Are buckled rails purely a British problem?

thenorthern · 14 Aug 2026

Saw this tweet and others like it doing the rounds, I have removed the bad language. It's got over a million views

https://x.com/SomosLos_Rojos
Liam

@SomosLos_Rojos

Doomed country with infrastructure collapsing all around because some ***** in the 80’s decided to privatise every facet of our lives and the results thereof have been catastrophic

Liam (@SomosLos_Rojos) on X

Doomed country with infrastructure collapsing all around because some bitch in the 80’s decided to privatise every facet of our lives and the results thereof have been catastrophic

x.com

It's obviously inaccurate in many ways given Network Rail has been state-owned since 2002. Also Greater Anglia and Southern are both state-owned.

In reality, privatisation has nothing to do with rails buckling. It happens in other countries as well and as the media and Network Rail have pointed out may times we have a fairly large temperature range in this country which means track has to deal with two extremes.

RailUK Forums

D6130 · 15 Aug 2026

Back in the Summer of 1986, an Italian inter-regional train from Firenze to Foligno was totally detailed due to buckled rails at Cannara, between Assisi and Spello in Umbria. Luckily the train was lightly-loaded....but there were still a few injured passengers and crew. The accident happened on a straight stretch of electrified single line, with a line speed of 130 km/h (81 mph), so the driver didn't stand a chance of stopping in time.

Bald Rick · 15 Aug 2026

Buckled rails are not only a British problem. They happen just about everywhere. This is because the laws of physics are universal. But as you might expect, a buckled rail in Kentucky or Calabria isn’t going to make the BBC website.

This has been the longest spell of dry weather in summer that I can remember, and the highest number of very high temperature days in a summer that I can remember (my definition of very high being 33C or above). I expect both to be records, and by some margin. This is - obviously - unusual. This has caused underlying formation / embankments to shrink exceptionally and very locally, which places additonal stress forces on rails as well as the heat.

Regardign other parts of the world, clearly europe has been suffering this year. However I was surprised to learn recently that some parts of the world we associate as being hot are, well, not as hot as it has been here. Hong Kong just saw it’s highest ever recorded tempersture (142 years of data) at 36.9C. Singapore’s record is 37C.

Sorcerer · 15 Aug 2026

Why are these people always so quick to blame privatisation when it comes to issues relating to the railway as if the state can do no wrong?

Never mind Network Rail being state-owned, any country with rails stressed at similar temperatures will also have issues with buckling because metal expands when it's been heated.

For what it's worth, buckling incidents have actually gone down in recent years despite the increase in extreme heat. If we stressed them for higher temperatures then we could have disruption in winter with contraction instead.

Bald Rick said:
However I was surprised to learn recently that some parts of the world we associate as being hot are, well, not as hot as it has been here. Hong Kong just saw it’s highest ever recorded temperature (142 years of data) at 36.9C. Singapore’s record is 37C.

I would expect the monsoon in Hong Kong as well as daily rainfall in Singapore (along with tree coverage) means that much of the sun's energy goes into evaporation before it has a chance to reach the temperatures we've been seeing here which occur during periods of high pressure and subsequent lack of rainfall and cloud formation.

Magrar · 15 Aug 2026

In the real world of course, Thatcher was a prominent adopter of the whole climate change is real and man made thing. And she didn't even privatise rail.

Had she lived to see the day, and been in power, she'd have surely regulated the domestic internet such that we would never have to even read such drivel as part of our daily lives, generations later.

Bald Rick · 15 Aug 2026

Sorcerer said:
I would expect the monsoon in Hong Kong as well as daily rainfall in Singapore (along with tree coverage) means that much of the sun's energy goes into evaporation before it has a chance to reach the temperatures we've been seeing here which occur during periods of high pressure and subsequent lack of rainfall and cloud formation.

It also helps that much of their rail system is underground!

duffield · 15 Aug 2026

Sorcerer said:
Why are these people always so quick to blame privatisation when it comes to issues relating to the railway as if the state can do no wrong? ...

Perhaps they remember the privatised Railtrack whose skimping on maintenance led directly to passenger deaths at Potters Bar and Hatfield, and which ultimately ended in Railtrack's demise?

Bald Rick · 15 Aug 2026

duffield said:
Perhaps they remember the privatised Railtrack whose skimping on maintenance led directly to passenger deaths at Potters Bar and Hatfield, and which ultimately ended in Railtrack's demise?

Perhaps they do. But they have evidently missed the intervening quarter of a century (approx), where Railtrack was taken over by the ’not for dividend’ Network Rail in Ocotber 2002, maintenance work insourced almost immediately thereafter, then NR brought fully on to the public books 11 years ago.

Sorcerer · 15 Aug 2026

duffield said:
Perhaps they remember the privatised Railtrack whose skimping on maintenance led directly to passenger deaths at Potters Bar and Hatfield, and which ultimately ended in Railtrack's demise?

