Rusty rail moves

Does this video help?





These moves actually do a whole lot more than simply stopping the rails getting rusty.

In addition to ensuring the drivers maintain their route knowledge, and help them remain familiar with what signals are relevant to a rarely used route. Such as emergency routes where a train may need to be reversed or operated in the opposite direction to normal.

On a technical level it also helps ensure that bits of rarely used signalling, points and track detection circuits will all operate correctly when an unusual route is chosen by the signalling staff.

Every now and then these rarely used movements can of course suddenly be used intensely to reverse services if some reason a line block is necessary. and of course that is not the time to discover that the relevant pointwork or signalling interlocking is faulty!

Enjoy

Both, to be honest.

Any rail which doesn't have trains running over it fairly frequently gets a build-up of rust. If that build-up is allowed to continue it forms a layer so thick the train wheels cannot make good electrical connection, which could cause a train to become invisible to the signalling system. it doesn't happen very often, but it can do, and when it does (and you've never seen it happen before) it makes you jump. The first time I saw it was after some new rails were installed in a siding and fifteen years later I've not forgotten how it feels to watch the train disappear on the signaller's diagram.

So, a rusty rail move involves a train travelling over rails that might be slightly rusty, but not to a level at which it becomes a problem, in order to clean them up and prevent a larger build-up of rust from forming.

At the end of longer pieces of engineering work (i.e. more than the standard two day weekend) it is often necessary to get Engineer's Trains to do additional moves around the possession and worksite for rusty rail purposes, to ensure there is no risk of a passenger train becoming lost when the line is reopened.

And finally, on the very-little used sidings and crossovers where it is known there is an increased risk and no rusty rail moves, you might find stainless steel strip welded onto the top surface of the rail when the rail is first installed, to ensure there is always a reliable connection (known as a 'shunt' in technical terms) when a train passes over it. A good example is the crossover at Liverpool Street on the Circle line.