I’ve googled it but just can’t seem to grasp it. How do they stay on as well as they do at such high speeds, with so few incidents of crashing or derailing? Especially when anything could be lying across the track waiting to get lodged in the wheels.
I hear so often that trains are so safe, but I don’t think I can get over my anxiety with them until I understand *why* they’re safe.
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Trains are very heavy, so gravity holds them onto the track. They can’t slide off the track because the wheels have flanges which hold them on, and they can’t bounce out because the train is too heavy. They have to hit something very heavy to push the wheels out of the tracks.
The bit where they might be at risk of derailing would be on a bend, which is why the bendier your track is the slower you go (just like in a car)
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