Far from everywhere, but in many countries of the European Union, going on a journey by rail days off from the republics of the former Soviet Union and, first of all, from Russia, they will not hear the usual knock wheels. Why it happens? Does this fact mean that in Europe they build railways better than in the vast expanses of the Fatherland? Let's try to understand this issue.
So, why, in Europe, the wheels of railway trains most often do not emit a characteristic knock during train movement, as it happens on the vast majority of tracks in Russia and more widely - in the countries of the former Soviet Union. In fact, the "insidious riddle" is quite simple. It's all about different approaches (technologies) for laying railroad tracks. Is it worse for the railways in Russia? No, not worse. They are simply different due to objective reasons and requirements. The main reason is, of course, the climate.
The fact is that in temperate latitudes the railway is constantly exposed to temperature changes: it is too hot in summer, too cold in winter, and in the off-season one weather can change dramatically to another. In such difficult conditions, under the influence of external factors, the rail can be deformed due to the constant narrowing-expansion of the metal, which will make it unsuitable for the movement of trains. To prevent this from happening, the rails are laid in such a way that a small gap remains between them, which is called the “thermal gap”. This way of laying rails is called "link". The characteristic knock of the wheels appears just at the moment of collision with the thermal gap. Trains knock so often due to the fact that in most cases the length of one rail link is 25 meters.
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In many European countries, the climate is much milder, and therefore the risk of rail deformation due to contraction-expansion under the influence of heat and cold is reduced to an astronomical minimum. This makes it possible to use not a "link" laying technology with the formation of a thermal gap, but a "welded" technology - when several 25-meter rails are welded into a monolithic structure several hundred meters long, up to 800. Thanks to this, the characteristic romantic sound of railway wheels disappears. Among railroad workers, such tracks are called "velvet". There are also in Russia. Such buildings have been built since Soviet times, where conditions allowed. For example, the "velvet" roads are the Krasnoyarsk and Yuzhnouralsk.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about why Russia decided to build a high-speed road to China not on the shortest route through Kazakhstan.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/091221/61508/