Why are railroads covered with gravel?

The crushed stones you see alongside railroad tracks are what is known as ballast. Their purpose is to hold the wooden cross ties in place, which in turn hold the rails in place. read more

Look closely it’s not gravel, it’s a lot bigger than that. It’s called ballast, it is used to lock the tracks into one spot and keep everything from moving. The ballast is dumped from stone cars. Then they tamp it under the ties, all the different angles on the stone locks and holds the track in place. Kind of like glueing it down. read more

Sidebar for the truly geeky, with fun facts about railroad ties There are approximately 689,974,000 ties in the United States, supporting 212,000 miles of railroad track. In 2011 the major US railroads replaced a total of 15,063,539 ties. 14,148,012 of them were new and made of wood; 544,652 were second-hand wood ties; and 370,875 were new ties made of something other than wood. read more

The crushed stones you see alongside railroad tracks are what is known as ballast. Their purpose is to hold the wooden cross ties in place, which in turn hold the rails in place. The crushed stones you see alongside railroad tracks are what is known as ballast. read more