Ballast Used in Locomotives

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thats a boat question

Are they using fluorescent lighting?

It looks like it helps balance and traction with a locomotive…………..

Heavy material, such as gravel, sand, iron, or lead, placed low in a vessel to improve its stability.

o heavy material carried in an airship or on a hot-air balloon to stabilize it, and jettisoned when greater altitude is required.

o something that gives stability or substance.

Gravel or coarse stone used to form the bed of a railroad track or road.

o a mixture of coarse and fine aggregate for making concrete.

Give stability to (a ship) by putting a heavy substance in its bilge.

Form (the bed of a railroad line or road) with gravel or coarse stone.

www.trainorders.com

http://www.railpictures.net

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_ballast

Read this. How to Search the Internet - Hannon Library

Report back when you learn how to DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK!

"Down below the trains, below the rails, the tie plates, and the ties, is a lowly yet vital component of railroading - track ballast.

While ballast may not be at the top of anyone's list of rail topics, it's literally part of the foundation of railroads, and it can comprise more than 80% of the weight of the track structure. Ballast performs several important functions: it distributes weight, keeps the ties in place, allows water to drain away, protects track from the effects of frost heaving, facilitates maintenance by keeping track up off the ground, retards the growth of vegetation, and provides firm yet resilient support. Distributing weight A key job for ballast is to transmit the weight (or "load") of the track and, more significantly, the trains passing over it, to the subgrade. These loads produce pressures averaging 100 pounds per square inch underneath each tie, far greater than earthen subgrades can bear on a repeated basis without settling. (Some soils can take pressures of 50 PSI regularly, but many have endurance limits of far less.) Ballast serves to distribute the tremendous loads over an area of subgrade large enough to bear them without undue settling. Without ballast, the ties would sink unevenly into the subgrade. As cars have gotten heavier, their loads have had to be dispersed over larger areas. "

http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20Reference/ABCs%20of%20Railroading/2006/05/Ballast.aspx

Without ballast(small pieces of rocks)if you lay a railtrack when heavy train passes over it it will sink little by little and create an uneven railtrack. Because it consists of packed pieces of rocks with air pockets it acts like a shockabsorber too.

It might be used to ensure that the weight of the locomotive is evenly spread between the front and back wheels. Lead, iron, gravel or sand would do. Both ends are weighed and ballast added till both ends have the same weight. Not sure why but possibly it improves traction. Recently saw a documentary on rebuilding locomotives and that is what it showed.

ballast is an electrical device....

1. a passive component used in an electric circuit to moderate changes in current.

Are you sure?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballast

It could even be a financial provider

It could be an electrical device, but this is up to your internet research to come up with an answer.

They have found ballast water taken in from any harbour with marinelife or sea water contaminated with sewage,poisonous substances,chemicals etc when dumped in another harbour to stabilise the ship spreads diseases.

Why don't they try gliders or balloons to float the ship instead of pumping out water.

Thats a different thread! here we are talking about locomotives!

Feel free to ask that question in a new thread. I am sure it will be a better discussion than this one here provided you give all the information or your opinion in the first place.

Some locomotives are ballasted for extra adhesion. I can think of several examples in the UK where industrial shunters (switchers) have been fitted with extra weight often in the form of a very thick and deep buffer beam. The class 13 shunters (http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A87769516) were ballasted for hump shunting.

My mid-engine van had a "ballast weight" over the gas tank in the rear to help equalize the load on the wheels.

So the word "ballast" is used with different meanings in ships,railway & electric lighting

Who was she? (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

See here.