converter (phosphoric acid?) built into it. Similar to a self-etching primer.

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#86

Post by Scoundreller »

reaperducer wrote: post #60
TylerE wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airlines killed passenger rail, not freight. Prior to it all being rolled into Amtrak virtually every railroad was losing money on passenger service.

The Post Office shifting mail transport from trains to planes is what changed the economics. The passenger trains also carried mail, which helped make them profitable. Then the mail, and the money, moved to passenger planes.

Canada is moving away from moving regular mail by air to cut costs.

Dunno if it will move by train or truck.

Probably too late to add much volume on the ground.

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#87

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

acyou wrote: post #18

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…

I recall a test initiative was done some time ago for painting (or mixing in, I forget) roads teal. It improved the heat island where it was placed, and wasn't too bright for motorists. I wonder why that never went anywhere...

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#88

Post by Wowfunhappy »

atourgates wrote: post #3

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…

...I know absolutely nothing about competitive cycling, but it occurs to me:

1. Would the Tour de France have been rescheduled if it was raining that day?

2. If the answer to #1 is no, is the paint any more slippery than water would have been?

3. If the answer to #1 is yes, then they should also reschedule for extreme heat.

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#89

Post by webnrrd2k »

Dah00n wrote: post #56
dgoldstein0 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would also require fatter wheels. Which together have higher moment of inertia which makes for slower bikes (as more energy is required to get the wheels to the same speed). Not exactly what people want in a race.

And yet fatter tyres are faster than the slimmer ones they used to run. No-one run slim tyres these days.

I could be wrong, but it turns out that somewhat fatter tires with lower pressure are faster because less energy is wasted by deforming slightly and rolling over small bumps, as opposed to thin high-pressure tire "bouncing" over pavement. There is less wasted vertical motion with the wider tires.

Re: Painting the sides of railroad rails white to reduce derailment

#90

Post by toast0 »

tiagod wrote: post #14

"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?

Reflecting the sun means the rail no longer has to fight the sun's heat.

Without the paint, the sun heats the rail and heat expansion fights against the elements holding the rail in place until the rail cools down or something moves. If the something moves, trains can derail.

Post reply on HN