Question

You have been contracted by a railroad company to determine safe starting and stopping accelerations for a fleet of railroad cars. Five of the cars (and the hitch to the engine) have new, stronger hitch systems that can safely withstand tensile and compression forces of up to 53,400 Newtons (equivalent to about 6 tons of force). Ten of the cars are older, with hitch systems that can only withstand tensile and compression forces of up to 35,600 Newtons (equivalent to about 4 tons of force). The company wants to know safe starting and stopping accelerations, and whether they need to worry about the ordering of the railroad cars. They expect the payload of an individual car (including the car itself) to range up to 20,000 kg. Note that the company and its train operators are accustomed to thinking about accelerations in terms of mph/minute.

Answer 1