How can a single engine pull entire train??

Question

hey..for most people the ques may seem obvious but just look at it...c the only external force thats acting on the train is friction from tracks {ignore air} so watever is the coefficint of friction it remains teh same for both bogies nd engine but the net weight of bogies faar xceeding dat of train backward force shd b gr8er tahn forward in a case wer train can never move but it does...so wer hav i gone rong???/plz reply!!!

Answer 1

Sometimes it can't.  Really long and heavy trains can require up to 6 locomotives working together to pull them.

Answer 2

There is very low friction between the rails and the wheels - much lower than car tyres on an asphalt road. The main task in moving such large trains is to get them moving from a standstill. Once the train gets to speed, it will simply keep rolling due to its inetria and the low friction. Newton's first law.

Also, a single locomotive it typically not used. You can see trains with 45 coal cars being hauled by four locomotives at the front. The leading locomotive contains the crew, and the other three locomotives are wired up to copy whatever the first one does.

The couplings in the train aren't "rigid". There's slack between them, and this is how the train is moved from a standstill. First the locomotives move off, and then they move the first car. The coupling between the first and second car then goes into tension, and the second car starts to move. The locomotives and the first two cars then pull on the third car, and so on. So the entire train takes off one car at a time, all the way until the very last coupling - and once it's moving, the inertia and low friction will keep it rolling.

You can hear and feel the "wave" of couplings going into tension and cars moving off one at a time when a huge freight train takes off. Very loud! It's a fascinating thing to observe!

Answer 3

d engn cn ez o-come da frikshun bi its wait. 1-nce u git bogies movn iz ez 4 engn to pl da bogies.

Answer 4

train engines are very powerful. Some of them range from 1900HP to 4000HP. such power can easily pull many bogies and in cases where one engine is not enough then 2 or 3 engines are connected to pull train.