Permanent Way (history)
The permanent way is the elements of railway lines: generally the pairs of rails typically laid on the sleepers ("ties" in American parlance) embedded in ballast, intended to carry the ordinary trains of a railway. It is described as permanent way because in the earlier days of railway construction, contractors often laid a temporary track to transport spoil and materials about the site; when this work was substantially completed, the temporary track was taken up and the permanent way installed.
Read more about Permanent Way (history): Early Iron Rails, Modern Edge Rails, Track Gauge, Switches and Crossings, Continuous Welded Track, People
Famous quotes containing the word permanent:
“... the most important effect of the suffrage is psychological. The permanent consciousness of power for effective action, the knowledge that their own thoughts have an equal chance with those of any other person ... this is what has always rendered the men of a free state so energetic, so acutely intelligent, so powerful.”
—Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906)