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Loud stretches of track - past or present

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fgwrich

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A number of tunnels & certain types of stock used to produce a fair bit of "Rail Roar" - I remember Marley Tunnel being quite notorious for this, perhaps amplified by both bores being single bore construction, while I find the 158/159 fleet can equally be as noisy through some of the tunnels on the West of England - Gillingham being one of them.
 
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A huge chunk of the underground section of the Central line (worst is between Liverpool Street & Stratford), and the Jubilee line between Bond Street & Baker Street.
 

OliverH68

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A huge chunk of the underground section of the Central line (worst is between Liverpool Street & Stratford), and the Jubilee line between Bond Street & Baker Street.

I really enjoy those bits actually!

To add to the topic, there is a section of grinding on the Up line between Bicester North and Haddenham on the cutting. In fact I think there is also grinding on the Down on that cutting too just before Princes Risborough.
 

davetheguard

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perhaps rail grinding has reduce the prevalence of this?

Isn't there an actual phenomena known as "roaring rails" where the top of the rail head develops small ridges that causes the roar; or have I dreamt it? A bit of a mystery, but something to do with the local soil or trackbed characteristics perhaps? Move the rail to a different location and the ridges rub out and the noise stops. Put new rail down in the original location, and the ridges develop again.

Rail grinding would remove the ridges, at least temporarily.
 

mrcheek

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Cardiff Queen Street to Cardiff Central used to be very noisy.
Not so much now that the pacers are being phased out
 

King Lazy

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Approaching Bootle on the down (from Silecroft) through the cutting used to be loud. It was sufficent to be able to tell where you were in the dark! The noise itself was a distinctive landmark!
 

Taunton

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one theory was resonance in the earth below the formation, possibly very ancient rotted vegetation - alternatively inadequate compacting during construction.
My thoughts too on why the section between Hoylake and West Kirby had it, I did read that much of this line had originally been laid on sea shingle. I wonder if such a formation leads to track flexing and causes corrugations, or if it was purely resonance from the substructure.

I went down it for the first time in over 20 years not long ago, deliberately listened out for it, and it had gone. CWR had replaced joined track in the interim.
 

Philip

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Could it be more to do with the type of rail used, flat-bottomed rail being more prone to it than bullhead rail? Or jointed track being more prone to the roar?
 

King Lazy

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Regarding the theory of the formation below the track.

The section I mentioned at Bootle is exactly where a large crater was created in WW2 when a train carrying depth charges exploded.
 

Irascible

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Isn't there an actual phenomena known as "roaring rails" where the top of the rail head develops small ridges that causes the roar; or have I dreamt it? A bit of a mystery, but something to do with the local soil or trackbed characteristics perhaps? Move the rail to a different location and the ridges rub out and the noise stops. Put new rail down in the original location, and the ridges develop again.

Rail grinding would remove the ridges, at least temporarily.

That's about how I remember it ( from yonks ago ) - a barely educated guess would be something related to resonance ( which yeah, would be trackbed related ) resulting in uneven wear over very short distances, and then that snowballing as it's both already uneven and synchronised with whatever is resonating. Might be also related to how the rail is clipped, in that case?

But that was a barely educated guess - probably papers at the RSSB about it somewhere.
 

dk1

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Buckenham-Brundall particularly in the Strumpshaw Fen area. This is down to flat bottom or bullhead rail from what I gather. Not so not noticible to passengers now all trains are air-conditioned & sealed.
 

nlogax

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Is there also a component of rail noise that is down to wheel profile or bogie type - would that also exacerbate things in bad areas? In terms of hauled stock think of the difference between a Mk2 on B4s versus a Mk3 on BT10s even on fault-free track.
 

SteveM70

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In the 1980s there used to be a stretch near Tile Hill on the up line where it was really noisy, especially in an early Mark 2 on the Paddingtons with the windows open
 

AM9

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Is there also a component of rail noise that is down to wheel profile or bogie type - would that also exacerbate things in bad areas? In terms of hauled stock think of the difference between a Mk2 on B4s versus a Mk3 on BT10s even on fault-free track.
I think there is. I think that the different (hollow) sound that I heard on the SR EMUs was down to the wheels. They seemed to be lighter in construction like pre-nationalisation wheels, as was used on the class 404s (Nelsons). The 4-SUBs and even the 4-EPBs also had a similar sound, yet the few examples of non-corridor EMUs with the 3-faceted ends (2-BILs) that were still running sounded more like rollerskates with quieter wheels. Of course, after the BIG/CIG/VEC fleets were rolled out, these trains were fitted with B4 bogies so their sound wasn't very different to most other late MK1 & 2 rolling stock. The REPs of course had a much heavier sound.
 

EveningStar

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Remember St Michaels Tunnel in the early 1980's had a very pronounced roar that was possibly in the vicinity of where is passes the old LOR Dingle Tunnel. In fact, I was not the only one to notice the roar, as it seemed to be the point where drivers of Liverpool Central bound trains cut power ready for Brunswick Curve. Went back two years ago and it seems to have gone.
 

