The vast majority of trains on the planet depend on the friction (also known as adhesion traction) between steel drive wheels and steel rails to turn power into motion, but the somewhat slippery metal-on-metal action can only offer so much traction. Back in the 1880s, one man thought he could fix that.
Charles E. Swinerton attempted to literally reinvent the wheel by tossing out good ol’ round-wheel technology in favor of wheels configured as 210-sided polygons [Ed note: I believe that would be a dihectakaidecagon– Pete]. Swinerton’s steam locomotive, the Onward, was supposed to prove to the world that round train wheels were old news, and that his polygon tech was the future. Here’s why it didn’t catch on.
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Driving Trains On Polygons
Not much information is available online about Charles E. Swinerton or his company, the Swinerton Locomotive Driving Wheel Company. From what I could find online, Swinerton was from New York, and his company was based in Maine. The Swinerton Locomotive Driving Wheel Company wasn’t a one-man shop, and Swinerton assembled a team of company executives, most from New York.
It appears that the Swinerton Locomotive Driving Wheel Company’s principal product was Swinerton’s wheel invention. On December 1, 1887, Scientific American reported, the Hinkley Locomotive Works in Boston, Massachusetts, completed a locomotive designed by the Swinerton Locomotive Driving Wheel Company. Reportedly, Hinkley was told by Swinerton to spare neither labor nor expense to make the best locomotive the works could produce.
The locomotive, named Onward, was a bit of an anachronism in its time. It was built in a 4-2-2 arrangement, which meant four leading wheels, two driving wheels, and two trailing wheels. This type of design was reportedly seen as outdated due to the low adhesion of having only two huge driving wheels rather than multiple sets. It’s unclear why Charles Swinerton chose an outdated locomotive design, but it’s possible that Swinerton might have intentionally chosen the older, low-adhesion design to prove just how effective his invention was.
The big problem Swinerton had with round wheels was the very tiny patch between the hard steel wheel and rail. This wasn’t great for adhesion, and in Swinerton’s eyes, this was where the locomotive was ripe for what he thought would be a great technological leap.
Swinerton’s idea was simple: If the tiny contact patch of a round wheel is why locomotive driving wheels have poor adhesion, why not make a wheel where the contact patches are large and flat? Swinerton’s solution was to turn a wheel into a polygon. From Scientific American:
The principal feature of interest which the engine was built to illustrate is its driving wheel tires. These are covered by patents of C. E. Swinerton, president of the company. In outline each of these represents a polygon with sides one inch long, giving about 210 sides for the entire circumference. Looking at the wheel under favorable circumstances, the sidee are barely noticeable. If the light shines at the right angle upon the periphery, they can be clearly distinguished. A short straight edge, even a pencil sufficing, discloses the existence of facets by the rocking or oscillation as it passes from face to face. The exact angle of the facets is shown in Fig. 2.
The object of the polygonal wheel is to increase traction, and very remarkable results are claimed for it in this regard. Several ordinary engines have been fitted with the tire and have run for long periods in regular service. The ‘Onward,” with a single pair of drivers, is designed to put the wheels to the severest test. The first regular work of the “Onward” was in regular service on the Boston and Maine Railroad, where for six months it pulled the Portland express, a distance of 115 miles, with six to eight cars.
Scientific American notes that the wheels had 210 sides; however, other period reports, like one from The Engineer, noted variations 118 or 105 sides. Based on reporting, one determining factor of how many sides a Swinerton wheel had was the size of each side, or facet. Each contact patch was between one inch and two inches long, depending on the exact model of the Swinerton wheel. According to the Boston Herald in 1889, Swinerton claimed that the average train driving wheel of the day had a contact patch 1/16 of an inch long, so his wheel was a clear improvement – on paper, at least.
Scientific American also notes that the wheels were manufactured using a milling machine to create each facet. In theory, a damaged wheel would also be repaired through the same machine. A cost wasn’t specified, but it was reported that the creation of these wheels could be done for cheap.
