Eli5: Why train wheels don’t slip on the rails, when both the wheels and the rails are made of metal?

Question

Eli5: Why train wheels don’t slip on the rails, when both the wheels and the rails are made of metal?

In: 15

Answer 1

Massive pressure helps – trains are really heavy and the contact points between rail and wheel are tiny.

They don’t slip off when going around corners because the wheels are shaped like shallow cones where the inside is slightly smaller than the outside. It’s some clever engineering. Means the whole thing becomes self centring.