Two railway tracks but six rails?
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Two railway tracks but six rails? by Richard Humphrey as part of the Geograph project.
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Two railway tracks but six rails?
Image: © Richard Humphrey Taken: 10 Mar 2011
Looking south along the railway tracks heading from Pinchbeck to Spalding. Dave Hitchbourne has contacted me with the following additional information - the two rusty rails between the rails of the right-hand track were replacement sections for the worn out track. As soon as the rail loses a certain portion of its profile it has to be replaced or it can cause wear on the wheels. The quickest to wear are sections where a train has to brake for crossings, corners, signals and stations, and where slipping wheels on uphill gradients bite into the rails. Doesn't happen so much these days as built-in detection reduces the power to the wheel when slipping occurs.
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Image Location
Latitude
52.815775
Longitude
-0.168357