Adding weight

[lionelsoni]

The January CTT has a letter claiming that weight added to a locomotive is useful only on level track. The writer claims, correctly, that "the added weight becomes a detractor proportional to the degree of incline". That is not the same as saying that it is useless. The coefficient of proportionality that applies is the grade percentage itself. On the other hand, the increase in tractive effort is more or less constant, at about 25 percent. Therefore, for example, on a 4-percent grade, the added weight increases the drawbar pull by about 25/4 or about 6 times the tractive effort used to haul the weight itself up the hill. That's a pretty good tradeoff.

Neil B., please consider this for publication as a letter to the editor.