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When railway tracks suffer "sun kinks," or buckling under extreme heat, it results in long train delays, and in extreme cases derailments - as happened last year with a mining freight train in Australia.
Experts have cautioned that if trains, which are critical for economies and communities, are to be a successful low-carbon transport of the future, they have to be able to stand up the impacts of extreme weather connected to rising temperatures.
In the UK, the Network Rail train operator is building resilience to high temperature fluctuations by painting parts of the rail white so it absorbs less heat and expands less. A white rail can stay up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) cooler.
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Constructed largely of steel, bridges that carry roads and trains across rivers and harbors are especially vulnerable to thermal expansion that causes structural deterioration.
According to a Colorado State University study from 2019, a quarter of the 600,000-odd bridges in the US could suffer a section collapse by 2040 due to rising temperatures that increase stress on the joints holding them up.
Expansion joints, or spaced gaps, along the length of a bridge allow flexibility in the superstructure as temperatures fluctuate. However, these gaps easily become clogged with debris, which prevents the bridge from expanding with rising heat, causing the joints to deteriorate.
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