Concept
Grade (slope)
Related concepts (13)
Railway track
A railway track (British English and UIC terminology) or railroad track (American English), also known as a train track or permanent way, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the , fasteners, railroad ties (sleepers, British English) and ballast (or slab track), plus the underlying subgrade. It enables trains to move by providing a dependable surface for their wheels to roll upon. Early tracks were constructed with wooden or cast iron rails, and wooden or stone sleepers; since the 1870s, rails have almost universally been made from steel.
Cut (earthworks)
In civil engineering, a cut or cutting is where soil or rock from a relative rise along a route is removed. The term is also used in river management to speed a waterway's flow by short-cutting a meander. Cuts are typically used in road, rail, and canal construction to reduce the length and grade of a route. Cut and fill construction uses the spoils from cuts to fill in defiles to cost-effectively create relatively straight routes at steady grades. Cuts are used as alternatives to indirect routes, embankments, or viaducts.
Cut and fill
In earthmoving, cut and fill is the process of constructing a railway, road or canal whereby the amount of material from cuts roughly matches the amount of fill needed to make nearby embankments to minimize the amount of construction labor. Cut sections of roadway or rail are areas where the roadway has a lower elevation than the surrounding terrain. Fill sections are elevated sections of a roadway or trackbed. Cut and fill takes material from cut excavations and uses this to make fill sections.
Terrain
Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin word terra (the root of terrain) means "earth." In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientation of terrain features. Terrain affects surface water flow and distribution.
Embankment (earthworks)
A road, railway line, or canal is normally raised onto an embankment made of compacted soil (typically clay or rock-based) to avoid a change in level required by the terrain, the alternatives being either to have an unacceptable change in level or detour to follow a contour. A cutting is used for the same purpose where the land is originally higher than required. Embankments are often constructed using material obtained from a cutting.
Inclined plane
An inclined plane, also known as a ramp, is a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle from the vertical direction, with one end higher than the other, used as an aid for raising or lowering a load. The inclined plane is one of the six classical simple machines defined by Renaissance scientists. Inclined planes are used to move heavy loads over vertical obstacles. Examples vary from a ramp used to load goods into a truck, to a person walking up a pedestrian ramp, to an automobile or railroad train climbing a grade.
Cable railway
A cable railway is a railway that uses a cable, rope or chain to haul trains. It is a specific type of cable transportation. The most common use for a cable railway is to move vehicles on a steeply graded line that is too steep for conventional locomotives to operate on – this form of cable railway is often called an incline or inclined plane. One common form of incline is the funicular – an isolated passenger railway where the cars are permanently attached to the cable.
Tramway track
Tramway track is used on tramways or light rail operations. Grooved rails (or ) are often used to provide a protective flangeway in the trackwork in city streets. Like standard rail tracks, tram tracks consist of two parallel steel rails. Tram rails can be placed on several surfaces, such as with on sleepers like railway tracks, or with grooved rails on concrete sleepers into street surfaces (pavement) for street running. Tram rails in street have the disadvantage that they pose a risk to cyclists.
Slope
In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a line is a number that describes both the direction and the steepness of the line. Slope is often denoted by the letter m; there is no clear answer to the question why the letter m is used for slope, but its earliest use in English appears in O'Brien (1844) who wrote the equation of a straight line as and it can also be found in Todhunter (1888) who wrote it as "y = mx + c". Slope is calculated by finding the ratio of the "vertical change" to the "horizontal change" between (any) two distinct points on a line.
Road
A road is a thoroughfare for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, whose primary function is to serve as public spaces, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of roads, including parkways, avenues, controlled-access highways (freeways, motorways, and expressways), tollways, interstates, highways, thoroughfares, and local roads.