Maintenance Of Way
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Maintenance of way (commonly abbreviated to MOW) refers to the maintenance, construction, and improvement of rail infrastructure, including tracks, ballast, grade, and lineside infrastructure such as
signals In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...
and signs.


Track

The most fundamental maintenance of way task is the construction, repair, and replacement of the track and its supporting ballast and grade. The task was once done entirely by manual labor, but in the 21st century, track maintenance is largely done by specialized machines that are much faster and require fewer people to accomplish the same amount of work.


Electrification systems

On rail lines, which include electrification by a
third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway t ...
or an
overhead line An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, trolleybuses or trams. It is known variously as: * Overhead catenary * Overhead contact system (OCS) * Overhead equipmen ...
, maintenance of way work includes repairing and replacing the systems.


See also

*
Rail inspection Rail inspection is the practice of examining rail tracks for flaws that could lead to catastrophic failures. According to the United States Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis, track defects are the second leading cause of ...
* Railway track maintenance


Bibliography

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References

{{Reflist Permanent way Rail transport operations