Permanent way

Encyclopedia : P : PE : PER : Permanent way

For other uses, see Permanent way (disambiguation)}}}.

In railway terminology the permanent way means the physical elements of the railway line itself: the pairs of rails laid on sleepers embedded in a prepared surface (normally stone ballast).

The name arose because, during the construction of railway lines, other temporary tracks (or ways) were laid during the course of the works (for the removal soil from cuttings, etc.). The permanent way, by contrast, was the final track laid after these temporary ways had been removed.

The term is, in a sense, inaccurate, insofar as frequent maintenance of the "permanent" way is required if trains are to be guaranteed a smooth and incident-free ride, indeed if the permanent way is to remain suitable for any traffic at all.

David Hare's play The Permanent Way discusses the privatisation of Britain's railways.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.