10-27-2017, 05:36 PM
(10-27-2017, 03:59 PM)Canard Wrote:(10-27-2017, 03:54 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: I don’t mean the whole block turns to water, although that would be a cool effect in a video game. Imagine a lump of ice on the track being run over by a train. To the extent the whole lump doesn’t just go flying off but actually gets run over, what will happen to it? It’s not going to divert the train upward from its path measurably; instead any ice trapped under the wheel will either be reduced to a fine powder or, I suspect, actually turn into a liquid. I just remembered that the reason skates work is because the weight of the person using them turns a tiny amount of the ice under the blade into liquid, so the weight of a train will definitely have that effect on any ice stuck under the wheels.
Thanks, very interesting. Makes me ask all sorts of questions. I wonder how much ice you need, does it need to be in a flangeway or could ballasted track get iced up, what effect does the speed of the train have, …
So you’ve demonstrated that under the right (wrong) circumstances ice can interfere with the train. It still seems clear that a small amount will get crushed. Imagine a quarter-shaped piece of ice, compared to what would happen to a quarter-shaped piece of metal, … like a quarter.
And then back to the retarder, it’s not so much about direct crushing as it is how much the ice would increase the force required to move the retarder. Are we even sure the retarder slots aren’t drained? I notice there is a drain grate running across the tracks just before the retarder. So I wish we could get an expert answer to the question.