Why Railroads Don’t Need Expansion Joints

A friendly overview of thermal effects on railways. 💡 Go to for a 30-day free trial & the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual subscription. 🚆 Watch the entire railway series here: Errata: At 9:00, the left column of calculations is incorrectly labeled “SI.“ It should be imperial. Whoops! Just as all materials have a mostly linear relationship between temperature change and length change, all materials also have a similar relationship between stress and change in length (often called strain). And this is part of the secret to continuous welded rail: restrained thermal expansion. You can overcome one with the other. Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: Signed copies of my book (plus other cool stuff) are available