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?
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In: Engineering
So while this could make sense for small passenger trains with few cars, in general slopes and hills cause issues with fright trains due to an increase in inter train forces. The slack between cars shifts as a train accelerates and brakes and you can easily get a knuckle break (the cars seperate) when slopes cause your train to have sections moving at different speeds. If your front end is accelerating down a hill while your back end is slowing down going up a hill, this strains the joints in trains.
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