Deforming railway tracks?!

[Gwil]

I suppose with miles of continuous track even a small expansion per m of track adds up. And I suppose 35 degrees Vs 25 degrees is 40% hotter in percentage terms.
What do they do in places like Africa, India or Australia where it's always hot?

Dunno what happens here! Rails are welded- I've notice the lack of noise- and the trains run when it's 40+ with no problems I've seen reported.

 

[mike os]

If track can no longer deal with the climate then it’s no longer fit for purpose

 

[Bullet2012]

Can’t wait for ss2 to be finished, some time next decade, with summer temperatures in the low 40’s and average travel times up 2 hours on todays with only 4 trains a day … yet everyone hailing it as a fantastic investment

Not me, build more roads, build more airports, why would anyone consider building a system that has been proven to work for a long while, transporting people and goods efficiently. Just wrong,

 

[mike os]

Not me, build more roads, build more airports, why would anyone consider building a system that has been proven to work for a long while, transporting people and goods efficiently. Just wrong,

Because we are incapable of making it actually work in a cost effective way ?

 

[indy4x]

There was a chap from ‘the railway’ whoever that is, possibly Network Rail on Radio 4 earlier. He gave the most sensible, grown up explanation of this.

In a nutshell, what he said was
1, most of this infrastructure was planned and implemented 40 years ago to suit the climate then
2, European countries where there is warm summers and freezing winters can’t deal with it. They spend a fortune stressingrails in spring and de stressing them in autumn
3, HS2 is future proofed as its Slab Rail so the tracks run on a concrete road and there is no expansion instead of traditional ballast.

I am no expert. I found him interesting. He also was able to shoot down the stupid presenter woman who was trying to trip him up which was nice.

Yep, heard that one too and yes, made sense