The tangent method of bending turnouts
A (bit) more accurate alternative method to calculate the equivalent radius for bending turnouts is based on the tangent defined by the crossing angle…
The versine formula and its limitations
Where the author eloquently discusses the versine formula and the accuracy loss implied by ignoring a historically insignificant term of its equation, demonstrates an easily replicable CAD check of this inaccuracy, and reveals the EXACT versine formula.
The article I don’t want to write – Virtual Transition forensics
In 1952 the Virtual Transition principle was presented to the Railway Engineering Division of ICE.
Later it became part of the Handbook No 3 Railway Curves.
When a non-compliant alignment is also so compliant …
Long time ago, a good friend of mine, had an interesting design experience. He designed a non-compliant alignment and, after slueing it about 1mm, he turned it into compliant. The magic is described here …
Why don’t we use angular speed and acceleration for railway track curving calculations?
Have you ever wondered why …
(my plan was to publish this a few days ago – sorry for the delay)
Should we change the Virtual Transition length?
A different kind of article … Antescript Several times, in the last ten years, I started to write articles with this title. The only draft I kept is so convoluted and confusing that I might even decide to publish it. I have a few answers to this question. There is one I hesitate to put…
When is the cant negative in LandXML?
Motto: “I don’t see the code anymore. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead, negative, adverse.” Cypher Disclaimer: This is not a design guidance. Don’t believe everything you read online. LandXML? LandXML is a non-proprietary data standard on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) format, developed for engineering data exchange. A LandXML file can contain civil and survey…
The other Bernoulli boy and his lemniscate
When I hear the name Bernoulli I think about some funny high school experiments of spraying coloured water on paper but also about an infinite loop curve the Roads Professor tormented us in Uni. I would have bet both things were discovered by the same Bernoulli. But no. The more known one, D. Bernoulli, the…
A railway track blog 