| HN Mirror

Y	Hacker News new \| ask \| show \| jobs


	by PopAlongKid 1606 days ago
	It's only to keep the switches from freezing. The straight, unswitched lengths of track do not need or use this.

1 comments

So is Chicago an outlier? Plenty of other places get cold in winter, and have trains. How does the rest of the world keep the switches from freezing?

Probably worth noting that a few days ago, when this video was likely recorded, the daily temperature range in Chicago was -4F to 7F (-20C to -13C).

I think it's common. Here is a reference to a news article from 100 years ago, for a different location.