4 ms·
>When it gets to be several degrees below freezing, the metal of the train tracks can contract to the point that it will pull up the bolts holding it in place,
by teilo 8y ago
>When it gets to be several degrees below freezing, the metal of the train tracks can contract to the point that it will pull up the bolts holding it in place, or even stress fracture.
This is bad reporting. This is nothing new, and happens every winter. It is only necessary to manually light them up with a kerosene soaked rope when repairing a piece of track.
As should be obvious, below-freezing temperatures happen every year in Chicago, and train tracks need to be repaired even in the winter.
- nategri 8y agoYeah saw this tweet this morning and felt kind of ashamed for falling for the clickbait yesterday: https://twitter.com/arkmashton/status/1090971061569622016 https://twitter.com/arkmashton/status/1090971061569622016
- cwyers 8y agoThat doesn't say it's new, or that it doesn't happen every winter.
- bunderbunder 8y agoThe way the headline is worded, along with the fact that it's a headline in the first place, implies that it's an unprecedented thing, even if the article doesn't go out and state it. Had they wanted to, they could have come up with a much less linkbait-y way to talk about how track maintenance works in the winter.
- gscott 8y agoEveryone outside of the areas where it gets cold enough for this to happen... I found it fascinating. Hacker news is partly about hacking a problem to find a solution and it seems this is a good hack. It's click-baity but you can imagine yourself in the shoes of the original person looking at the problem and going through the steps until they figure out that it can be solved by burning a rope... it is interesting.