Talk:Comparison of train and tram tracks

Too European

View north on Main Street ca. 1910, with the Pacific Electric Building at the right.

Re: Difference between train and tram rails#Difference in technique in curves, Difference between train and tram rails#Problems The 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) Montreal Tramway had at least one curve as sharp as 40 feet (12.19 m) and as a rule 45 feet (13.72 m) at street intersections. The inside rail was no different from, or exactly the same as, the outside rail. This was quite apparent when the abandoned tracks became at times exposed after long since having been paved over. Outside the downtown core the trams often ran on regular railway tracks. The inter urban railcars of the former British Columbia Electric Railway in Vancouver and the former Pacific Electric Railway in Los Angeles, both 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm), as well as others ran both on regular tracks and tramway tracks, in the former case sharing it with freight trains. I well remember travelling from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles. Most of that was on regular railway tracks with boxcars on sidings. Once downton, it was street running on tramway track. Peter Horn User talk 22:34, 18 March 2011 (UTC) Peter Horn User talk 22:42, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

That return trip on the PER was with my parents and siblings in 1952 before arriving by ship in Victoria, British Columbia. Peter Horn User talk 22:50, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

See also Toronto street car (tram) for a Minimum railway curve radius of 36 ft (10.97 m) Peter Horn User talk 16:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC) Peter Horn User talk 13:23, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

A lot of nonsense

The statements made in Comparison of train and tram tracks#Track junctions, Comparison of train and tram tracks#Interoperability problems and Comparison of train and tram tracks#Mixed vehicle rail design are so much nonsense. Peter Horn User talk 17:18, 28 June 2013 (UTC).

The diameters and the widths of the wheels are immaterial in the case of trams running on mainline rail tracks. Nor does the depth of the grooves. The diameter of the wheels of a lot of Rolling highway rolling stock is small indeed, just look at the images in that article. The loading gauge is no problem either. What could be a problem is the greater height of the overhead lines on mainline track. As for the other way around, the wider flange on the wheels of the main line rolling stock will not enter in most of the grooves of the grooved rail and the corresponding track crossings. However, this obstacle is easily solved by choosing a grooved rail profile with an adequately wider groove. It is all in the geometry. However, all things being said, the main line rolling stock generally does not fit within the reduced structure gauges of the. tramway tracks. Peter Horn User talk 01:02, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

See Wirth Rail Peter Horn User talk 01:08, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

actually, heritage railways which have both trains and trams/trolleys have a lot of problems with compatibility. Ask the track or trolley peolle at Illinois Railway Museum, Western Railway Museum or Orange Empire. On regular track, their narrower treads make them more sensitive to wide gauge. The flanges are thinner, so the backside of flanges are farther apart. That means train guard rails basically don't work, and will allow enough play for the opposite flange to climb up on frogs. We're rerailing streetcars all the time, almost always at a railroad switch.

Trains are not happy on tram track, either. Our Birney streetcar Sacramento Northern #62 is the only Birney that ever operated in San Francisco. It has railroad wheels, and it was often running on its flanges because the Muni's girder rail was not wide or deep enough. The car took serious flange damage as a result. Every railway musuem which has both trains and streetcars tells me the same thing: they wish they could separate their routes, as they do not play well together.

There is such a thing as a "compromise" wheel which is in between the two sizes, it was used largely by interurban railroads who needed to inter-operate with freight railroads, but needed to reach downtown via existing streetcar systems. Some streetcar systems also used compromise wheels and track, when they expected to handle freight traffic, such as the Key System or Cleveland's Shaker Heights Line. 71.227.116.30 (talk) 21:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

> On regular track, their narrower treads make them more sensitive to wide gauge.

… and depending on the switch geometry, it potentially increases the risk that the wheel momentarily "falls" into the gap between the rails created at the frog, whereas a wider railway wheel might smoothly transition from one rail to the other.

