Why are trains so heavy?
Discussion
The reason our railways are in such disarray is that the tracks are worn out. Hardly suprising given that tains are enormously heavy and have steel wheels.
I can understand goods trains being heavy because of the weight of stuff in them, but why do passenger carriages need all that heavy guage steel in them?
Similarly, why don't they have softer wheels? It'd be far easier to change a few carriage tyres now and again, than replace miles and miles of worn out track. After all, the Paris Metro runs on rubber wheels
As you may have gathered, I know sod all about trains
I can understand goods trains being heavy because of the weight of stuff in them, but why do passenger carriages need all that heavy guage steel in them?
Similarly, why don't they have softer wheels? It'd be far easier to change a few carriage tyres now and again, than replace miles and miles of worn out track. After all, the Paris Metro runs on rubber wheels
As you may have gathered, I know sod all about trains
We wouldn't be in this mess without gravity... 
It's all down to traction, modern trains are actually too light which causes several problems, wheel slip, wheel spin and leaves. Metal to metal isn't the best combination for grip so the heavier the vehicle the better the traction, braking effort and ability to break through leave mulch to provide metal to metal contact for TPWS to work (train protection warning system)
edited to add the new stuff has just under 7000bhp has 9 x 50 ton cars , minus self loading cargo and has to stop and accelerate on two narrow rails, the WSP is very active in the wet
>> Edited by apache on Tuesday 28th June 00:29
edited to add the new stuff has just under 7000bhp has 9 x 50 ton cars , minus self loading cargo and has to stop and accelerate on two narrow rails, the WSP is very active in the wet
>> Edited by apache on Tuesday 28th June 00:29
Hilts said:
Think we have to learn from the Japanese and their Maglev trains (Magnetic Levitation), speeds approaching 350-400MPH, obviously with maglev weight is no longer a factor.
Well Hilts, Like someone on here once said to me on here, "railways are OLD technology!"
All I can say is:WOW! Yes in - "Britain" maybe!
Hilts said:By no means do I know anything about electromagnetic engineering but wouldn’t a train with more mass be more likely to overcome the repulsion of the electromagnets and end up smashing into expensive stuff? So a heavier train would have to travel slower as to avoid damage.
Think we have to learn from the Japanese and their Maglev trains (Magnetic Levitation), speeds approaching 350-400MPH, obviously with maglev weight is no longer a factor.
Of course if you are going to go to all the trouble of having electromagnetic rails why not electromagnetic roads? Think about the potential for immense speed and the amount of money we could save on re-surfacing the road.
I recently went to the rail museum in York where they have a Bullit train on display. A railway man was saying when these were first used in the late 1950s the british were so far behind technologically it was embarresing. We still had steam trains then, and nothing has changed at all, the japenese still have a pride in their system, the number of trains late is almost zero and up until last year they had had no accidents on the bullit train system.
We are slowly getting a high speed link to London, but nowhere else.
I have often thought maybe it would be better to pull up all the tracks and tarmac them all for bus and commercialuse only, you would probably get more use out of the area available than anything else. Only the intercity trains would really be slowed down.
We are slowly getting a high speed link to London, but nowhere else.
I have often thought maybe it would be better to pull up all the tracks and tarmac them all for bus and commercialuse only, you would probably get more use out of the area available than anything else. Only the intercity trains would really be slowed down.
The Shinkansens are fantastic, the quickest one is the Nozomi.
When I was in Japan earlier on this year, I was dreading public transport but I loved it. The trains (even the local trains) were clean and ontime, people who used them were polite and helpful, especially as everthing was in Japanese.
And now they have ones with ears:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4621217.stm
More on the trains here:
www.japanrail.com/
Claire
I used to work for Alstom (formally GE), I had Virgin, KCR/MTR and GNER as my accounts for my sins.
>> Edited by Gaffer on Tuesday 28th June 08:21
When I was in Japan earlier on this year, I was dreading public transport but I loved it. The trains (even the local trains) were clean and ontime, people who used them were polite and helpful, especially as everthing was in Japanese.
And now they have ones with ears:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4621217.stm
More on the trains here:
www.japanrail.com/
Claire
I used to work for Alstom (formally GE), I had Virgin, KCR/MTR and GNER as my accounts for my sins.
>> Edited by Gaffer on Tuesday 28th June 08:21
If your bored and want to know how Maglev trains work,
[url]http://travel.howstuffworks.com/maglev-train1.htm[/url]
[url]http://travel.howstuffworks.com/maglev-train1.htm[/url]
anonymous said:
[redacted]
this probably isn't actually true, but it's amusing
" Does the statement, "We've always done it that
way" ring any bells... ?
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between
the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an
exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England,
and English expatriates built the US Railroads.
Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the
same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and
that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used
the same jigs and tools that they used for building
wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular
odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing,
the wagon wheels would break on some of the old,
long distance roads in England, because that's
the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads?
Imperial Rome built the first long distance
roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The
roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts,
which everyone else had to match for fear of
destroying their wagon wheels.
Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they
were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
The United States standard railroad gauge of 4
feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original
specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
And bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you
are handed a specification and wonder what horse's
ass came up with it, you may be exactly right,
because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made
just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two
war horses. Now the twist to the story...
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its
launch pad, there are two big booster rockets
attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These
are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are
made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The
engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred
to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to
be shipped by train from the factory to the launch
site. The railroad line from the factory happens to
run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had
to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly
wider than the railroad track, and the railroad
track, as you now know, is about as wide as two
horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what
is arguably the world's most advanced transportation
system was determined over two thousand years ago by
the width of a horse's ass. ... and you thought
being a HORSE'S ASS wasn't important!"
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