Rail tracks

Railroad or railway tracks are used on railways, which, together with railroad switches, guide trains without steering. They consist of two parallel steel rails, which are laid and fastened upon sleepers (or cross ties) which are embedded in ballast to form the railroad track. Rail tracks are normally laid on a bed of coarse stone chippings known as ballast, which combines resilience, some amount of flexibility, and good drainage; however, track can also be laid on or into concrete (across bridges, for example).

There are different ways of combination rails together to form tracks. The traditional way of doing this, was to bolt rails jointly in what is known as jointed track. In this form of track, lengths of rail, usually around 20 metres (60 feet) long are laid and fixed to sleepers (UK) (crossties, or simply ties in US practice), and are connected to other lengths of rail with steel plates known as fishplates (UK) or splices (US).