Railroad crossing and railroad track drafting

Railroad crossings, turnouts and other metal railroad track components are under considerable stress nowadays due to the heavier axle loads of enormous locomotives and longer trains. Eventually inserts, frogs and rail sections all have to be replaced. Often the drawings that engineering has to work with do not give enough information for the fabrication of the needed components.
The geometry of a diamond crossing looks simple enough untill you try to calculate lengths of bent rails and bend angles. Even figuring out the lengths of tie bolts can be a nightmare.
If you have a new diamond crossing to build or if you need to rebuild any railroad track components please consider AAA Drafting for the drafting of the rails, inserts and other components.

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A SolidWorks designer talks about stuff related to CAD and mechanical design

The F-35, Joint strike search and rescue fighter
The recent 16 billion dollar purchase of F-35 stealth fighters is a triumph in buying American . While Canada needs more search and rescue planes to patrol the oceans the Canadian government decides to purchase stealth fighters. One wonders what kind of a changing role the Canadian air force has up its sleeve for these high tech seek and destroy weapons.

Perhaps the stealth and speed will allow our pilots to sneak up on sailors before they even get shipwrecked. The pilot can launch missiles at the pesky shoals or reefs blowing them up, preventing any marine disaster from ever happening.

Canadian Pilots flying the joint strike fighter solo over the arctic are assured that the fighters engine is more “robust” and unlikely to fail. Much like the Titanic was unsinkable. It will be cold comfort to a our pilots, reflecting on their emergency manual which said “relax, your jet engine is robust” as they eject in 50 below temperature.

Worse, the purchase of joint strike fighters protect American jobs, not Canadian ones, as the purchase of Bombardier search and rescue planes would have. Unfortunately when the Pentagon barks, we have to pay attention. This was true in the days of the Avro Arrow and now again with the F-35 joint strike fighter.