XPost: uk.railway   
      
   On Thu, 28 Dec 2017 15:22:20 +0000, "hounslow3@yahoo.co.uk"   
    wrote:   
      
      
   >>   
   >> Even on an elevated structure, replacing the ballast will involve digging!   
   >>   
   >> This picture posted earlier in the thread   
   >>    
   >> clearly shows line in a cutting.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> Anna Noyd-Dryver   
   >>   
   >>   
   >Elevated sections on the New York City Subway don't have ballast, AFAIK,   
   >They just run on steel structures.   
      
   The long dismantled Liverpool Overhead Railway which would be the   
   nearest the UK had to an elevated did not have ballast on its   
   structures either, track was fastened to timber baulks which   
   themselves were fixed to the rolled steel sheets which formed the   
   track bed of the viaducts.   
   Some photos here   
   https://dewi.ca/trains/l_o_r/struct.html   
      
   It was largely the state of these steel sheets    that caused the   
   closure . The company could not afford to do the major repairs that   
   were required after 60 years of corrosion largely by the smoke from   
   steam locos on the freight lines that ran underneath.   
      
   G.Harman   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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