Permanent Way What do you think of this bit of PW work?

[Dog Star]

This photo was taken on 21st April, 2023, the subject is a bit of plain track on a passenger carrying railway.

Look at the LH rail adjacent to the disc signal - do we have track wide to gauge or a rail with a vertical curve?





Suggestions and explanations please.

regards, Graham

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Hi Graham

My first question would be is how far away was the photographer from the subject and was a telephoto lens used? The latter will accentuate any slight vertical movement as I cannot imagine the track being allowed to out of gauge on a railway open to the public.

 

[Jordan]

It's the O-F/S mob narrowing the gauge to 31.5mm to make the turnouts look better....

 

[Dog Star]

Abput 40 yards away in the long shot and 20 yards in the closer image. I used a Canon Sure shot pocket camera so no telephoto.

 

[Osgood]

Reckon it'll be vertical, especially at a rail joint.
In fact quite possibly more lifting of the sleepers a little further back as much as rail joint dipping, so the joint may be level with other side.
The marks on the head would show if it were a gauging issue of that magnitude.

 

[Nick C]

The latter will accentuate any slight vertical movement as I cannot imagine the track being allowed to out of gauge on a railway open to the public.

If they're anything like the railway I volunteer at, the PW department will do a weekly track walk looking for any defects, so they'd spot any faults well before they got to the point of being that obvious! Any driver, guard or signalman seeing anything amiss would soon report it as well - and the walkway on the right is used by crews going to and from a stabling point (assuming it is where I think it is...), so there'd be plenty of people to see.

I suspect it's more of an optical illusion, you can see that the other rail does the same thing, not so obvious but it is at a different angle to the camera. It'd be easier to tell if you were there in person, rather than looking at a photo - or from a photo taken at a squarer angle, either along the line from the footbridge, or across from the end of the platform.

 

[Dog Star]

So now we know... just do not believe what cannot lie.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Graham, I am wondering did you take the photograph because you saw distortion in the track, or did you take a photo of the ground signal or whatever and then happen to notice the distortion when you examined the photo? I cannot help thinking, the platform has a similar-looking distortion and if so, is the camera playing tricks? Some of them have very fancy algorithms to reduce barrel distortion.

 

[Dog Star]

... did you take the photograph because you saw distortion in the track?

Yes.

, or did you take a photo of the ground signal or whatever and then happen to notice the distortion when you examined the photo?

No.

I cannot help thinking... ...is the camera playing tricks? Some of them have very fancy algorithms to reduce barrel distortion.

There is nothing special about the camera, consider "it" as the Instamatic of the Canon range.

 

[simond]

I am struggling to imagine how it might possibly go out of gauge - the chairs are fixed to predrilled sleepers and the rails are snug in them - and there’s no sign of failure of sleepers or chairs. I can’t see a mechanism whereby the gauge can vary.

So I conclude it must be a vertical distortion that looks like a horizontal one - the apparently widest point must be a bit higher than the toe of the turnout where the blade would close.

I think that a similar situation on the nearer rail is less obvious as it is masked by the more oblique angle.

 

[Phil O]

There's also a soleplate on the timber with the switch tips on, that ensures there should be no lateral movement of the slide chairs.

 

[Martin Shaw]

I think the slew in the LH rail is made prominent by virtue of the photograph position, there is a similar slew in the RH rail, it just looks less. As a matter of reference the gauge should be 1435mm and it can be wide to 1455mm before other action needs to be taken. Without actually measuring the location shown I don't think I would care to commit further.
Martin