Go Back To A Portable Railway
Early Considerations
This description is being started in July 2013 whilst I am still undecided about whether or not to
build a portable railway. If I make a railway then this writing will become a log of the
construction. The reason for writing before deciding to embark on the project is that I want to
achieve two objectives even if the railway is not built. One objective is a personal grasp of the
mathematics of transition curves; writing a mathematical description is an exercise for me with that
objective. The second objective is to describe the application of the pure mathematics of
transition curves to the engineering and computation problems of designing them. I note that the
Web has descriptions of parts of what is required, mainly the underlying mathematical theory; but I
have not found a description of all the grubby detail work necessary to get the job done.
My larger, less certain, intention is to produce a full description of how I produced the railway,
both as a record, and as help for anyone else attempting the same thing. As I write, in 2013, I
have no idea how my description task will unfold.
- Transition Curves
A summary of the mathematics commonly used to define the shape of transition curves on railways,
roads, and roller-coasters.
- Past
This section is obsolete; it was the log until October 2013. Much has happened since then, albeit
sporadically. But it turns out that it is not worthwhile to update this section; instead,
section Log describes current work. Section Past is not invalid,
however, it contains early thinking that now has developed into what is
in Log. Note that what is now referred to as "railway" is sometimes
referred to as "track" in section Past. The change was made because of overloading of the word
"track" leading to an ambiguity between a simple track and a conglomeration of simple tracks that
comprise a whole railway. For example, a plain circle of modules forming a single railway can have
multiple tracks, perhaps of different gauges.
- Log
The decision to go ahead with making a portable railway was made in late June 2015. This section
picks up from that time, and deals with all aspects of construction, including history and how-tos.
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