Railway Tree

The first railway in Britain was the Wollaton Wagonway, built in 1603 between Wollaton and Strelley in Nottinghamshire. It used wooden rails and was the first of about 50 wooden-railed tramways built over the subsequent 164 years. When steam locomotives were introduced, starting in 1804, the track then in use proved too weak to carry the additional weight. Richard Trevithick's pioneering locomotive at Pen-y-darren broke the plateway track and had to be withdrawn. As locomotives became more widespread in the 1810s and 1820s, engineers built rigid track formations, with iron rails mounted on stone sleepers, and cast-iron chairs holding them in place. This proved to be a mistake, and was soon…

The geometry of the tracks is inherently three-dimensional. Still, the standards governing speed limits and other regulations for track gauge, alignment, elevation, curvature, and track surface are usually presented in two separate layouts for the horizontal and vertical planes. Horizontal layout is the track layout on the horizontal plane. This involves the layout of three main track types: tangent track (straight line), curved track, and track transition curve (also called transition spiral or spiral) which connects between a tangent and a curved track. Vertical layout is the track layout on the vertical plane including the concepts such as crosslevel, cant and gradient. A sidetrack is a…