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Subject: 
Re: Why is inner rail smooth on Duplo track?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.duplo, lugnet.trains
Date: 
Tue, 5 Jul 2005 23:32:41 GMT
Viewed: 
564 times
  
Joe Strout wrote:
My son has spend his allowance on a couple of the new Thomas sets
(Percy and James).  James comes with one piece of curved track (along
with others including a switch).

I've noticed that all the Duplo track that's come with these sets has
a ribbed texture on the rails, with the exception of the curved track
- that's ribbed on the outside rail, like everything else, but the
inside rail is smooth.

This has been puzzling me.  Can anyone think of a reason why the
inside rail of a curve piece should be smooth rather than textured?

The texture is to improve traction. However, without a differential (which
have been tried on trains and failed), one wheel on an axle needs to be able
to slip in a curve since the rotational speeds are different for the
different radii that each wheel traverses. Because of this, it's important
for one of the rails in a curve to not have the traction enhancing texture.

Frank



Message is in Reply To:
  Why is inner rail smooth on Duplo track?
 
My son has spend his allowance on a couple of the new Thomas sets (Percy and James). James comes with one piece of curved track (along with others including a switch). I've noticed that all the Duplo track that's come with these sets has a ribbed (...) (19 years ago, 4-Jul-05, to lugnet.duplo, lugnet.trains, FTX)

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