by atourgates
4 subcomments
- 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-fran...
But of course, this was done in response to past serious crashes that occured because the asphalt melted. So, it's sort of a damned if you do damned if you dont scenario for the organizers.
- 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...
by warumdarum
1 subcomments
- This of course beeing the effect of seemlessly welded together rail with nowhere to go..
by kylehotchkiss
1 subcomments
- I love a simple solution to billion dollar problems
- I'm surprised that this is as effective as the numbers suggest. I would have thought steel rails would be pretty good at reflecting/radiating heat. TIL.
- "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?
by DaiPlusPlus
1 subcomments
- > “When people first saw it, they said, ‘Why haven’t we been doing this for a hundred years?’” Doerr said. “That’s the kind of question I love to hear, because it means the culture of safety innovation is alive and well.”
Union Pacific haven’t been doing this precisely because they don’t have a culture of innovation…
by gattilorenz
1 subcomments
- 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...
by londons_explore
1 subcomments
- 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...
- 20 degree drop. That’s crazy
by dupontcyborg
1 subcomments
- this isn’t the point of the story, but is that paint truck driving on the railroad tracks?
by jeffrallen
4 subcomments
- Practical Engineering already explained the correct solution to this problem:
https://youtu.be/zqmOSMAtadc?si=UUlmnk9sI-leq0SV
But of course, American infrastructure was built on the cheap, and is not maintained correctly. This is why we can't have nice things.
- Italy has been doing this for decades.[citation needed]
- > Union Pacific Is Tackling Rail Heat to Keep America’s Freight on Track
Someone talked to an LLM which convinced them they had a brilliant idea.
Just a guess ...
- Reducing derailment by decreasing track movement by painting the does of the track white, to reflect heat absorbed from the sun.
by vivzkestrel
1 subcomments
- - maybe consider electrifying the entire freight network of the USA like some of the other countries have done (mind you very large countries)
- then you might not have to worry increasing heat levels that much
- 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 and make claims about differences in temperature, emissivity is something to watch out for when measuring temperature in that way.
20 degrees is surprising, I sure wish my car was white in the summer.
I wonder if you have okay effects with white rails in the winter?
by kelseyfrog
5 subcomments
- You can literally buy derailers[1]. People will find away around this, making white paint useless. Engineers need to engineer.
1. https://www.aldonco.com/product-category/derails/
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