Sabotaging of the railroad to Jaffna

L Jayasooriya

This railroad reopening which will bring many benefits both to the people in the North and the South is eagerly awaited by the President and all of us. I have seen on television how the track is being laid. The concrete sleepers are laid on bare ground with no ballast (stones on the railway track) underneath. This is not the way to lay a railway track. It will cause derailments especially in wet weather and along curves.

I will now explain how the rail track works so that the readers whom I assume are laymen could see how smartly the track is being sabotaged right under the nose of the President.

As the train runs along the track it exerts forces on the rail along the track and at right angles to the track. Since the rail is clipped to the sleeper the force at right angles to the track tends to push the sleeper out.

As the sleeper tends to move out the ballast in contact with the sleeper it offers resistance in the form of friction and in the process interlocks on the sleeper and with the adjacent ballast horizontally and vertically mobilizing the entire mass of ballast to resist the outward thrust. The ballast in contact with the sleeper thus grips the sleeper with its sharp edges crushing the sharp edges and producing dust.

So as the train moves the entire mass of ballast is mobilized to resist the outward sliding of the sleepers and to keep them intact. The mass of ballast is prevented from sliding out by frictional resistance on the ground.

Now what would happen if the ballast is laid on a vast layer of banana skins? The entire mass of ballast will slide derailing the train. What would happen if there is stagnant water at the base of the ballast? The ballast will slide and derail the train.

If in addition the dust has not been removed from the bottom of the track, it will turn to mud thus facilitating the derailment. Even if the dust is dry the frictional resistance is very low.

As the sharp edges of the ballast get smoothened the ballast will not be able to interlock.

In the extreme case if the ballast were round like billiard balls one could visualize that the sleepers will slide out.

In the days when the British were here there were piles of ballast all along the rail track and the workmen were manually removing the dust and rounded ballast and replacing them with new ballast.

I have seen a stretch of rail track at Alawwa some years ago filled with ballast almost up to the level of the top of the rail.

That must have been to prevent recurrent derailments. The reader now understands that the contribution of any ballast above the top level of the sleeper is next to nothing.

Rail tracks the world over are laid to specifications arrived at through theory and practice.

The base of the track is well compacted with a transverse slope to drain away the water and drainage arrangements are made throughout the length of the track. There should be 2 feet of ballast below the bottom of the sleeper.

In the railway specifications written by the British to carry passengers and goods in Sri Lanka at low speeds on timber sleepers with spikes the specification was 8 inches below the bottom of the sleeper. Now they lay the sleepers on the ground.

I am sure the President and the Tamils in Jaffna, more than the Sinhalese in the South are following the daily progress of the laying of the track without being aware of the sabotage. It will be too late when the President comes to know about it and nobody will tell him about it now. So the Yal Devi will have to slow down considerably and still there will be derailments.

That is the way how our country runs.