Just passed by a train with a hundred or so cargo crates. how do they start? I understand how they continue moving, but how do they overcome the inertia of starting it? It has to be like thousands of tons, and I can’t imagine a bunch of coal being able to start moving that. unless of course it can, in which ELI5
In: Engineering
Something nobody has mentioned yet is that electric trains use ‘traction motors’ which have very high torque at low speeds, reducing as the speed increases. So it’s not like your internal combustion engine with a clutch and gearbox where the engine needs to have a certain number of revs before it can do any useful work without stalling. And most (I believe) so called diesel locomotives are actually diesel-electric. Where the diesel drives electric motors.
When you think about the work these things can do, these are some pretty serious motors and generators.
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