Onward Into The History Books
The Onward weighed 45 tons and exerted 32,000 pounds on its 5-foot, 6-inch tall driving wheels. All of the locomotive’s wheels, save for the drivers, were made out of wrought iron. Drivers were made out of iron, except for the tires, which were made out of Krupp steel. Other notable features include 150 pounds of steam capacity, Westinghouse automatic and vacuum-operated brakes, and a built-in scoop to retrieve water from a trough.
The locomotive also featured a special pneumatic cylinder and lever designed to increase pressure on the driving wheels. When the cylinder was filled with air, it increased pressure on the driving wheels by up to 4,000 pounds for more traction.
The Onward was put through rather hard testing, from Scientific American:
Previous to this commission, the tractive power had been tried, and for several days it hauled 65 to 70 cars of coal from Boston to Lowell. This went to prove its capacity for handling loads usually pulled by four-driver engines. After the B. & M. runs were concluded in July, 1889, some special tests were made. A gradient of 87 feet to the mile was selected, and the number of cars which the engine could pull with and without sand was determined. Then the tires were turned off round and the same trials were repeated. The results as reported were remarkable, showing a great increase in tractive power from the use of polygonal tires.
The change of engineers was made to avoid any charge of partiality. One very peculiar result is the comparatively little difference in tractile power due to the use of sand in the case of the polygonal wheels. The disproportion in the loads moved by the polygonal and circular wheels is very striking in both cases. As regards practical points, it is found that the engine runs as quietly as any other.
The departure from the circle is too slight to occasion any rattling. In the first experiments, wheels with 2 inch facets were tried, and even they could not be distinguished in quietness of running from round wheels. In wearing, the facets do not disappear. It is found that a flat spot upon a tire in ordinary work never wears away. In like manner, the many flat spots on the Swinerton tire are preserved. An engine which ran 60,000 miles upon the Boston and Lowell R. R. with polygonal tires wore down in. from their periphery, but the characteristic surface was preserved to the last. Since the engine has been on the Jersey Central R. R. she has been pulling a train of five cars from Jersey City to Easton, Pa., a distance of 75 miles, with 14 stops, in two hours and two minutes.
Railroads Didn’t Bite
The claims, at least made by the testing published in trade journals, seemed to prove that a locomotive with only a pair of polygonal wheels had the traction of a locomotive with twice the driving wheels. The Swinerton wheel also did this without subjecting the locomotive to excessive vibrations or wearing out its own flat surfaces, according to Scientific American.
Yet, the Swinerton wheel never caught on. The locomotive and the wheels were trialed throughout the East Coast, but railroads did not bite. An official explanation was never given, but modern retellings of the story point out that Swinerton’s logic was flawed. He allegedly assumed that steel wheels did not deform, hence the hilariously tiny contact patch of just 1/16 of an inch. But in reality, steel does deform, at least a little. So the contact patch of a round wheel was actually larger than he believed.
Further, there were other practical issues with polygonal wheels, such as the fact that the locomotive brake pads of the era pressed directly against the wheel’s driving surface (as opposed to pinching a rotor or pressing pads against the sides of a drum, as we expect with a car) and were smoothly curved to match the profile of the wheel. As such, they weren’t as efficient acting on a polygonal wheel surface. And despite Swinerton’s claim the polygonal wheels could be made cheaply, they were still more expensive than plain round wheels. Apparently, railroads just didn’t see enough benefits for the added complexity.
Swinerton Tries Again
Looking at trade journals, it appears that Swinerton became a bit of a subject of mockery. In 1892, Locomotive Engineering reported that Swinerton might have failed to convince the railroads to buy his wheels, but maybe streetcar companies would want them instead:
Some mechanical fallacies are very hard to kill out. We supposed that the Swinerton polygonal wheel had lost its grip, but we find by a newspaper notice that the company which controls this peculiar invention are struggling to force it into use for street-car service. We understand that the Lobdell Wheel Co. are making cast-iron chilled wheels after the Swinerton design for street-car service. We hope they will be able to demonstrate more value for the thing than what surface railroads were able to do.
