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
Steel rails are very hard. When wheels roll on a flexible surface, it’s like they are always rolling uphill. When the surface flexes, the contact patch of the wheel sits at the center of a slight dip. When it rolls, it has to climb from the bottom of that dip, which is equivalent to going uphill.
This is also the reason why it makes sense to replace wooden railroad ties with concrete ties. Wood is more flexible than concrete, so the whole rail gets pressed down more when it rests on wooden ties. Since the ties ahead of the train aren’t being pressed down, this means there always exists a small uphill grade ahead of a train rolling on a track with wooden ties.
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