Question

The maximum grade allowed between two stations in a rapid transit rail system is 3.6% between station A and station , which are 300 feet apart, the tracks rise 7ft. What is the grade of the tracks between these stations? round the answer to the nearest tenth of a percent. Does this grade meet the rapid-transit rail standards

Answer 1

To determine the grade we first need to find the slope of the track, the slope is given by:

$slope=\frac{rise}{run}$

In this case, we know that the track rise 7 ft in a 300 ft run, then we have:

$slope=\frac{7}{300}=0.023$

Now that we know the slope we just multiply it by 100 to find the grade:

$\begin{gathered} grade=100*(0.023) \\ grade=2.3 \end{gathered}$

Hence the grade of the track is 2.3% and since this is less than 3.6% we conclude that this track meets the rapid-transit rail standards