In 1895, the Electric Railway Gazette wrote that the Swinerton company had moved to Boston and was going all-in on marketing polygonal wheels for streetcars. Similar promises of huge improvements were made, from the Electric Railway Gazette:
The application of the wheel to electric railways has demonstrated that it possesses important advantages securing, it is claimed, more perfect traction, quick and complete control of car, overcomes grades, renders possible operation of cars with single motors, and draws the cars under all conditions of rail and weather without slipping and without sand. Until, however, something less than a year ago the wheel had never been applied to electric railway purposes. During this period its application has been closely watched, the defects have been remedied, and to-day it is claimed to be almost as perfect as it can be made.
It has been in operation the longest upon the Newton (Mass.) Street Railway Company and Superintendent Henderson has evidently subjected the wheels to the most severe tests and says that “the perfected wheel seems to cover just what is wanted by all electric roads, particularly those who run cars with single motors. The facets have a value. They reduce slipping to the minimum and help a car along greatly on a bad rail.” The new wheel weighs about 400 pounds as against 300 for the ordinary wheel, and it is claimed will run until worn out. The Newton Street Railway Company, it is understood, is equipping its cars as rapidly as possible with the latest form of Swinerton wheels. The Quincy & Boston Street Rail way Company is using them. The Norfolk & Suburban Street Railway Company is equipping with them as fast as possible and the Lynn & Boston road has a set of these wheels that it is expected will be running on this road in about a month.
Dead End Tech
Ultimately, the whole Swinerton wheel venture ended up being a dead end. It’s still not known exactly what went wrong. Perhaps Swinerton was too far ahead of his time. Perhaps putting polygonal wheels on a locomotive of an obsolete design was the wrong move. Maybe the railroads just didn’t see enough benefit to spend more on heavier, more complex wheels.
Whatever the reason, the Onward story had a sad ending. Once it was realized that the Swinerton wheel wasn’t going anywhere, the locomotive’s driving wheels were converted to regular round wheels, and the locomotive was sold to the Portland & Rochester Railroad. The locomotive would be rebuilt into a more typical design a few years later. Sadly, Onward only made it to 1905 before it was scrapped.
No rail equipment manufacturer today makes polygonal train wheels, but polygonal wheels are a thing – though not intentionally. Round train wheels can wear into a sort of polygonal pattern, and this wear is known to cause vibration, cracks, and worse issues.
Swinerton’s invention seemed promising. On paper, his wheel was a big improvement to an old technology, but convincing potential customers to care was a hurdle Swinerton could not get over. In the end, Swinerton technically reinvented the wheel, at least briefly. And though it was ultimately a failure, I still love the can-do spirit behind the idea.
Until now, I had no idea this was ever a thing. Thanks Mercedes!
Great article!
Can you do a deep dive into the paper wheels that were fairly popular on passenger cars in the late 19th century?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_car_wheel
Great article, and definitely something I wasn’t aware ever existed. Way cool, thought provoking, and obscure. Love it!
One invention that did come out of railroad research, and is amazingly elegant is the Harmonic Drive – a way to get massive gear reduction with only 3 parts. The key being to use an oval drive instead of round, driving a ductile inner gear. It ended up being used on the moon and in other rovers. robotics, and precision actuators.
https://youtu.be/bzRh672peNk?si=HUXH1OhQzI5BXBDD
They are also in use on eBikes. Makes for an extremely compact and pretty quiet drive unit. No surprise, they were brought to market by a German robot and actuator company.
Train wheels are cone shaped so I wonder how contact patch is measured.
Jersey City to Easton in just over 2 hours with 14 stops is pretty impressive. It’s a good hour by car with no traffic and stops.
The ancestor of the wrinkle wall drag slick.
Or more directly the cog railway.
Mt. Washington cog railway had been running for nearly 20 years prior to this.
Yeah, added cog railway to drag slick without thinking of the timeline.
Since railroads in the USA got paid extra for every mile of mountain track, and were given a square mile of land for every mile of track, climbing a steep grade was much less profitable than laying lots of track winding back and forth. Grade climbing was actually disincentivized at the construction stage.
