| 1.
During a visit to the Colorado Railroad Museum, my uncle Bob told
me, "Every railroad person knows that a 2.2% grade means
you go up 116 feet over the course of a mile. It's just something
that railroad people know. If you asked some of us how to figure
it out, we would have a lot of trouble!"
Show Uncle Bob at least one way to figure it out.
To calculate the "grade" of an incline, such as that
found along a railroad track, divide the rise (height increase)
by the run (horizontal distance).
|
2. The
museum has a "Steam Up" some weekends, during which you
can take a narrow gauge train ride behind a real steam engine. The
track is a loop around the museum grounds. The back part of this
loop is a 3.96% grade uphill. The tour guy said that while going
up that hill, the front of the train is 8 feet higher than the back.
How long is the train? |