> The flanges are thinner, so the backside of flanges are farther apart. That means train guard rails basically don't work

Absolutely this, too. This was definitively a concern for some modernish German interurban and tram-train systems, too. On the Köln-Bonn-System, I think they settled on exclusively using swingnose crossings on the mixed sections of line. In Karlsruhe, on the Albtalbahn and Hardtbahn they developed some sort of compromise wheel profile, which however nevertheless also required specially modified (i.e. higher than usual) guard rails. And for the full-on tram-train system, which had to be able to work on unmodified railway infrastructure, they had to adapt that compromise wheel profile even further (and in turn make some changes to the tram infrastructure in order to make it compatible with the tram-train wheel profile).

> There is such a thing as a "compromise" wheel

Which later got re-invented (and of course adapted to the local circumstances) in Germany for the modern tram-train systems, starting in Karlsruhe. JanTH (talk) 16:45, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. You meant to say "the groove of the Muni's girder rail". It may be worth noting that the Cornwall Street Railway [1] accommodated main line freight cars so as to earn extra revenue. Peter Horn User talk 21:40, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The CTA was able to use PCC streetcar trucks with original wheels on rapid transit cars. The L is much lighter/tighter than a freight line, but is exclusively girder rail. No real freight on either street or L. Sammy D III (talk) 03:19, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Added links to preceding post. Peter Horn User talk 01:51, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

"Exclusively girder rail"?? Please see the accompanying image.

This image shows regular rail

Peter Horn User talk 02:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC) Peter Horn User talk 02:43, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, wrong name. "T" rail, single head with no flange grooves. Won't happen again. Sammy D III (talk) 12:50, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

In the following volume, STEEL PRODUCTS MANUAL, Wrought Steel Wheels and Forged Railway Axles by the AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE there are listed two types of mainline wheel flanges. There is a wide flange of 1+3⁄8 in (34.9 mm) on a 5+25⁄32 in (146.8 mm) wide wheel and there is a normal flange of 1+5⁄32 in (29.4 mm) on two types of 5+1⁄2 in (139.7 mm) wide wheels, both flanges are 1 in (25.4 mm) tall (high) from the base line. Rapid transit or tram wheels may come with a choice of two flanges. One flange is 1 in (25.4 mm) wide by 11⁄16 in (17.5 mm) tall (high) and may be applied on 3+1⁄2 in (88.9 mm), 3+3⁄4 in (95.3 mm) or 4 in (101.6 mm) wide wheels. The other flange is 1+1⁄8 in (28.6 mm) wide by 13⁄16 in (20.6 mm) tall (high) and may be applied on 3+5⁄8 in (92.1 mm), 3+7⁄8 in (98.4 mm), 4+1⁄8 in (104.8 mm), 4+7⁄16 in (112.7 mm) or 4+5⁄8 in (117.5 mm) wide wheels. The profile or X section of the rapid transit or tram flanges is quite different to that of the main line wheel flanges. That would explain why some trams derail on rail track. Peter Horn User talk 02:09, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I’m not sure if you want me, but no one else is here.

The two heavy rail flanges are just heavy duty vs. light duty, correct? One would last longer, but they both function the same. The inside curve between tread and flange would be the same radius, the same distance from the opposite wheel? I am assuming that heavy rail guardrails are just that, used for derailments only. Safe assumption? The guardrail in the pic shows no wear. If the guard rails are used, the thicker flange would make a 7⁄32 in (5.6 mm) (what a stupid system, the metric guys have it easy) difference. On a light rail frog the wide rim would be 7/32” worse.

The number from November makes sense to me. The thinner tread would need less slop side to side for one wheel to fall inside. Rapid transit may have tighter gage tolerances than heavy. And museum track? But he talks guard rail, too. I can see that for light, but heavy? I’m often wrong, though.

In “Differences in technique” you talk of the outside wheel running up on its flange, that clearly needs a guardrail, otherwise the wheel would just go “over the high side”. Still surprises me, just seems wrong.

The light rail dimensions are all over the place, not all that standard. Type of track, tightness of curves, street or separate ROW, plus little if any interchange. Each system demands it’s own spec’s. Still, that’s a lot of options.