Railtrack was a failure, but they haven't been running the railway infrastructure since 2002.

After almost 25 years you can't blame privatisation. But that's not really relevant anyway because the original Tweet in question is hinged on the idea that railway infrastructure is falling apart because of privatisation under Thatcher when not only was she not the one to privatise British Rail, it also assumes that the railway was doing just fine with buckling until recent years, when in reality it's been an issue that's not only happened for a while but has actually gone down since then.

brad465 · 15 Aug 2026

Sorcerer said:
I would expect the monsoon in Hong Kong as well as daily rainfall in Singapore (along with tree coverage) means that much of the sun's energy goes into evaporation before it has a chance to reach the temperatures we've been seeing here which occur during periods of high pressure and subsequent lack of rainfall and cloud formation.

Pretty much, this is also why the hottest areas are deserts at the edge of the tropics, as dry air descends, heating up rapidly.

However, while the equatorial regions are not as hot as the outer tropics on a thermometer, the much higher humidity means the "feels like" temperature is a lot higher, often the mid-40s.

The other thing the tropics have going that we don't is the air temperature is much more consistent throughout the year, so their track can be built to a spec better suited for hot weather.

The UK and other temperate areas however have a much larger variation in temperature so presumably can't.

Goodness knows how tracks are managed in continental climates, where temperatures over both the course of a day and a year are most extreme.

dcbwhaley · 15 Aug 2026

brad465 said:
Goodness knows how tracks are managed in continental climates, where temperatures over both the course of a day and a year are most extreme.

Instead of having continuous rails would it be possible to lay track in discrete sections of, say 10om, with expansion gaps between the sections. that is how bridges are managed.

bramling · 15 Aug 2026

I don’t think anyone can say privatisation hasn’t delivered a safe railway, once the initial issues of the first few years were overcome. A 15-year period with no significant incidents is pretty impressive by any measure.

Where there is perhaps more scope for discussion is whether things are starting to head the wrong way, and if so why that might be.

30907 · 15 Aug 2026

bramling said:
I don’t think anyone can say privatisation hasn’t delivered a safe railway, once the initial issues of the first few years were overcome. A 15-year period with no significant incidents is pretty impressive by any measure.

Depends what you mean: "delivered" to me implies some improvement. I would be happier to say "maintained" a safe railway, as the nationalised system could hardly be described as unsafe.

GRALISTAIR · 15 Aug 2026

Bald Rick said:
Buckled rails are not only a British problem. They happen just about everywhere. This is because the laws of physics are universal.

Indeed.

Merle Haggard · 15 Aug 2026

duffield said:
Perhaps they remember the privatised Railtrack whose skimping on maintenance led directly to passenger deaths at Potters Bar and Hatfield, and which ultimately ended in Railtrack's demise?

Have the weeks-long and network-wide severe speed restrictions after Hatfield been forgotten already? Resulted in the loss of Royal Mail traffic and hit the Inter-City network's business badly, too. As you say, the result of harshly cutting back on routine maintenance expenditure.

Dave61 · 17 Aug 2026

bramling said:
I don’t think anyone can say privatisation hasn’t delivered a safe railway, once the initial issues of the first few years were overcome. A 15-year period with no significant incidents is pretty impressive by any measure.

Where there is perhaps more scope for discussion is whether things are starting to head the wrong way, and if so why that might be.

As others have mentioned, over the last 4 years we have experienced record temperatures with several more records being broken this year. Add in the long dry spells causing the ground to dry out and shrink I think it quite an achievement not to have had more instances this year.

Haywain · 17 Aug 2026

dcbwhaley said:
Instead of having continuous rails would it be possible to lay track in discrete sections of, say 10om, with expansion gaps between the sections. that is how bridges are managed.

Short rails buckle just as much as long ones.

yorkie · 17 Aug 2026

dcbwhaley said:
Instead of having continuous rails would it be possible to lay track in discrete sections of, say 10om, with expansion gaps between the sections. that is how bridges are managed.

Haywain said:
Short rails buckle just as much as long ones.

Under discussion here:

Pros and cons of Continuous Welded Rail (CWR)

Moderator note: Spit from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/lewes-derailment-thursday-13th-august.305792/page-5#post-7901185 As for the track it is a consequence that the benefits of CWR are sometimes undone in hot weather, but much work effort is made to build provision for this into the track.

www.railforums.co.uk

In post #24 I have linked to an article that goes into great detail on the benefits of CWR and how the issues of buckling are overcome.

Are buckled rails purely a British problem?

thenorthern

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Liam (@SomosLos_Rojos) on X

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D6130

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Bald Rick

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Sorcerer

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Magrar

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duffield

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bramling

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30907

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Pros and cons of Continuous Welded Rail (CWR)