Actually, the train was traveling at only about 70 mph before the approach to the curve, and chances were, it MAY not have derailed at even that speed. But as the exuberance built up, the speed control may have been pushed to a higher and higher level, resulting in the great overspeeding, and coupled with the “emergency” braking, well, physics just sort of took over at that point.
It is a known and demonstrated fact that accelerating through a curve creates something called “understeer”, and in an wheeled vehicle NOT confined to a specific track, has a tendency to thrust the back part of the vehicle to the outside of the curve, and except for the track, it slides until the operator steers back into the slide.
But there is no steering wheel on a locomotive, and the vectoring of the forces causes the locomotive to topple over to the outside of the curve.
Locomotives, unlike Corvettes, do not drift in a curve.
“It is a known and demonstrated fact that accelerating through a curve creates something called “understeer”, and in an wheeled vehicle NOT confined to a specific track, has a tendency to thrust the back part of the vehicle to the outside of the curve, and except for the track, it slides until the operator steers back into the slide.”
Did you mean ‘oversteer?
no four wheel drifts there..
You described oversteer, not understeer.