Hello!!! This has always confused me since I was a kid.
How exactly do modern cars, or older steam locomotives, move when they have multiple tons of metal sitting on top of them? Like how does all of that mass sit on an axel and the axel is still able to rotate at high speeds? I’ve seen train axels/wheels in person and it’s basically a large metal rod with a wheel on each end. Does the force of the engine overcome the friction of all of that weight?
Thank you in advance!
For anyone else who is curious about this in the future, several of the comments below were super helpful. I was also able to find this video on YouTube as a visual demonstration based on the leads these guys provided!
https://youtu.be/lIEHscqWJAk
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The friction is very low when you rub polished steel against polished steel. Trains just need to overcome inertia to get moving. That is why they don’t accelerate very fast or stop very fast. The way locomotives can get more friction by spraying sand down by the steel wheels to create friction between the wheel and the tracks.
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