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I don't think it has anything with making the climb easier.
Won't superelevating make the outside rail even longer, creating more wheel slippage as the wheel sets travel through the curve?
No, in fact the opposite, it makes the outside rail shorter which goes along with effectively making the curve less sharp.Jason
... the extreme limit of superelevation: 90°. ...the plane... .
I agree with Rossford, in my experience modest amounts of superelevation have no effect on performance in N scale. The equipment specs play a much bigger role in string-lining: long light cars with long-overhang, body-mount couplers (e.g. 89' flats) are the most prone to it (again, just my experience).This is correct. Think about the extreme limit of superelevation: 90°. In that case the inner and outer rails would have the same radius, and the trucks would have no yaw component of rotation at all (but lots of pitch). On the prototype, the main reason for superelevation is to produce a nearly even load on the two rails. The dominant load is gravity, which is straight down; but the centrifugal force adds a small component towards the outside of the curve making the net load point slightly outward of vertical, by an amount which depends on the speed of the train. If no superelevation is present, this produces excessive flange wear on the outer rail, and adds drag. Superelevation is designed to make the plane of the rails perpendicular to the load for average track speeds.
Newton's law of physics and motion:for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
Hmm... then every timeyou win, you're screwed...?