How Trains Turn...

[ianacole]

Hopefully not a repost ... came across this and thought it was neat. Never really gave it a lot of thought:

[YOUTUBE]y7h4OtFDnYE[/YOUTUBE]

 

[tooter]

What a brilliant explanation! Never knew that but it makes perfect sense. Feynman was truly a happy man.

Greg

 

[Artieiii]

Cool, I never thought of that. Some things we just take for granted. I have been enlightened.
-Art

 

[tankist]

that question bugged me the moment i got my first railroad. and the answer was revealed about right then as well by my grand pa
he used tapered cone glass to demonstrate the concept

 

[Artieiii]

Ok that makes me wonder about model trains. Do model trains have the same taper on the wheels or do we rely on the flanges for turning? That could help explain some seemingly mysterious derailing on some models and not on some others.
-Art

 

[tankist]

most of them do, but in our case that friction is negligible anyways.