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Now I'm wondering how the steel tracks get bent- I figure it's done on site rather than at the factory. Dunno what sort of equipment they use to bend them thoug

Now I'm wondering how the steel tracks get bent- I figure it's done on site rather than at the factory. Dunno what sort of equipment they use to bend them though. Maybe they can just use bigger "spline weights" and pin the bend points to scale from the drawing! Hmmmmmmmmm probably not but I want it to be true

benj111 4y ago
I would guess in a ring roller. Basically a roller on top pressing down and 2 rollers on the bottom and you wind the metal through tightening the top roller to increase the curve. Sorry to disappoint you. If it makes you feel better though, the whales used to set the curves on boats used to be real whales.
- jstanley 4y ago
  But a ring roller produces curves of constant radius, and for the railway application it would have to be absolutely enormous. From a quick DuckDuckGo search, it looks like they basically are just laid out the same way the "splines" from the article are: the curves are gentle enough that the steel is not very hard to bend.
  - Jarmsy 4y ago
    Talking of ducks, some think that the spline weight 'ducks' could be the origin of the expression 'have your ducks in a row'.
twobitshifter 4y ago
https://www.arema.org/files/roadmasters/1995/1995_STRINGLINING-OF-RAILROAD-CURVES.pdf https://www.arema.org/files/roadmasters/1995/1995_STRINGLINI...
danhor 4y ago
Railroad tracks are pretty flexible, there's no need to bend them separately, you just put them in the sleepers and can fine tune them in there. You can see how much they bend in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpP6ar63Qxw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpP6ar63Qxw (1:40). In this case they get delivered as 200m sections on normal rail cars, so they hava to withstand normal curves during transport.