Why does putting a carriage on rails make it much easier to pull? As in, how were the first trams such an improvement from omnibuses when the same weight was still being pulled?
In: 520
Rails have far less drag than rubber wheels.
The downside is that rail carriage are heavy, and can’t go everywhere, they need tracks.
Given that you need a strong push to accelerate, and power to keep the speed; given that early engines and horses had very strong traction but low power, rails literally changed the world. They allowed this early engines or horses to do just the acceleration work, and then keep the speed with minimal power usage (horses get less tired and steam engines consumed less of the precious coal)
Now that engines have higher power, keeping the speed is not the biggest concern, so we revert to the less efficient but more flexible wheel on road, at least for the most mundane uses.
Between this two eras, there was a time where another logic was applied: we already have the rails, let’s keep using them. Once the rails were worn down, which takes half a century or more, instead of redo the rails we scrapped them and implemented cars/trucks/buses.
Latest Answers