What keeps a train on track?

There is a tangent going off the Yankee Iron Fix thread about train wheels.

This is a great 2 minute explanation of how a train stays on the track - nothing to do with flanges which are only safety devices.



lang

Well I'll be ............ better informed.

trams do something similar but with a flatter taper. This is because the road is shared with other vehicles, pedestrian's etc and the taper as used on railway lines can be a tripping hazard. Also they tend to turn sharper corners. The metallic scrape you here as a tram turns into another street is the flanges rubbing on the rail.

Some freight trains and the XPT round here lately obviously didn't get the memo.

no the video assumes the track is built on a solid roadbed and actually maintained. a lot of our lines particularly the Albury line suffers from a lack of both! The track is so bad it's throwing the trains from side to side so much it's relying on the safety devices.

I guess that's what happens when the organisation that owns and is responsible for the track is separate to the organisations running the train. The track organisation doesn't care if it costs the train organisations extra money. If the train operators don't like it the only alternative is Melbourne to Sydney via Adelaide and since the track owner owes that route too and effectively charges by the km...

Yes would be nice. The federal government who own ARTC and have totally butchered this track several times over trying to fix it when they converted it to standard gauge back in 2007. hasn't been right since and now they want to double deck, should be entertaining to say the least.
Countrylink and Vline have no chance of operating a decent service as far as I can see.

That was a very good explanation, on lots of the physics.
He didn't reach track cant (road camber). A lot of that is more about passenger comfort than vehicle safety. What is thrilling at Luna Park or in a chartered aerobatic flight isn't desirable for paying customers just looking for comfortable transport.
Rollover and climbover are even more complex. Rollover exists on rail and road; climbover is just rail.
Newspapers made a great fuss about the recent Broadford overturn: '100 km/h around a 25 km/h curve'.
The curve was built for 40 km/h, with a huge margin between the posted speed and the safety speed (rule of thumb: double the posted speed is still safe; just uncomfortable).
If the train had been electric instead of diesel, it would have got around (lower centre of gravity).
That is similar to what we know on roads: the advisory curve speeds are way lower than most vehicles can handle. VicRoads still pictures 1950 Ford Prefects.
Roderick

His next video should include the design shape of the track from new, it has a crown in it to complimemnt the taper of the wheel.

cobbadog wrote: His next video should include the design shape of the track from new, it has a crown in it to complimemnt the taper of the wheel.

The late Richard Feynman. The bane of the global warming cultists..





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I'm confused jack, what does that bloke have to do with railway track?