The Mt Washington cog is an interesting story. By the 1860’s, the top of Mt. Washington (New Hampshire) was a popular destination, there was a lodge at the top of the mountain. A local guy came up with the idea for the cog railway as a quicker way to the top. Most people thought he was crazy, but gave him the go ahead, thinking he’d fail. He essentially said, “challenge accepted” and made it happen, and it runs to this day.
I took it a few years ago and it was pretty cool. It’s wild how steep it is, you board the train to find the seats are mounted at an angle, it’s odd when you initially sit on flat ground, but once it hits the grade, you’re sitting level.
I’ve only taken the pikes peak cog railway, and one in Switzerland when I was about 15 years old, and I only remember that because there is a Kodachrome of me pointing at it’s rack.
This is a nice illustration of just how many side roads new tech took in the 1800s. The pace of development was so much faster compared to the 1700s, and the scale of projects was typically so much greater.
Inventors needed to rush to market to get capital and also to lock down patents. If they spent decades working on prototypes and trying to nail down every variable, there was a good chance someone else would beat them.
Swinerton was wrong but he wasn’t really crazy. He made a few sales and saw some go into operation, which was actually a bigger achievement than a lot of 19th Century inventors. Even an operation like Edison’s company which had a lot of success also had far more failures. There was a general attitude that it was better to try before you knew everything and risk failure than to perfect everything.
Of course that attitude also led to horrific infustrial accidents, pollution, and financial crashes, so you can’t be too nostalgic either.
Move fast and break things.
Yeah, we get it.
I think one of the ironies of modern tech is the people who say things like “move fast and break things” are actually moving slowly and failing to move on past their mistakes.
A lot of tech is stagnating, generating a ton of waste, and running into diminishing returns faster than ever.
“I think one of the ironies of modern tech is the people who say things like “move fast and break things” are actually moving slowly and failing to move on past their mistakes”
It brings to mind out of shape couch potatoes who wear *inspirational* athleasure “Just Do It!” shirts and the like but clearly never do.
Fascinating stuff! And this would be the first time I’ve read a train article that instantly reminds me of building CG game models back in the late nineties. 210 polys was right around the polygonal budget for an entire vehicle.
Have you seen the square-wheeled trikes at the math museum in NYC?
https://momath.org/banner-1/
You know what Maine is next to? Canada, buddy! This was just a test for square wheels. 🙂
Wonderful idea on paper, but it should have stayed there. I could see this being a niche application like for dockyard shunting engines, or near mines or other places with terrain (where a cogwheel isn’t quite needed, but round wheels slip).
Otherwise it looks like just a rough casting of a round wheel. Enough mileage and it’ll be round eventually…
Dang, my Apple II can only calculate 210 segments for a circle. No problem, sell it as a feature!
I wonder about the contact patch at the corners. Sure, the flat side would have a larger contact patch, but the entire flat side only contacts the rail at very specific angles. At any other angle, between flats, the contact patch would be even smaller than a round wheel.
So, how would the friction compare on average over a rotation?
There’s also an interesting aspect of static vs sliding friction. Moving from a start, a round wheel will have the same patch size during both a static start and if the wheel slips. The polygon wheel might have more static friction to get started, if you were lucky enough to have a flat aligned to the track when stopped, but it might also be on a corner, giving less static friction. Once it slips, even when it finally encounters a flat, it’s now sliding, when friction is much lower.
Take into account wheel deformation, and the comparison would get really interesting. It might be a fun project for a bored mechanical engineer, inclined to run the FEM mutiphysics simulations.
I came to the comment section looking specifically for this. Frankly I can’t believe this question didn’t come up in the article or (apparently?) in the criticism from contemporaries in that era.
It seems so obvious that as the wheel turns, it only spends a very small percentage of the time running on a flat side with more contact patch.
If it really did improve traction, as most of the quoted reports seem to indicate, I suspect it’s because the sharp edges “bite” into the rail, not because increased surface area is helping. I think they may have improved traction by *reducing* contact area, not *increasing* it!
This problem has been solved. Modern locomotives have a ‘sand box’ that blows dry sand, usually using compressed air, at the junction of the driving wheels and the rail. The sand is often heated to make it dry.
