Railroad tie in the context of "Track (rail transport)"

Railway track (CwthE and UIC terminology) or railroad track (NAmE), also known as permanent way (per way) (CwthE) or "P way" (BrE and Indian English), is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers (railroad ties in American English) and ballast (or slab track), plus the underlying subgrade. It enables trains to move by providing a dependable, low-friction surface on which steel wheels can roll. Early tracks were constructed with wooden or cast-iron rails, and wooden or stone sleepers. Since the 1870s, rails have almost universally been made from steel.

Coal tar (also creosote) is a thick dark liquid that is a by-product of deriving coke and coal gas from coal. Coal tar has both medical and industrial uses. Medicinally, it is a topical medication applied to skin to treat psoriasis and seborrheic dermatitis (dandruff). It may be used in combination with ultraviolet light therapy in a treatment called Goeckerman therapy, which is rarely used clinically, as of 2024.

Industrially, it is a preservative for railroad ties and used in the surfacing of roads. Coal tar was listed as a known human carcinogen in the first Report on Carcinogens from the U.S. Federal Government, issued in 1980, and remains a cancer concern due to the presence of benzene in coal tar skincare products, such as shampoos.

Track ballast is the material which forms the trackbed upon which railroad ties (UK: sleepers) are laid. The term "ballast" comes from a nautical term for the stones used to stabilize a ship. Track ballast is packed between, below, and around the ties to bear the compression load of the railroad ties, rails, and rolling stock; to stabilize and restrain lateral movement of the track; to facilitate drainage; and keep down vegetation that can compromise the integrity of the combined track structure. Ballast also physically holds the track in place as the trains roll over it. Not all types of railway tracks use ballast.

A variety of materials have been used as track ballast, including crushed stone, washed gravel, bank run (unwashed) gravel, torpedo gravel (a mixture of coarse sand and small gravel), slag, chats, coal cinders, sand, and burnt clay.

A ballastless track or slab track is a type of railway track infrastructure in which the traditional elastic combination of sleepers and ballast is replaced by a rigid construction of concrete or asphalt. It is considered the standard for high-speed and heavy-haul railway lines. It is also commonly used for urban tramways.

Tramway track is used on tramways or light rail operations. As with standard rail tracks, tram tracks have two parallel steel rails, the distance between the heads of the rails being the track gauge. When there is no need for pedestrians or road vehicles to traverse the track, conventional flat-bottom rail is used. However, when such traffic exists, such as in urban streets, grooved rails are used.

Tram rails can be placed on several surfaces, such as on ground over which track ballast topped by sleepers (US: ties) and flat-bottom rails are laid – as with railway tracks – or, for street running, with grooved rails usually embedded into a concrete pavement. In some places, tracks are laid into grass turf surfaces; they are known as green track, grassed track or track in lawn.

Gauntlet track, also called interlaced track or gantlet track (AE) is an arrangement in which railway tracks run parallel on a single track bed and are interlaced (i.e., overlapped) in such a way that only one pair of rails can be used at any time. Since this requires only slightly more width than a single track, all rails can be carried on the same crossties/sleepers. Trains run on the pair of rails appropriate to their direction, track gauge or loading gauge.

The term gauntlet refers to the expression running the gauntlet, which means running between two confining rows of adversaries.

Decauville (French: [dəkovil]) was a manufacturing company which was founded by Paul Decauville (1846–1922), a French pioneer in industrial railways. Decauville's major innovation was the use of ready-made sections of light, narrow-gauge track fastened to steel sleepers; this track was portable and could be disassembled and transported very easily.

The first Decauville railway used 400 mm (15+3⁄4 in) gauge; Decauville later refined his invention and switched to 500 mm (19+3⁄4 in) and 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge.