The age-herald., 1898-09-21
CREEPING
 RAILROAD RAILS

From the New York Commercial Adver-
 tiser.
 The creeping of rails is attracting atten- tion among railroad builders, although at present there is but little knowledge ob- tainable about it. The matter is one which concerns practical raod builders quite as much as those interested only in the the- ory of the thing. It was up for discussion at the recent convention of the New Eng land Roadmas sters' association, and is to be brought up before the Roadmasters As- sociation of America at it's meeting in Dem yer this month.
 writer in a recent issue of the Railway Age discusses the matter at some length. It appears that 1t has not yet been deter ment whether the movement of the rails is with or against the direction of heaviest travel, but there is no doubt that there is a movement, sometimes of considerable amount. Well authenticated instances are given of creeping in both directions, and some of them are quite remarkable. Ref erence is made to a rail on a pile trestle at Galveston, which travelled nine feet per month. One on the St. Louis bridge is mentioned by Professor J. B. Johnson. The bridge has rise of five feet in it's length of 1,500 feet, and the railroad tracks require constant attention. In the latter half of 1893 the creeping on the east and west ap- breaches averaged sixty feet per month on each side, and on the bridge structure varied from eleven inches to thirteen feet three inches per month for the six months The creeping of the extreme south rail was only two inches more in July than ;,, ,lo,. iIa +b0 difference between the two months was twelve feet two inches, in favor of July. The direction of the movement was with the traffic, but this does not account for the fact that in the case of one track the outer rail, and in the other track, the inner rail, does the most creeping.
 As to the general direction of rail move- ment, aside from specific instances, R. c. Ward, formerly engineer in charge of maintenance of way, South Carolina rail- roau, who is supported by other authori- ties says: Heavy loads pulling constantly in one direction have tendency to drive l..e rails in the opposite direction"
 The railway commissioners of New South Wales, after making an Investigation, re- ported three instances, as follows:
 Tn one case the rails on a double track road travelled both together in the direc. ton of the traffic; in another on a double road, the outer rail on the down line moved in the dericetion of traffic, while the rail near the way between the double tracks remained stationary; and in still another case, also a double road, the rail nearest the middle way moved more than the outer rail- but in the direction of the traffic.
 oP thn hoadmasters association reported that "It is a we-known fact that rails move or creep in the direction trains run on the track On double track and on single track rals move in the direction of the heaVlese traffic." In fact, about the only sale de- duction to be drawn in the present state of knowledge is that rails do move.
 The reasons for the creeping of tracks have not been determined any more dehn- itely than the direction of the movements. Tratman, in his treatise on Track and Track Work" says:
 Rails have in many places a decided tendency to creep or travel along the track, both up and down grade due to the wave motion, the unbalanced track in one direc- ton, the action of braked wheels the con- traction and eXpension due to changes in temperature, etc. This creeping Is more or less troublesome, as rule, on steep grades, on bridges and on swampy roadbedS, but may develop at any place."
 Of the reasons given the undulatory movement of the rails given them by pass ing trains seems to be the principal one. In a perfectly rigid track there would be no creeping. During the unduatory move- ment referred to the tracks are free to as- sume new position in the direction of the greatest force or in that of least sistance. The momentum of the train may carry the track along with it, reulting in. a movement of the track in the direction of heaviest traffic, or it may be that the freedom of the rail during the undulatory movement permits the operation of a stronger force than that set in operation by the train, and this stronger force, which might be gravity or elasticity, might cause the track to move in opposite direction. No satisfactory method has yet been de- Vlsed to prevent the creeping of tracks Many years ago 1t was customary to cut out piece about an inch Square from the Hange of the rails in every six being so treated. The spikes which fastened the rails to the sleeper were driven in these gaps. so that the rails could not move without taking the sleepers and ballast with them. long list of broken rails which were set down to the cut rails soon led to the aban- donment of this practice. Later a semi circular hole was cut with a milling tool and every rail was anchored tholigh a hole cut in the ffange at the Joint sleepers only, but this method, which was stigma tlzed by Sir Benjamin Baker as "a barbar- ous practice carried only in Ireland" is treatment or symptoms rather than of causes, and most of the methods since oro- posed are open to the same objections.
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