Hearing Luo Chong's question, Lin Fei was filled with admiration. The Chieftain had spotted the real cause with just one glance.
"Reporting to the Chieftain, that's right. After discussing it, the people at our research institute also believe that there is a problem with the steel's properties.
The carbon steel we are currently using to make rails does not have sufficient resistance to bending—in other words, it isn't hard enough. No problem appeared during the earlier experiments with the Narrow-Gauge Railway, possibly because the Toy Train's load had not yet reached the critical load-bearing limit of the rails. So even though there were more joints, the narrow-gauge Toy Train could still run normally.
But this time, the Heavy-duty Steel Rails were made from the same steel. Because the load within a given area had directly multiplied several times over, it exceeded the steel's limit. That was why this accident occurred.
After judging the situation, we believe that part of the accident was caused by the joints, but the joints were not entirely to blame. The real problem should still be that the rails lacked sufficient load-bearing capacity. When the wheels passed over a joint, they first bent it downward under pressure, then derailed and levered the track up, causing it to overturn sideways."
Luo Chong nodded. The result matched his own judgment fairly closely. Although the Heavy-duty Steel Rails had been increased to sixty jin per meter, the steel itself had not changed, and its load-bearing capacity was ultimately limited. Heavy-load Trains were several times heavier than narrow-gauge Toy Trains, but the area touching the rails was still only those few wheels. In other words, the base had not changed, but the pressure per unit area had increased several times over, exceeding the steel's limit. It would have been strange