Thermite Welding

[Dave_46]

If conspiracy theories is not the appropriate place, mods please move this.

For those of you who are interested, here is a sequence of photographs taken a week ago at Porthmadog in North Wales showing thermite welding of the tracks of the Welsh Highland Railway. The rails are tramway rails and are being laid in the roadway.

The URL is http://whr.bangor.ac.uk/phase4/ctrl.htm and you need to scroll down nearly to the bottom of the (quite long) page to the section dated May 13th 2008.

Dave

 

[casebro]

I watched the thermite welding when the tracks behind my shop were replaced. Hauled in loads of 100 ft rail, and welded them into 1/4 mile long sections, using a resistance welder. Big generator, about the size of a semi-trailer. Clamp huge cables to the two rails, and turn up the juice. Sparks fly. Use an axe to trim the flash while it was still red hot. Drag the 1/4 mile sections down the road bed with a biiig excavator. Later, use thermite to weld those sections into endless rail, coast to coast.