Ya know if you just mount a jet engine on the top of the cab it can provide the forward force to propel the train forward past any slipping spots.
Done back in the ’60s by the US & USSR. Deemed impractical, albeit fast, at best.
https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/russians-built-turbo-jet-train-in-1960s
That is where I got the ideas
And the French, who in typically French fashion went one further by making it a hover-jet-train.
Here’s the US version, done by NY Central on a Budd RDC
https://www.american-rails.com/m-497.html
Locomotives had sand domes back then. It’s even mentioned in the article
Interesting. Wouldn’t those wheels be harder on the rails?
Im recalling an old “big wheel” with a flat spot on the drive wheel. Thump,thump, thump,…
Sounds like that guy was selling snake oil.
The small contact patch in a train wheel is what gives so little rolling resistance, and is therefore a bonus of that technology.
If he wanted better grip, using a softer metal would’ve made more sense, but again, who needs that in a train?
Softer metal would wear more quickly; it seems like this was a way to make it act like softer metal, while using harder ones. It ‘bit’ into the rail a bit harder on those edges, focusing the pressure a bit more.
Wouldn’t biting into the rails wear them down quicker too?
I think it’s just deforming slightly, not actually removing material.
boring ass article. Do better.
I object to your comment.
We don’t do that here.
Did you forget the “/s”?
I liked it. Don’t be a jerk.
If you read a story about a train wheel design expecting excitement that’s probably a problem with you, not the article.
Oh no! People generally enjoy my dives into weird train history. What did I do wrong this time?
Admittedly, I didn’t have as detailed documentation or quality imagery as I normally work with, but that’s a downside of primary sources that are over 125 years old.
You did nothing wrong. Interesting article.
They misunderstood the topic anyway. It was not even about ass.
“Boring ass-article”
Worked for me since it had engineering, trains, vintage junk!
You did nothing wrong, IMHO. I thought it was a very interesting article and I enjoyed reading it. I was really intrigued by the polygonal wheel idea and wondered how the story would turn out. I’m admittedly a fan of an underdog story, and Swinerton was certainly that. Of course, I knew that his polygonal wheel idea didn’t work out in the end, but I was hoping he would find some path to success – that’s the way the multi-sided ball bounces sometimes, though. I was also very surprised that the wheels didn’t cause catastrophic sympathetic vibrations, and that the facets didn’t wear down with use. It does seem like ol’ Swiney’s idea actually worked, allowing 2-driver engines to match the performance of 4-drivers, but he obviously lacked the salesmanship to overcome inertia in the market. Trying to replace a reasonably satisfactory product with one that is perceived to be only marginally better is a difficult job and takes a really special person to do so (like Steve Jobs, for example). Swinerton apparently wasn’t up to the task, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Anyway, while I always enjoy your train stories, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s OK. Plenty of us enjoy them, so keep ’em coming! I don’t know if Sofonda’s comment was meant to be humorous in some way that escapes me, or if they’re just having a bad day, but don’t let it get you down!
that was a boring ass comment. I love Mercedes work. I just find the train articles to be boring. Get over it
Then don’t read them and keep your comment to yourself.
Ask for a refund?
Or maybe don’t read an article you know you won’t enjoy?
Some people are just jerks. The takeaway is that for every jerk comment you get hundreds of comments about how interesting your ‘out there’ articles are. Carry on, we love you
Mercedes,
The vast majority ( my guess 99.999 percent)of the true Autopian members really appreciate all the hard work you put in .
To wake up and check on your article and find this comment really sucks.
Im not sure what Sofanda is trying to accomplish with his or her comment ,perhaps just be an asshole?
If that was their goal they succeeded.
We got your back Mercedes ,keep up the great work.
I think we’re getting trolls and/or bots in here. This isn’t the first thin insult comment I’ve read lately. They’re all generic one line “This sux, your dumb” messages.
Tbf not every article can appeal to every reader. Although actually articulating specifically what you didn’t like would be better.
Oh, of course. Even I don’t read every article.
But, it’s as you said, rude little one-liners aren’t helpful and to me, reek of trolling.
