The finished trackbed of a railway together with the track and other permanent equipment.
 engineers are repairing the permanent way following the derailment
 Example sentencesExamples
-  There were men called ‘linemen’ who were responsible for their own stretch of the permanent way (about a mile or so).
 -  Many jobs were no more nor less dangerous than thousands of posts in other walks of life, but for permanent way staff the story was different.
 -  The system has to follow the Railway Act, under which the Metro Rail will be a permanent way and none can travel on that.
 -  The two companies have been awarded the tender to construct the permanent way of the Northern Railway line extension project.
 -  The engineering feasibility study found a number of difficulties in the simple reinstatement of the permanent way.