From the ‘You can’t make this shit up’ files, the BBC reports that railway lines in the south east of England are being painted white ahead of this summer to stop them overheating and buckling.
Just FYI. Happenings across the pond concerning geoengineering and weather modification. I was looking this up via Grok because of what RFK Jr said recently, see article, and thought I’d share.
Several states have introduced bills addressing chemtrails or geoengineering, but these have not become law as of April 30, 2025:
• Alabama: A bill introduced in February 2025 would ban weather modification activities, motivated by constituent concerns about chemtrails. It remains in committee.
• Arizona: In March 2025, the Arizona Senate passed SB1432, which would prohibit the release of chemicals for solar radiation management or geoengineering. The bill, backed by Republicans, awaits House approval and has not yet become law.
• Florida: SB 56, sponsored by Senator Ileana Garcia, aims to ban weather modification and geoengineering, with references to chemtrails during debates. It passed a Senate committee in March 2025 but has not been enacted.
• Iowa: House File 191, introduced in 2025 with 23 Republican co-sponsors, seeks to ban atmospheric contaminants for weather manipulation. It has not passed, and a related Senate bill proposes felony penalties. Public hearings included chemtrail claims, but the bill remains under consideration.
• Kentucky: A 2025 bill targets theoretical geoengineering, with sponsors avoiding the term “chemtrails” due to its negative connotation. It has not passed.
• Minnesota: HF4687/SF4630, introduced in 2024, references chemtrail-related pseudoscience but has no chance of passing under the current Democratic-controlled legislature.
• New Hampshire: HB1700, introduced in 2024, aimed to prohibit emissions linked to chemtrails but was voted “Inexpedient to Legislate” in January 2024, effectively killing it.
• Pennsylvania: Senator Doug Mastriano proposed a bill in 2024 mirroring Tennessee’s, targeting chemical releases for weather modification. It has not been passed.
• Rhode Island: A 2014 bill limiting geoengineering failed, and no recent legislation has passed.
• South Dakota: SB 215, introduced in 2024, aimed to ban atmospheric emissions for weather modification but has not become law.
Tennessee remains the sole state to have passed legislation banning chemtrails/geoengineering.
I have a good friend who is very high up in the DOT. He is going to the UAE in May. Why, I asked what have they got to do with our transport network? Well, he said, they're very good at building railways in plus 40° heat.....presumably they don't suffer from buckled tracks over there, I dunno, do we just have "the wrong kind of heat on the rails"?
Heating of metal rails can come from convection, conduction and radiation. My guess is the radiation is the biggest contributor, and maybe some from conduction from warmed matter around/adjacent to the tracks. How about having low, solar-powered fans aimed at the tracks posted along the railways? Wait, sorry I said that, someone will probably think that's a good idea.
I'm thinking that if conduction occurs, it would be from the hotter rails to the cooler wooden rail supports which have a much higher thermal resistance. Being so close to the ground, convection is probably not an issue.
The heat will flow via conduction to whatever is in contact that has the highest thermal conductivity. I don't know how British railways are constructed. But if you have supports in contact with the rails that have lower thermal conductivity than the rails, some of the heat in rails will be radiated to the air, maybe some convected away in that heated air, and some conducted to the supports. This would be easy to explore with a good FLIR camera calibrated to show temperature.
It seems that if steel rails are correctly specified and installed there should be no dangerous buckling. I think this story is just another bit of global warming propaganda with Network Rail taking the opportunity to blame warm weather for their inadequate track installation and maintenance. Social engineering is not what's required to fix our national infrastructure.
That's really interesting. So, a combination of high quality steel able to withstand high compressive stress plus installing and welding the rail sections on hot days is sufficient in most cases to prevent buckling during hot weather. Which puts into perspective the Heath Robinson absurdity of Network Rail painting their tracks white! Britain has become a sick joke. We pioneered the railroads in Victorian times; thousands and thousands of miles. Now we can't even properly maintain the few thousand we have left.
That's true! There is usually a gap end to end between the consecutive rails. If the gap isn't big enough then the buckling could occur. Good thinking!
