Why Trains Beat Trucks and Planes: Efficiency Explained in Under 5 Minutes
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ค. 2024
- In this episode, we explore why #trains are the most efficient form of transportation over land. Wayne Kennedy, a seasoned fuel efficiency expert for railroads, breaks down the key factors that make trains superior to trucks and planes. Discover how the low coefficient of friction, steel-on-steel contact, advanced aerodynamics and operational strategies contribute to unparalleled efficiency.
00:56 - Friction
01:50 - Fuel Efficiency Comparison
02:10 - Materials
02:42 - Aerodynamics
03:09 - Operational Strategies
03:45 - Planes
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Correction: Friction does not determine efficiency. In fact, high friction is desired for any vehicle that rolls on wheels. The thing that makes trains so much more efficient than trucks is their extremely low rolling resistance.
Exactly! The reason why high friction at the wheels does not reduce fuel efficiency is because there is no "sliding" between the wheel and the track, meaning no energy is lost as a result of the static friction.
Good points! We’ve tried to keep things simple so we can reach a wide audience by briefly explaining a variety of factors that contribute to efficiency. We’d love to dive deeper though…maybe a future episode on rolling resistance is in the cards. 🤔
I have studied railroads for 50 years. When I tell people that the United States has the most efficient rail system in the world - our freight rail system - they don't believe it. Our freight trains are also super-efficient because of diesel-electric locomotive power, which combines the force of diesel with the finesse of electric driving of the wheels which is needed, for instance, to get a 10,000 ton coal train moving from a dead stop with very slow turning of the wheels (imagine trying to do that with a clutch). We need freight trains for heavy loads and for long-distance hauls. Trucks can fill in the shorter routes at each end. They are a great system when working together.
Also three locomotives can transport about 120 rail cars. How many transport trucks would that take to move same. How many people die each year in truck crashes compared to rail related deaths.
Finally someone says this!
1:38 there are no cement roadways. They are made out of concrete. My father, an architect, explained when I was seven years old that “cement comes in bags“.
Very well said, excellent video. 👏👏
Thanks!
It depends. Truck is more efficient for last mile and first mile because it can reach almost every part of the cities. And the plane is more efficient for long distance because it is faster and cheaper than train. If we talk about most efficient way to transport cargo, ship is the most efficient, and then high-occupancy train. Ship, train, truck, and plane complement each other. Without trucks, trains operation cost wouldn't be efficient. Similarly, without planes, packages that need to be delivered quickly wouldn't reach their destinations on time.
Trains are indeed more efficient, what I don't get is why they are so expensive (train ticket vs bus ticket or airplane ticket)
Probably because they need a lot of designated infrastructure. Trucks run on the roads which are being built anyway (the ticket you pay could be compared to the toll on the road if there is one or the tax on your vehicle). Airplanes only need the airports (and AirTrafficControl) so they both have a lot of less complex infrastructure, while trains need their own tracks, tunnels, bridges etc. That makes the train expensive. But in the end its a question of where to invest the money. Infrastructure is expensive in any case, only that roads are mostly much better funded, so that railroads are and stay expensive...
To build and maintain a railway track is expensive. Signals, track switches and replacing ballast and sleepers.
Railway operation requires many high skilled-high paid workers.
Tracks are not always owned by the railway company, but by another company. So company A has to pay company B for track use.
Airplane fuel, kerosine is taxfree, thanks to an international treaty, the diesel fuel train are using are taxed.
Rail is competing with itself: it is freight trains vs passagier trains. Both want to use the same track at the same time. But only one can use the track, so the other has to wait. So either delay for passagiers or freight.
In Germany train tickets are cheap if you book weeks in advance. I found a ticket from Utrecht, NL, to Munich, D, for a mere 39 Euros/ 43 USD. To travel 500 miles/ 800 km.
@@jakobh8138 he talk about ticket price, not the price to build the railroad
This video is about cargo, not passengers.
Can someone send this video to elon musk?
He knows. He already admitted that he made up hyperloop just to disrupt high speed rail plans in US.
He knows just fine that he can't compete with rail on merit.
What about Ocean Liners they’re more comparable than Jets since they use horse power and Not thrust like that of jets
Even ships too
As someone who specializes in physics and aerodynamics... Your statements are technically correct but your explanations are definitely not.
Energy loss in wheels is not due to friction. When a wheel contacts a rolling surface the point of contact doesn't move. That means it's the static coefficient of friction. If you're using kinetic friction on a wheel it means your wheel is slipping. Static friction doesn't cost energy... Where you lose energy in a wheel is due to structural defamation of the wheel at the point of contact. That structural defamation and reformation causes heating, and it's that heating that represents your loss of energy. Same exact thing with the truck tire. As for the aerodynamics... I'm not going to touch that, but... 🤨
Now when it comes to gravity, the gravity doesn't help the train or the truck one way or another. Where the train has an advantage is in its mass. A train has so much mass that it's able to store gravitational potential energy and convert it back and forth between potential and kinetic energy very efficiently. And because trains are so long and the links between them are both tensile and compressive a train is effectively able to average out the gravitational potential energy along its length. This is why regenerative braking works better for heavy objects than for small things like bikes.
We hear you on the technicalities, great points about the difference between kinetic and static COF. The idea behind these explainer videos is that they explain technical topics in lay terms-this usually results in a simplified definition. Thanks for the added insights!
The reason is train dont get stuck in traffic but instead train creates the traffic lol
Trains _are_ traffic with potentially higher throughput that isn't stuck, and they remove traffic jams by offloading people to trains
The BART transit company calculated that the average passagiers on a single train/ subway is equal to 6 miles of 1 lane car traffic. If every passagier would take a car with only him/ her on it.
th-cam.com/video/F8I_s1qxhH4/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=GeertKloppenburg
À clip about how trains, bikes and busses moved nearly 100.000 visitors of F1 race, in 1 day. Turn on English subtitels.
if this is true railways would be everywhere
they are not
they all have been ripped up to favour roads and trucks
Google says us has about 160,000 miles (260,000 km), and Europe 94,000 miles (151,000 kilometers) of rail lines.
Seems rail is everywhere.
Canada and the U.S. are car-centric countries and you're totally right, most of our cities have been built around the automobile. But it's a different story in countries around the world. Our History of Rail video touches upon the rise of the automobile in North America and its impact on the rail industry tinyurl.com/3a8tkxv7
thats just because of car companies influencing politics