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I work at a train museum. Locomotives are fundamentally different. They have to have electric traction motors to grab the rails. Weight is unimportant. 125 t
by CapitalistCartr 9y ago
I work at a train museum. Locomotives are fundamentally different. They have to have electric traction motors to grab the rails. Weight is unimportant. 125 tons. That's a quarter million pounds, 113,400 kg. Automobiles need every weight-saving trick the engineers can pull off. Such as combination drives.
- mveety 9y agoAlso trains don't change speed super often so they can have their prime mover running in the power band all of the time. A car changes speed at lot so its more inefficient to have the prime mover running in its power band constantly to drive the generator.