Presumably they are painting the sides of the rails as the top would wear off? Also what do the Germans, French and Italians do to their rails? Their summers are far warmer than ours.
I wonder what they do in desert areas where there is a huge diurnal temperature range, and unbroken powerful sunshine during the day, resulting in the rails continuously expanding and contracting?
Well, the video was a Siemens marketing exercise - and disappointingly no mention of buckling tracks or white paint anywhere. My first guess would be that the ambient/ail temperature in Egypt varies a lot less than it does here.
Maybe what we need here in Blighty, the birthplace of the railways, is 'German precision and expertise' - like it says in the video.
At the moment rails are apparently laid with no expansion joints and under zero tension at 27C (see https://www.railengineer.co.uk/the-impact-of-hot-weather-on-british-railway-plain-line-track/) so they're under more tension when it's cooler than 27C and under compression when it's hotter (they can get up to 60C). It's surprising to me that such a crude approach is used rather than, say, cleverly designed expansion gaps, heat sinks or even coolant like forced air (looking at my computer!) I guess they've thought of these.
Stephen Guthrie's excellent video above explains this. By installing the rails at high temperature, the most common form of stress is tensile, when the weather is colder, which might cause a break in the rails occasionally, but that's far less serious than buckling due to compression.
You’d be wrong, the temperature in the South in April when I was there was 42 degrees C in the shade and hotter. At night it drops down to 20 degrees. In Jan it rises from 5 degrees to 25.
You can ignore those air temperatures given in that story, they were taken on a military runway just after three F35s had taken off. I’m not even joking about that.
Just FYI. Happenings across the pond concerning geoengineering and weather modification. I was looking this up via Grok because of what RFK Jr said recently, see article, and thought I’d share.
Several states have introduced bills addressing chemtrails or geoengineering, but these have not become law as of April 30, 2025:
• Alabama: A bill introduced in February 2025 would ban weather modification activities, motivated by constituent concerns about chemtrails. It remains in committee.
• Arizona: In March 2025, the Arizona Senate passed SB1432, which would prohibit the release of chemicals for solar radiation management or geoengineering. The bill, backed by Republicans, awaits House approval and has not yet become law.
• Florida: SB 56, sponsored by Senator Ileana Garcia, aims to ban weather modification and geoengineering, with references to chemtrails during debates. It passed a Senate committee in March 2025 but has not been enacted.
• Iowa: House File 191, introduced in 2025 with 23 Republican co-sponsors, seeks to ban atmospheric contaminants for weather manipulation. It has not passed, and a related Senate bill proposes felony penalties. Public hearings included chemtrail claims, but the bill remains under consideration.
• Kentucky: A 2025 bill targets theoretical geoengineering, with sponsors avoiding the term “chemtrails” due to its negative connotation. It has not passed.
• Minnesota: HF4687/SF4630, introduced in 2024, references chemtrail-related pseudoscience but has no chance of passing under the current Democratic-controlled legislature.
• New Hampshire: HB1700, introduced in 2024, aimed to prohibit emissions linked to chemtrails but was voted “Inexpedient to Legislate” in January 2024, effectively killing it.
• Pennsylvania: Senator Doug Mastriano proposed a bill in 2024 mirroring Tennessee’s, targeting chemical releases for weather modification. It has not been passed.
• Rhode Island: A 2014 bill limiting geoengineering failed, and no recent legislation has passed.
• South Dakota: SB 215, introduced in 2024, aimed to ban atmospheric emissions for weather modification but has not become law.
Tennessee remains the sole state to have passed legislation banning chemtrails/geoengineering.
https://open.substack.com/pub/vigilantfox/p/rfk-jr-names-the-government-agency?r=15k78n&utm_medium=ios
https://open.substack.com/pub/lionessofjudah/p/florida-announces-chemtrails-hotline?r=15k78n&utm_medium=ios
I have a good friend who is very high up in the DOT. He is going to the UAE in May. Why, I asked what have they got to do with our transport network? Well, he said, they're very good at building railways in plus 40° heat.....presumably they don't suffer from buckled tracks over there, I dunno, do we just have "the wrong kind of heat on the rails"?
