Why do trains only have a single gear?

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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

14 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Electric cars don’t have gears, too. Electric vehicles don’t need them.
Trains accelerate slowly because of steel tires on stelle tracks. There is not much grip.

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