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Dimastep-- <br /> <br />If you make the I-beam too small or the wrong shape, it will break at the pivot point. But the car's design engineers take that into account and design the beam so that the weight is spread among the 3 trucks attached to it, in much the same way as a bridge distributes the weight of a load among all its structural members. The design also includes safety factors that work to spread the car's weight evenly across the 3 trucks by building a far stronger beam than is necessary to simply handle the load. When this is done properly, the beam will not break until beyond the end of its useful life or unless it is subjected to some extraordinary set of forces (like you would have in a derailment or if the car were greatly overloaded and subjected to unsafe speeds on very rough track). <br /> <br />I'm going to try again and find a drawing or photo I can post to help you get the concept.
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