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Metros and pure commuter railways often also allow steeper gradients, over 4%, for the same reason. High-speed railways commonly allow 2.5% to 4% because the trains must be strong and have many wheels with power to reach very high speeds. For freight trains, gradients should be as gentle as possible, preferably below 1.5%.
To compensate for this, the gradient should be a little less steep the sharper the curve is; the necessary grade reduction is assumed to be given by a simple formula such as 0.04 per cent per "degree of curve", the latter being a measure of curve sharpness used in the United States. On a 10-degree curve (radius 573.7 feet) the grade would thus ...
The allowable gradients may be based on the ruling gradient which is the maximum gradient over which a tonnage train can be hauled with one locomotive. In some countries, momentum gradient which is a steeper but shorter gradient may be allowed. This is usually when a track gradient connects to a leveled tangent track long enough and with no ...
A now little used alternative to the rack and pinion railway is the Fell system, in which traction and/or braking wheel are applied to a central rail under pressure. Rack and pinion animation Another alternative is a cable car in which the car runs on rails, but grasps a continuously moving cable underneath the rails for propulsion, releasing ...
The Pilatus Railway is the steepest rack railway in the world, with a maximum gradient of 48% and an average gradient of 35%. Functioning of the rack and pinion on the Strub system. A rack railway (also rack-and-pinion railway, cog railway, or cogwheel railway) is a steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails.
The minimum railway curve radius is the shortest allowable design radius for the centerline of railway tracks under a particular set of conditions. It has an important bearing on construction costs and operating costs and, in combination with superelevation (difference in elevation of the two rails) in the case of train tracks , determines the ...
In 1886 an inspector recommended the gradient be eased to allow greater loads, but nothing happened until 1903 [8] when the trackbed at the foot of the incline was raised to ease the slope, which northbound trains approached at the gently downhill gradient of 1 in 1056. The top was also shaved to ease a short final stretch to 1 in 470.
Hillclimbing is a problem faced by railway systems when a load must be carried up an incline. While railways have a great ability to haul very heavy loads, this is only possible when the tracks are fairly level. As soon as the gradients increase, the tonnage that can be hauled is greatly diminished.