The Press Enterprise, Riverside, CA 7/22:
HEAT WAVE: Train delays? Why it may be too hot for railroad tracks
Because of the threat rails could buckle in the triple-digit temperatures, railroads put the brake on trains.
So just how hot is it? Hot enough to melt steel railroad tracks?
No, that would require heat worse than what Mercury and Venus can dish out – a temperature of 2,500 degrees. But heatwaves like the one that has Southern California sweltering do cause steel to expand.
And the pressure created by expanding rails pushing against each other can cause tracks to bend, said Alex Greaney, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and material science at UC Riverside’s Bourns School of Engineering.
“When it’s been squished, the easiest way to relieve that pressure is to buckle sideways,” Greaney said in a phone interview Friday.
Railroad officials even have a term for the phenomenon: “sun kink.”
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