Dr_Paul

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The joint North London Line / District Line to Richmond used to have appalling rail roar from around the Gasworks Bridge through Kew Gardens station up to the bridge over the Thames. When I was a kid I lived a couple of hundred yards from the line, and the noise when walking along North Road, parallel to the railway, was very loud when a train went by, and it was very noticeable when travelling on a train as well. I can't recall if there was rail roar on the north side of the bridge, going towards Gunnersbury. Looking at the Middleton Press book on this line, it was laid with bullhead track as late as 1995. Nowadays, it has welded flat-bottom track and there's no rail roar.
 

plarailfan

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I can remember back in the early 1980's, going from Stockport to Crewe, usually on a summer Saturday, on the class 304 ? EMU's. Somewhere in the open countryside around the, Jodrell bank area, the roar used to be deafening.
I wondered what it would be like, to be standing lineside, on a public footpath, etc. But not having a car, I never got to find out. The last time I went that way was on a Pendolino and you could have heard a pin drop, along that part of the journey.
To this day, I feel somewhat mystified as to whether it was the rails or the ground under the track that caused all the noise. I had travelled miles on my priv tickets and never heard anything like it anywhere else, but reading this topic, it actually seems to be a fairly common phenomenon if you know where to look.
 

Philip

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It seems it was quite common to hear in the 70s and 80s, but less so now and perhaps less so in the 60s and earlier? This because most lines were still jointed track in the 60s and less likely to roar?

I can remember the Manchester-Bolton line having two or three long noisy stretches on the down line up to the early 2000s; in Clifton and Ringley areas. The eastbound line across Chat Moss used to really scream up until about 2008, particularly around Glazebury. And the Calder Valley line was still noisy in several areas in the late 2000s, think around Mills Hill area on the down line being one of them.

Anyone know if the Crewe-Shrewsbury line is still noisy? I can remember several noisy bits along here, more so on the up line around Wrenbury and Wem.
 

peteb

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This is an interesting thread. Rail roar was a feature of the Kidderminster to Droitwich line for many years and I often wondered why. I always put it down to welded rail and the (already noisy) class 150s, the noise stopped on the jointed rail approaching Droitwich, only very recently removed. Haven't heard rail roar around here for many years, but put that down to better soundproofing on class 170s.
 

Halish Railway

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Between Guiseley and Menston on the down line there’s a section in the brief out of town section where the rail roar is quite loud.

I also remember when I went to Colton Junction a few years ago and there was quite a bit of rail roar on the up Selby Diversion.

Here’s a video of this, excuse the poor iPhone quality.

Go to 45 seconds in.
 

37201xoIM

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Interesting that there seem to be several theories doing the rounds about the causes of roaring rail - including a couple of potentially plausible ones in this thread! It's something I've always been puzzled by myself. I'd heard that it was to do with the profile of the railhead not matching well the profile of the wheel, but am happy to be corrected! The idea that it's the sub-rail geology / formation sounds plausible and would explain its sudden appearance and disappearance at very specific places.

I remember the Durham Coast used to have some very loud sections - it's where I first encountered the phenomenon.

Also, has anybody done the St Pölten - Mariazell narrow gauge line recently? That used (in the days when it was "real"!) to be exceptionally roary through the long summit tunnel to Gösing - especially as you were only doing 50 km/h!
 

sw1ller

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There’s a small section coming into Wrexham General from the Boarderlands line. It starts just as you get to an old wire wheel from old semiphore signalling. I use it as my braking point from 40 down to 15.
 

coppercapped

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That's about how I remember it ( from yonks ago ) - a barely educated guess would be something related to resonance ( which yeah, would be trackbed related ) resulting in uneven wear over very short distances, and then that snowballing as it's both already uneven and synchronised with whatever is resonating. Might be also related to how the rail is clipped, in that case?

But that was a barely educated guess - probably papers at the RSSB about it somewhere.
There was an article in, I think, the Railway Gazette some years ago by a staff member of Plasser & Theurer in Austria giving a review of technical and scientific investigations into the cause of 'rail roar'.[1] I can no longer remember the details but it was certainly concerned with resonance leading to the effect you describe. There was a mention of 'pinned frequencies' where the combination of rail clip spacing, the stiffness of the rail pad between rail and sleeper, the vibrational characteristics of the rail itself, the ballast and rail bed generally gave rise to some preferred frequencies of vibration in the rail head. The wheels then hammered the high spots which work hardened the rail at those points.

It seems that the theoretical understanding now permits track design to avoid these frequencies and with the greater prevalence of rail grinding to minimise the effects of rolling contact fatigue the 'roaring rail' has mostly been consigned to history.

[1] Another interesting document is 'Modern Railway Track' by Coenraad Esveld, Professor of Railway Engineering at the Delft University of Technology, published by TUDelft. My copy is dated 2001 but there may be later editions.
 

Rail Ranger

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I remember two sections with "roaring rails" in the 1970s. The first was in the Kearsley area going towards Manchester Victoria and the section was between Cornbrook Junction and Castlefield Junction on the 304s coming from Altrincham towards Manchester. In the latter case the sound was accentuated by reverberating off the adjacent CLC viaduct into Manchester Central.
 

K.o.R

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The Victoria line north of Kings Cross St Pancras is painfully loud in places.
 
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