Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 209, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1913 — Causes of Rail Expansion. [ARTICLE]

Causes of Rail Expansion.

It is strange, after so many years of railroading, to hear of accidents caused by an “expansion of rails due to the heat.” What is meant apparently is not that the rail has been expanded lengthwise by the heat —for a gap is always put between rails to allow for that—but that the rail bulges and so makes the track wider than the standard guage, thus causing the wheels to drop upon the roadbed. In a recent accident of this kind in England, no passengers were Injured, but a workman who was sitting in a supposedly safe plaCjS beside the track, eating his dinner, was struck by a derailed car and killed./