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Using Flat Cars As Retaining Wall
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This answer may be boring but... <br />Retaining walls are usually cantilevers... <br /> <br />Easy way to picture it... when you put a rule over a table edge to twang it... that's a cantilever... the bit sticking over the edge... Now, turn this through 90 degrees... and you have a situation like a fence post. How much the fence will hold up in a wind... or with cows leaning on it.... depends not on the number of wires but on the length of post in the ground and the nature of the ground. So sometimes you put a bracing post on the lee side to add strength. <br /> <br />For a retaining wall the situation is the same as the fence... except that the wind or cows are replaced by the ground being held up on one side. The load may be heavy but is usually pretty constant. The important the important thing is the effectiveness of the cantilever. the earth behind the visible bit of the wall is trying to lever the wall into the open space in front of it. What is stopping it is the effectiveness (or not) of the grip of the ground around the part of the wall that is out of sight below ground... with earth on both sides of it. <br /> <br />Without the bit in the ground all that any structure is is a heap of material on the surface... for example a pile of sandbags. these may do the job.... it depends on the load being applied, for how long... and how well the pile holds together. People in flood zones are familiar with this issue. <br /> <br /> <br />That said... the flat cars in the pictures (nice pictures)! look more like a derailment that someone decided wasn't worth the bother/cost of cleaning up. To some extent the cars might help stabilise the embankment in the same way that Rip Rap does. <br /> <br />The cars are the wrong way up to do much though... the frame holds what's on the floor up and the strength in the opposite direction is relatively limited. If these cars were placed as retaining walls they would do their job more effectively with the floor against the bank. they would also do a better job if some sort of posts had been driven in to act as retaining posts. <br /> <br />Looking at the end detail photo... the car has push-pole pockets.... so I suspect it's fairly old (Were push poles taken out of use at any date... are they still in use)? I reckon someone looked at the cost of retrieval and repair against value... and left them there. <br /> <br />The more I look at it the more I think that any movement of the bank would simply pu***he car over the rest of the way onto its top face. <br /> <br />The good news for anyone wanting to use this idea for a retaining wall is that... with the aid of suitable posts driven into the ground on the side away from the bank it could be done. better than that... the useful way to do it would be with the underframe outwards.... which, if you don't mind the cost of a good model... gives a whole lot more detail. I reckon that if it wasn't a wrecked car most of the big brake parts would have been taken off... if you're recycling you save the most expensive parts first. <br /> <br />If the bank were at all mobile a car would need an awful lot of posts or it wouldn't hold up much weight. Might hold up a road track... but a train track? Could be okay above the rail line.... better still... if there is a lower conventional stone or concrete wall with a slope above this could be used as a quick repair if the bank above shifted... if it was doing it's job successfully it might get left there. <br /> <br />Two things you don't want.... the car falling over / onto what it's supposed to be protecting and it causing more problems than it solves. <br /> <br /> <br />The usual problem with retaining walls is that they block the flow of water behind them / change the water profile in the land behind. this means that they can act as a dam to underground water. Any dam can be pushed over or burst through. Worse, and in some respects more likely... water trapped behind a wall and over an impervious underground layer (such as clay) can build up until it turns part of the fill behind the wall to slurry.... if the conf=ditions are right this will sheer away from beneath and you will have a landslip... this may take away both the wall and the formation. It's quite spectacular how much bank can disapear in this way. <br /> <br /> Hope this is useful.
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