When rails are required for service in paved or grassed locations, grooved rails provide an excellent solution.
Grooved Rails were invented by Alphonse Loubat in 1852 for use in the Tram systems being introduced in New York and Paris at that time. In these cities, the new trains had to share the streets with carts and pedestrians. The solution was to embed the rails in the street so that their running surfaces were at street level. Since wheel flanges were still necessary, a solution was required to protect the flanges while keeping the flange slot as narrow as possible. This was to protect horses and humans from tripping and prevented feet and narrow cart wheels from being trapped between the rails and the road surface.
