Railway track
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A railway track is a track (or road or way) that is made with rails. Another way to say "railway track" is railway line. Sometimes people just say railway. In America, people say railroad. They are all the same thing.
A rail is a long piece of iron. A railway track always has two rails. They always have to be the same distance apart, or the train will fall off. If a train does fall off, people say that it was derailed.
Usually, there is more than one track on the railway line. For example, one track goes east and the other one goes west. That way, trains on the same track always go in the same direction and do not crash.
[edit] Gauge
It is important when building railways to choose the same gauge, that is to say, the distance between the rails. Trains of one gauge cannot run on tracks of another gauge. The most common gauge in the World is 4' 8½" or 1435mm.
