DynamicSpirit
Established Member
A question that randomly popped into my head... What, in engineering terms, is it that limits the maximum speed that trains can travel on any particular stretch of line? If you wanted to upgrade a section of line to allow higher speeds, what would you typically need to change?
Clearly a big factor is going to be the radius of any curves: Straighter = faster because you want to limit the sideways force as trains go round the curves; but I assume there must be other things because I can think of places where track seems to be reasonably straight but where trains usually go fairly slowly, so I'd presume something else is limiting the maximum speed.
I'm asking in general - not thinking of any particular locations.
Clearly a big factor is going to be the radius of any curves: Straighter = faster because you want to limit the sideways force as trains go round the curves; but I assume there must be other things because I can think of places where track seems to be reasonably straight but where trains usually go fairly slowly, so I'd presume something else is limiting the maximum speed.
I'm asking in general - not thinking of any particular locations.