Gauntlet track or interlaced track (also gantlet track) is an arrangement in which railway tracks run parallel on a single track bed and are interlaced (i.e. overlapped) such that only one pair of rails may be used at a time. Since this requires only slightly more width than a single track, all four rails can be carried on the same crossties/sleepers. Trains run on the discrete pair of rails appropriate to their direction or loading gauge.
The term gauntlet is derived not from gauntlet meaning a type of glove, but from the expression running the gauntlet (originally running the gantlope) which means running between two confining rows of adversaries; gauntlet in this sense is a "corrupt form".
Famous quotes containing the word track:
“Away went the messenger’s bicycle,
His serpent’s track went up the hill forever.
And all the time she stood there hot as fever
And cold as any icicle.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)