classification of railway rail

Introduction to Transportation and Classification of Railway Rail

Steel rail can be said to be a very common inconspicuous thing in life, which can be seen everywhere in movies and TV dramas. It is always in an inconspicuous place, for the train to crush, to guide the train, buried in the soil, deep in the dust. But not only is it the foundation of a train, it’s also a guy with a history. This article will introduce the railway rail from these following points: history of railway rail, classification of railway rail, production and transportation of the railway rail.

Historical change

After all, the world’s first railway was born in Britain, and Britain was then the “empire on which the sun never sets”, building railways all over the world, including China.

The steel rail was not born as it is now, nor even as it is now made of this material, at first it was a square piece of wood, and later it was covered with iron sheets. With the increase of the speed and weight of the train, the rail has gradually become this way, and it will continue to change in the future.

More about the history of rail change, you can click here to know more about it.

Classification of railway rail

1. Sort by weight

The type of rail is usually differentiated according to the weight, such as the often said 50#rail, which refers to the weight of 50kg/m rail, and so on, there are 38#rail, 43#rail, 50#rail, 60#rail, 75#rail, etc., of course, there are 24#rail, 18#rail, but it is an old age. Rails with 43#rails and above are generally called heavy rails.

2. Classification according to manufacturing process

The rail can be mainly hot rolled rail and heat treated rail. In fact, the rail is produced by the hot rolling process, the heat treatment rail is in the hot rolling forming of the rail for heat treatment again, divided into online heat treatment and offline heat treatment of two kinds, online heat treatment is already the mainstream, more energy saving and more efficient.

3. Sort by intensity

Steel rail is a complex alloy, in addition to the main component of iron, there are five elements: carbon, manganese, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur; Of course, there will be some decisive role of trace elements vanadium, chromium, and some rare earth elements. The most important things to consider rail performance are three: strength, hardness, toughness (generally measured by elongation after breaking), and the three are related to each other. Among them, the most important is the strength, so there is also a method to classify the rail according to the strength level. We see 780Mp, 880Mp, higher to 1450Mp, etc., according to different needs to choose. Generally speaking, the strength of subway steel is between 880 –1180Mp.

PS: Generally speaking, the most convenient way to improve strength, hardness and toughness is not to change the element formula, but to perform heat treatment.

4. Categorize by use

Classification according to the use is basically the most common practice, and now all kinds of rail transit construction is in the ascendance, and the uses of steel rails are also diverse.

High-speed rail, the basic battlefield track with 60#rail (part of the parking line 50#rail), the main line (including the front line, auxiliary line) is also used 60#rail, but the high-speed rail requirements are very high, flatness, each part of the size requirements are higher.

The ordinary railway, which is also the basic depot and parking lot, is 50#rails, and the main line is 60#rails.

Some special railways, one is the heavy-haul railway, is characterized by the train axle weight is large, the total weight of a train can reach more than 10,000 tons, such railways generally use a special manufacturing 75#rail, can greatly increase the service life. The second is the high-cold railway, which has high requirements for the cold resistance and corrosion resistance of the rail, and uses the 60#rail made by the special envoy.

Subways in China are now basically 50#rail in the depot and 60#rail in the main line, and some of the oldest main lines of the subway use 50#rail.

And then there are the trams that many small cities now choose. Tram because the wheels are small, the turning radius is small, the turnout number is small, easy to derail, so choose the trough rail with its own guard rail.

The remaining terminology of the company’s railway, the standard is not uniform, the gauge is not standard, the rail type is not certain provisions, 38#rail, 43#rail, 50#rail will be used, such as many large enterprises, steel mills, shipyards and so on.

The production of steel rails

Rail production is the foundation of rail transit industry. In China, it is mainly produced by Pangang, Baotou, Angang and Wisco. Pangang and Baotou Steel are now the main force, Angang is a time-honored brand, and WisCO has a long history in recent years.

Rail transportation

How to transport long steel rails when they are produced? There are usually two ways. Long rail transport vehicle is a special transport vehicle for long rail railway transport and manufactured. Since its production, there have been T11, T11A, T11B, T11BK and other products. T11 was first put into use in Beijing Railway Bureau in 1988, and has become T11A after improved design. The T11B is based on the T11A, the design of the vehicle group is improved, and the addition of one working vehicle is formed. T11BK is on the basis of previous generations of models, in the body structure, on-board facilities and other aspects of a comprehensive improvement, the use of K2 bogie and other technologies.

With the large-scale construction of China’s high-speed railway and passenger transport transformation, it has also developed a long rail ordinary evaluation and connecting transport technology, and has formulated a series of 50m, 100m, 500m and other long rail ordinary flat car transport loading and reinforcement schemes.

The common flat car connected transport can be conducive to the utilization of vehicle resources, and after the completion of the railway passenger dedicated line construction, the common flat car can still be restored, which solves the problem that the special vehicle is difficult to reuse. It has avoided the waste of transportation capacity and made important contributions to the construction of high-speed railways and passenger dedicated lines.

The United States and other countries have studied China’s high-speed rail and know the impact of Chinese rail on the entire high-speed rail technology. Today, China has the world’s largest high-speed railway network, and the highest operating speed, has won the recognition of the world, the foreign technology once introduced far beyond.