Railway why's

[Sir Clothem Cap]

Why are fishplates called fishplates?
Why is a railway a permanent way when track can be lifted?

Please do add your own questions and answers to any you know.

[Narrow Minded]

Why are fishplates called fishplates?
Why is a railway a permanent way when track can be lifted?

The original "rail joiner plates" had curved bottoms, very much like a fishes belly - the name "fish-plates" (fishplates) has stuck ever since. (I believe there was also a sailing ship mast component which looked similar and was called a "fish")

The "permanent way" was a "fixed" road over which the vehicles travelled - unlike other wheeled transport like carts which could basically go where-ever they were steered.

[Marquis DeCarabas]

A fish was a wooden bar with a curved outer edge that was used to join a mast together - the connection between fishplates and fishbelly rail is coincidental.

AFAIAA, fishbelly rail very rarely used fishplates.

[Pretoria]

In rail terminology, a fishplate, splice bar or joint bar is a metal bar that is bolted to the ends of two rails to join them together in a track. The name is derived from fish, a wooden bar with a curved profile used to strengthen a ship's mast. The top and bottom edges are tapered inwards so the device wedges itself between the top and bottom of the rail when it is bolted into place. In rail transport modelling, a fishplate is often a small copper or nickel silver plate that slips onto both rails to provide the functions of maintaining alignment and electrical continuity.

History: The device was invented by William Bridges Adams in May 1842, because of his dissatisfaction with the scarf joints and other systems of joining rails then in use. He noted that to form the scarf joint the rail was halved in thickness at its ends, where the stress was greatest. It was first deployed on the Eastern Counties Railway in 1844, but only as a wedge between the adjoining rails. Adams and Robert Richardson patented the invention in 1847, but in 1849 James Samuel, the engineer of the ECR developed fishplates that could be bolted to the rails.

The permanent way is the elements of railway lines: generally the pairs of rails typically laid on the sleepers ("ties" in American parlance) embedded in ballast, intended to carry the ordinary trains of a railway. It is described as permanent way because in the earlier days of railway construction, contractors often laid a temporary track to transport spoil and materials about the site; when this work was substantially completed, the temporary track was taken up and the permanent way installed.

Or so Wikipedia says !!!!

[invicta280]

I read somewhere that fishplates were so called from a german word
fischer meaning to fix(at least i thought it was german).

[Sir Clothem Cap]

Wow such knowledgeable people on here.

next one Why is a rail bender known as a jim crow?

[Sir haydn]

Wow such knowledgeable people on here.

next one Why is a rail bender known as a jim crow?

Cuz Jim Crow was a bender?

[Narrow Minded]

Wow such knowledgeable people on here.

next one Why is a rail bender known as a jim crow?

Cuz Jim Crow was a bender?

Bzzzzzz! Sexual discrimintation

It was cos the Navvies used either a "Jimmy" (or "Jemmy") or a "Crow" bar - and they could never remember which it was.
Hence "Pass me the Jim Crow will ya?"

Navvies by the way was a shortening of "Navigators" who originally built the canals before finding more useful employment building railways - but you already knew that

[Marquis DeCarabas]

It's probably worth mentioning the 'Jim Crow' laws in the US of A, which in turn comes from the blackface caricature Jim Crow - look up 'jump Jim Crow'.

I'm not saying that there's a definite link between the two, it could be circumstantial like fishbelly and fishplate, but given the large amount of negro/coloured/black navvies in use to construct the railways across America.