Track
For the permanent way Brunel decided to use a light bridge rail continuously supported on thick timber baulks, known as "baulk road". Thinner timber transoms were used to keep the baulks the correct distance apart. This produced a smoother track and the whole assembly proved cheaper than using conventional sleepers for broad-gauge track, although this advantage was lost with standard- or mixed-gauge lines because of the higher ratio of timber to length of line. More conventional track forms were later used, although baulk road could still be seen in sidings in the first half of the twentieth century.
Read more about this topic: Great Western Railway
Famous quotes containing the word track:
“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say—I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
—Harriet Tubman (1821–1913)
“The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)