Continuous Welded Rails
On Indian
Railways, the length of long welded rails has been limited to only 1 km taking
into consideration the convenience of laying, destressing, and maintenance.
Welded panels longer than 1 km have also been tried and are known as continuous
welded rails. Such rails have been laid from station to station, but the
conventional insulation joints and turnouts have been left out and
isolated by switch expansion joints. Trials for LWR/CWR passing through points
and crossings are also in progress.
The theory behind continuous
welded rails is the same as for long welded rails. Once the concept of locking
up of longitudinal thermal forces is accepted, there is no reason why the
length of LWR should be limited to only 1 km. However, the switch expansion
joints or buffer joints that are provided after every 1 km of LWR. have been a
source of weakness in the track, requiring heavy maintenance. It was to avoid
this effort that continuous welded rails were laid from station to station. In
fact, on European Railways, particularly on German and British Railways, LWR or
continuous welded rails have been laid for several miles together, without the
inclusion of any SEJ, which pass through stations, yards, etc. The important
features of SWR, LWR, and CWR are presented in Table 17.4.
Table
17.4 Comparison of
SWR, LWR, and CWR
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