ENERGY OF A TRAIN

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 24, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 38.

ENERGY OF A TRAIN.

To-DAY the trains weighing 400 tons thunder by at 75 miles an hour, and we hardly note the passage. We take their safety as a matter of course, says the Philadelphia Press, and seldom think of the tremendous possibilities of destruction stored up in them. But 75 miles an hour is 110 feet a second, and the energy of 400 tons moving at that rate is nearly twice as great as that of a 2,000-pound shot fired from a 100-ton Armstrong gun. This is the extreme weight and speed now reached in passenger service, and, indeed, is very rarely attained, and then but for short distances; but 60 miles is a common speed, and a rate of 40 or 50 miles is attained daily on almost every railway in the country.