Trains accelerate incredibly slowly and often have a single gear that is optimised for high speed. Similar to trying to pull away in your car in too high of a gear this makes trains really slow and takes along time for them to hit their high speed.
Most cars will often have 4 (for very old cars) – 6 gears to keep acceleration smooth and fast whilst still being efficient at high speed but trains don’t.
I get that electric motors have all of the torque available at low RPMs whilst ICE only have full power at a high rpm but wouldn’t gears still allow trains to get to higher speeds quicker?
In: Engineering
Trains are amazingly underpowered compared to cars. Freight trains are somewhere around 0.5 to 2 horsepower per ton. You’re average car is somewhere around 100 horsepower per ton. That’s why trains can’t go up hills more than about a 2% grade and accelerate very slowly.
However, they are very efficient. Trains can move a ton of freight over 470 miles on a single gallon of fuel.
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