Niobium in rail steels

Recent developments in the highly competitive transportation industry have led to ever increasing demands being placed on railroad systems. While conventional carbon steel rails have provided faithful service in a wide range of service environments for many years, there are some applications where they have been found wanting and the use of higher strength steels of improved quality has been necessary to ensure satisfactory and safe service. These applications include high speed tracks in the mining industry and heavy duty load bearing units in steelplants, both of which have been required to accommodate substantial growth in steelmaking capacity and output…