On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 wrote:

On 10 Feb, 19:57, Tom Anderson wrote:

And a question: why do there not appear to be any sleepers in the old
engraving?

Because it's mixed gauge track, standard 4' 8.5" standard and 7' 0.25"
Great Western Broad Gauge. The GWR originally laid their rails on
longitudinal baulks of timber, with timber transoms and metal tie-bars
at intervals to hold them to the correct gauge.

Well i never. Thanks!

This form of track construction is sometimes still used; I saw it in
Paddington Station a few years ago, and it's also sometimes used on
bridges, possibly to reduce the weight.

Makes sense. What's the advantage of conventional construction over this,
then?

There's a picture of the mixed gauge trackwork at Didcot at the bottom
of this page:

http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.u...ormation.shtml

You can clearly see the construction of the trackwork. I did some of
the work on this track, about twenty years ago now.

Good job. Looks devilishly complicated. Don't suppose anyone ever made a
section of interlaced mixed-gauge track, did they?

tom

--
hypnopomp rapist