The height of the light rail flange would matter on frogs where you run on the flange, otherwise, as long as you have enough flange to stay on the tracks, it’s just room.

I’m still puzzled by CTA PCC trucks. Predecessors Chicago Rapid Transit and Chicago Surface Lines hated each other, they were in direct competition. I don’t think any L had any street running (there was surface). Neither ran on the other. Was it sheer dumb luck that they shared the same wheel? Maybe there simply weren’t many types available.

Boy, you know a lot about tracks. You might want to use “Steel Products Manual” as a ref, the article is a lot stronger than the refs look. Sammy D III (talk) 21:38, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

With a 1+3⁄8 in (34.9 mm) wide flange on 5+25⁄32 in (146.8 mm) wide wheel and with 1+5⁄32 in (29.4 mm) wide flange on 5+1⁄2 in (139.7 mm) wheels the wheel tread and the 1⁄2 inch (12.7 mm) inside radius on the flange are the same. The wide flange is excusively used on 28 in (711.2 mm) and 30 in (762 mm) wheels used on wheel sets for low center plate 70 short tons (62.5 long tons; 63.5 t) capacity freight trucks. Peter Horn User talk 00:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Short wheels under three level auto-racks. Not heavily loaded, cars are volume, not weight.

Could the shorter wheels tend to "hunt" at speed? Could the thick flanges not be stronger, but heavier? Weight at the outer edge to make the wheel act taller than it is? Sammy D III (talk) 02:03, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

With a 28 in (711.2 mm) diameter small, not short, wheel on a 70 short tons (62.5 long tons; 63.5 t) capacity truck the center plate is 21+1⁄8 in (536.6 mm) high. in all other cases the center plate is 25+3⁄4 in (654.0 mm) high. This makes for an extra 4+5⁄8 in (117.5 mm) on the height of the loading capacity and ultimately extra volume. I'll give the name of my reference later. With the wider flange the back to back of the wheels is still the same so there is less clearance between the running rail and the flange. This would tend to decrease hunting. Peter Horn User talk 01:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The Cornwall Street RailwayCornwall Street Railway carried both trams and mainline freight cars. Peter Horn User talk 19:11, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

This reference is interesting. It covers the issues Peter Horn User talk 01:51, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

CTA's cylindrical treads.

In the ‘30s the CNS&M tested and found cylindrical tread didn’t hunt at speed, they switched (I have a drawing of an Electro-liner). CRT too, not clear why, no high speed, but it works. “…provide added stability even at low speeds and has been used universally…”. Cite book|last=C.E.R.A.|title=Bulletin 115: Chicago’s Rapid Transit v.2: Rolling Stock/1947-1976|year=1976|publisher=Central Electric Railfans’ Association|isbn=0-915348-15-2|page=191. Page also talks about sandwich wheels (not worth the extra maint). This source is to ‘69 2200s. Drawing of 2200s on page 91 shows tapered, all others are cylindrical.

PCC book (Carlson/Schneider-80) doesn’t mention it, but everything is tapered, you can see it.

CSL book (Lind-79) doesn’t mention, I couldn’t find a drawing or clear look. Nothing on CA&E yet, I’m betting tapered.

Old interurbans seem to go both ways.

I’m not entirely happy with drawings, I’ve caught a couple which conflict. Some drawers may not be aware, maybe they assume tapered. Sammy D III (talk) 18:06, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

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Sanity Check on Wheel Diagram

It is stated in the Track junctions section that "Modern trams and trams tend to have thicker and wider tires". But the diagram under the Interoperability problems section shows train tires (on the left in blue) and tram tires (on the right in green); the train's wheel appears wider than the tram's. That's a straightforward contradiction. Are we sure of all these details? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ergotius (talk • contribs) 09:43, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I think both is true – tram tire widths have indeed tended to become wider than used to be the case historically, but unless we're talking about full-on tram-train systems, they're likely still narrower than mainline railway wheels. JanTH (talk) 17:38, 18 June 2023 (UTC)