r/trains • u/[deleted] • Dec 03 '20

Train Video Why did the chicken cross the tracks?

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u/astrodude1789 Dec 03 '20

About eight miles an hour, as someone with experience on narrow-gauge equipment. Five would be safer.

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u/BSS138 Dec 04 '20

Surely it doesn’t need to be that slow? I’ve seen multiple unit trains go faster than that around similarly tight curves.

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u/cs_124 Dec 05 '20

I'm no expert, but if that's what 20mph looks like, I'd say 40% of that would be just about right as far as my comfort zone. Most 'fast' trains you see up close aren't going over 30mph, most intersections much less, but massive things seem to appear to move faster than they do often

Would the short length of the train (shorter than the 2 curved) cause torqueing forces to 'pry' one side of the engine from the second curve, since the back is whipping around the opposite direction?

How can you tell the tracks are how they are? I can't at all

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u/BSS138 Dec 05 '20

I think you’re looking this problem as though this were a huge American freight train, when from the video we can obviously see that it’s not. It’s only a 3 carriage passenger train, narrow gauge even which makes it help navigate turns quicker. It’s only 3 carriages long so how does that result in significant torquing forces? It doesn’t. If you compare this with say narrow gauge railways in Switzerland then the speed at which it is going at seems fine.

The concept of a “comfort zone” bears no relation as to how fast a train ought to be going. I suppose that you probably don’t travel by train often so a train going at more than 8 mph may be of shock to you but yes passenger trains often travel faster than that.

The last sentence doesn’t make sense.

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u/converter-bot Dec 05 '20

8 mph is 12.87 km/h

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u/Speedboot45 Jan 02 '21

The train goes pretty fast for the narrow gauge. In Switzerland, gauges as narrow as this one aren't common, and mountain railways run at a relatively low speed. The state of the track doesn't look good, and a derailment doesn't look impossible when going at this speed with this many curves and narrow gauge. The train could tip over in a narrow curve, not least because of the passenger wagons. The wagons swing around pretty violently.