Why do train railways have wooden planks along them?
In: Engineering
Railway sleepers support the tracks by keeping the track from bending and shifting too much.
[Railroad ties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_tie) attach the two rails together and keep them the proper distance apart. Without them the rails could bend, stretch, or sag which could cause a train to derail.
They also help to spread out the weight of the train over the whole width of the track bed.
Those wood planks (railroad ties) serve two purposes.
They increase the surface area that the trains weight is distributed over to prevent the ground from shifting too much underneath the tracks.
The main purpose is to… Well… Essentially tie the rails together and hold them in place.
in addition to weight distribution, its a common misconception that train wheels roll *over top* of the rails like a tram. in fact, the train wheels are typically shaped more like a cone and rest inside of the tracks (think of the tracks as on the outside edge of both the left and right of the train) and are cut at a slight angle so that the train actually rolls between the two rails, which helps with uneven forces around turns, increases the room for error in track separation, and smooths the ride on uneven track. so the ties are incredibly important in keeping the two rails from being pushed apart by the train during motion. they are also relatively cheap versus poured concrete, etc.
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