Heating of metal rails can come from convection, conduction and radiation. My guess is the radiation is the biggest contributor, and maybe some from conduction from warmed matter around/adjacent to the tracks. How about having low, solar-powered fans aimed at the tracks posted along the railways? Wait, sorry I said that, someone will probably think that's a good idea.
I'm thinking that if conduction occurs, it would be from the hotter rails to the cooler wooden rail supports which have a much higher thermal resistance. Being so close to the ground, convection is probably not an issue.
The heat will flow via conduction to whatever is in contact that has the highest thermal conductivity. I don't know how British railways are constructed. But if you have supports in contact with the rails that have lower thermal conductivity than the rails, some of the heat in rails will be radiated to the air, maybe some convected away in that heated air, and some conducted to the supports. This would be easy to explore with a good FLIR camera calibrated to show temperature.
The mind virus is far more serious than any of us realised. Too right, you couldn't make this up!
This video is good:
https://practical.engineering/blog/2023/12/5/why-railroads-dont-need-expansion-joints#:~:text=Try%20as%20they%20might%2C%20railroads,phenomenon%20called%20rock%20and%20roll.
It seems that if steel rails are correctly specified and installed there should be no dangerous buckling. I think this story is just another bit of global warming propaganda with Network Rail taking the opportunity to blame warm weather for their inadequate track installation and maintenance. Social engineering is not what's required to fix our national infrastructure.
That's really interesting. So, a combination of high quality steel able to withstand high compressive stress plus installing and welding the rail sections on hot days is sufficient in most cases to prevent buckling during hot weather. Which puts into perspective the Heath Robinson absurdity of Network Rail painting their tracks white! Britain has become a sick joke. We pioneered the railroads in Victorian times; thousands and thousands of miles. Now we can't even properly maintain the few thousand we have left.
That's true! There is usually a gap end to end between the consecutive rails. If the gap isn't big enough then the buckling could occur. Good thinking!
Presumably they are painting the sides of the rails as the top would wear off? Also what do the Germans, French and Italians do to their rails? Their summers are far warmer than ours.
I wonder what they do in desert areas where there is a huge diurnal temperature range, and unbroken powerful sunshine during the day, resulting in the rails continuously expanding and contracting?
Just found this for Egypt, apparently they have no problems. Go figure.
160kmh = 100 mph, not high speed imo but a sight faster than the train I went on in 1996
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kysh4kErQ9M
Excellent. But this is science and engineering. The climate emergency acolytes don't understand nor believe in real world reality.
Well, the video was a Siemens marketing exercise - and disappointingly no mention of buckling tracks or white paint anywhere. My first guess would be that the ambient/ail temperature in Egypt varies a lot less than it does here.
Maybe what we need here in Blighty, the birthplace of the railways, is 'German precision and expertise' - like it says in the video.
At the moment rails are apparently laid with no expansion joints and under zero tension at 27C (see https://www.railengineer.co.uk/the-impact-of-hot-weather-on-british-railway-plain-line-track/) so they're under more tension when it's cooler than 27C and under compression when it's hotter (they can get up to 60C). It's surprising to me that such a crude approach is used rather than, say, cleverly designed expansion gaps, heat sinks or even coolant like forced air (looking at my computer!) I guess they've thought of these.
Oh well, white paint it is then.
Stephen Guthrie's excellent video above explains this. By installing the rails at high temperature, the most common form of stress is tensile, when the weather is colder, which might cause a break in the rails occasionally, but that's far less serious than buckling due to compression.
You’d be wrong, the temperature in the South in April when I was there was 42 degrees C in the shade and hotter. At night it drops down to 20 degrees. In Jan it rises from 5 degrees to 25.
You can ignore those air temperatures given in that story, they were taken on a military runway just after three F35s had taken off. I’m not even joking about that.
30 degrees is swelteringly hot for the UK.
I’ve been on a train from Southern Egypt to the North, they travelled after dark. Not sure this is always the case.