I read every article I post my thoughts I appreciate response from more educated members but in the end I make my own decisions. My how terrible a person I must be for not accepting what the borg collective is for
I’m not understanding where this statement is coming from?
Mercedes,
Your articles are consistently interesting. Keep up the great work!
Mercedes, I appreciate your railroad stories and your other deep dives. I was a railfan when younger and reading your in depth writings are always fun. This particular wheel story revealed the out of the box thinking and innovation attempts during that era. Your contributions to Autopian is one of the major reasons I became a member.
The story of not round wheels also reminded me of the experience of driving bias ply and early fiberglass belted radial tires in very cold weather. Ah, the joys of slowly clip clopping down the road until the tires eventually softened.
I’m not a jerk and love your articles. This one just wasn’t up to the usual kept me engaged standard. Really wasn’t trying to piss people off. Not every article you write is going to appeal to me. I enjoy your deep dives. This one just bored me. Doesn’t mean I won’t read your future work, you are an awesome talent and I love your RV articles.
Oh, whew. 🙂
Amusingly enough, I sometimes get emails from people telling me to either stop writing about RVs or to write for an RV site. But then I also get emails telling me that the RV and train stuff is awesome and to keep it up.
I have learned that because I write about so many different subjects, there’s bound to be something that someone will not like. That’s okay! I’m sure I’ll undoubtedly write something next week that you’ll love. Have a great weekend!
I’m not a train or RV buff but I enjoy reading about it as a break from the car stuff. It’s nice to have range
You consistently write interesting articles, MS. And the topics you cover are squarely in the wheelhouse of a site devoted to transportation, cars just being the most common denominator.
I’ve done Amtrak from Boston to Orlando, SF to Seattle, etc. so I find train material fascinating. As a kid I grew up on class trips to the Black River & Western steam locomotive out of Flemington, NJ. As an adult, I lived in NW IL, and made the annual pilgrimage with my kids to the train museum for the Thomas the Tank event.
Thank you for that.
Thanks for sticking around and clarifying. I think it would be more helpful to ask yourself not if you are a jerk, but if you wrote a jerky comment. I, along with a lot of other autopians, believe you did. Why? Based on your explanation, the comment comes down to “I (consumer of freely-available online content another human worked hard to produce) am upset this content did not align with my specific interests, and I place that blame on the content producer who I expect not only to know exactly what those specific interests are, but also cater to them.” It’s ok not to like everything Mercedes writes. All we ask is that you take the additional step of realizing that’s a YOU problem, not a Mercedes problem.
Tbf I believe a good site appreciates honest feedback. We have seen what happens to a site where the writers only write about what they want ignore or attack their readers and then just go off on irrational political tangents on say a car website. There is a car site out there that sometimes goes days without posting a car article. They actually lost pretty much all the great automotive journalists at one time or another.
BTW anyone catch Fancy Kristens article on the Honda Hybrid? No dates so it may be old but it was entertaining
There’s for sure a place for feedback. I’d argue “boring ass article. Do Better.” is not feedback, or at least not useful feedback. Someone unwilling to take the effort to explain why they found the article boring isn’t trying to be constructive, they’re just being mean.
I agree I think you should read i wrote that too
Yes, exactly this.
It’s perfectly fine to share constructive feedback, and that doesn’t mean it has to be super-detailed or exquisitely crafted critique… but it’s got to be a lot better than just a pissy one-liner.
Their additional comments clarified their stance a little more and seemed more reasonable, but the original complaint was jerky and mean, and not in any way helpful or constructive.
That sounds like a “you” problem, and trying to make it everyone else’s problem is jerkish behaviour. Hope everyone’s day gets better.
For my part I enjoyed the article that’s why I read it but was posing why or if it was good/bad
I for one also enjoyed the sources you linked and found it interesting reading through, even the non-train related stuff.
I read this article and found it very interesting and well researched, like the rest of your articles. I clicked on it because my dad’s first job was at American Steel Wheel, which made train wheels. We had one around the house that was used as an ashtray, but it disappeared by the time we cleared the house after they passed away.
Personally, I found it very interesting. Keep up the great work!
