Trains (whether its a subway/tube or a regular locomotive) travel very quick, and when approaching a station, they need to slow down to a stop.
Why not have the station be built slightly elevated from the tracks? so as the train approaches, it has to climb an upward slope (and therefore trade kinetic energy for potential energy)?
And then when it leaves the station, it can more quickly accelerate and gain up to its target speed? Wouldn’t this be more efficient?
​
In: Engineering
On subways they sometimes actually do this.
The problem with doing it on some other types of railroad, is that not all stations are served by all trains using the track. If your train is supposed to just keep going past a station and not stop there, then it’s still going to be affected by the uphill into the station and the downhill away from it, and it wastes energy for the train operator to have to adjust for that each time.
Latest Answers