Correcting track alignment
Another old Wills cigarette card, this time showing the old fashioned way of correcting railway track alignment, no machines, no Hi-viz jackets, warning lamps or flags, just six men with iron bars and another man (a ganger) to guide them. The card reads:
Card No42, Railway Equipment
It may not be generally realised that a construction apparently so permanent and firm as a railway track is liable to move, but in some places rail creep does actually occur. The passage of trains along the rails tends to move them through the chairs in the same direction, and this creep occurs particularly on falling gradients and on curves. Anti-creep devices are therefore used to hold the rails back. When the track moves laterally the alignment has to be re-adjusted; in our picture men armed with bars may be seen levering or slewing the lines over, under the directions of a ganger.
Correcting track alignment
Another old Wills cigarette card, this time showing the old fashioned way of correcting railway track alignment, no machines, no Hi-viz jackets, warning lamps or flags, just six men with iron bars and another man (a ganger) to guide them. The card reads:
Card No42, Railway Equipment
It may not be generally realised that a construction apparently so permanent and firm as a railway track is liable to move, but in some places rail creep does actually occur. The passage of trains along the rails tends to move them through the chairs in the same direction, and this creep occurs particularly on falling gradients and on curves. Anti-creep devices are therefore used to hold the rails back. When the track moves laterally the alignment has to be re-adjusted; in our picture men armed with bars may be seen levering or slewing the lines over, under the directions of a ganger.