Was hoping there was a story about how “Big Wheel” (hee hee) used their clout to keep hex wheel down even though it was a genius product, or stories of engineers fillings (wooden teeth?) falling out from the bumpy ride, or women going into labor prematurely, you know, stuff like that.
Everything is boring when you don’t understand it.
I think it would be A-ok to just delete comments like these, rather than give them any attention.
Regardless of the science behind the arguments both for and against, when it comes to polygonal wheels, there always another side.
The polygonal wheels were multifaceted.
Even if you assume the greater contact patch when pressed flat was superior, surely the Swinerton contact patch was infinitesimal when between facets?
Would be if nothing deformed, but metals do deform (wheel and track), and with the point down the point has huge stresses that deform it, and equal and opposite stresses on the track that is deformed as it is being bit into. It’s a mess.
Also, if lots of trains used the wheels, you might see wear patterns develop on the tracks akin to washboard roads or sand ripples at a seashore.
With the weight of the locomotive on it, even the slight lifting of that much weight as the wheel turned from a flat onto a point would surely increase the normal force on the rail tremendously, so even with a low coefficient of friction this peak due to lifting the locomotive could provide a benefit on traction on initial application of torque. Of course this also comes with a huge increase in local stress, possible slippage after the peak passes and the locomotive falls slightly into the next flat, and dramatic changes in these dynamics as the speed changes, but fundamentally the idea seems sound at least for low speeds or starting from a stop, even if it wasn’t worth the effort in the end. At high speeds it’s likely just skipping from peak to peak, so it could be quite a bit worse, especially if sudden braking is necessary, with more deformation so the rolling resistance would likely be hurt too
Hey maybe redesign the rails to create a greater contact point?
There’s not much point creating a faceted wheel when in a few thousand miles it will wear down to a circle.
Out of warranty by then..
“They all do that”
Now is that a warranty or a guarantee?
Can I get a saving throw on that polygon?
Natural 210, you proceed down the tracks.
Yes!
Physics does not support the claims of Swinerton. Multiple flat surfaces should cause mega vibrating. Even if it isn’t felt the actual surface area goes from bigger to much smaller when on the ends. Ang given the multiple parts needed to create the many flat surfaces not only would braking be Hindered but manufacturing and wear and tear cause much larger expenses. Frankly I don’t understand why they just don’t work on a higher friction material for the wheels
Train wheels have to be very hard so they don’t wear out. The number of hard yet high friction materials is zero.
This is why they increase traction using heavier engines with more driven wheels instead
Good to know thanks
Higher friction materials exist, and are commonly used on…….. Basically any vehicle that isn’t a train. However, wear and rolling resistance are orders of magnitude higher for rubber tires, so they’re totally impractical for trains.
Just not sure if new metal or something might be better than before
This statement from you should surprise absolutely no one.
Luv it. But just to show you are wrong I have invented a new idea to handle all the negatives, it requires no new design and is based on a long time invention in the grocery field. So here we go.
1. For 99% of the time we need steel on steel.
2. On occasion not enough friction so need something like rubber to create the friction
3. Rubber will wear so fast it won’t last.
4. Won’t last but how long does it need to las
5. When freeing a stuck car you only need enough friction to move it less than a few feet.
6. Have you ever seen those plastic bags in the grocery store produce section that are on a roll and dispense automatically and tear off at the proper length?
7. How about a roll of rubber strapping that is dispensed when flipping is recognized like we have for 4wd, it shoots out a piece of rubber strapping like an automatic hand towel dispenser, it slips under the spinning wheel provides traction for 3 feet or whatever distance is determined as needed to provide traction then it is spit out and the train wheel is back in on steel to steel?
How about that Elvis? Although that comment was funny
Stating my honest, unfiltered opinion of you & your ideas will likely get me banned.
I love the way you post even if you don’t get the science.
Yes, you’re a guy who should be offering lessons on “science”.
Let me laugh harder, clown.
I believe the convention is “two hundred ten”-gon, not “two hundred and ten”-gon, which would make it a dihectadecagon.
Gosh darn I love our readers. ♥
This is the pedantry I came here for!
Thank you for saying what we were all thinking.