TIMEOUT FOR TECH FIGURE 1. Track of the Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway. Reaching 14,115 feet at the summit of Pikes Peak, it is the highest railway in North America and the highest cog railway in the world. (Courtesy of Gary T. Fry.)
GUIDEWAY, BEARING, AND BEAM
THE ESSENTIAL ROLES OF RAIL BY GARY T. FRY, PH.D., P.E.
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elcome to “Timeout for Tech with Gary T. Fry, Ph.D., P.E.” Each month, we examine a technology topic that professionals in the railway industry have asked to learn more about. This month we focus on steel rail. The mass movement of goods and people 52 Railway Age // November 2022
by rail is the second-most energy efficient mode of transportation—second only to watercraft in navigable waterways. A main contributing factor to the efficiency of rail transportation is the extremely low rolling resistance created by hard steel wheels rolling on hard steel rails. Another factor is the favorable aerodynamic slipstream created by trains at speed. There are no theoretical limits as to the
maximum weight or maximum length of a train. But there are practical limits that arise from economic, social, political, technological, geographic, geologic, and topographic constraints, all of which must be managed effectively for a railway to be successful. Regardless of these constraints, however, in terms of energy efficiency, rail transportation enjoys substantial and fundamental scientific advantages over railwayage.com