Question

A freight train left Ashland at 7 a.m., traveling west towards Centre at 65 mph. A passenger train left Centre at 7:36 a.m., traveling east towards Ashland at 75 mph. If the trains are on parallel tracks, and the distance between the cities is 389 miles, at what time will the trains pass ? please show me the steps

Answer 1

The key to solving this problem is to find the speed the trains are traveling towards each other at any point in time. Okay, so you know that from 7:00am to 7:36am only the first train is traveling at 65mph. That is for the first 0.6 hours. So the first train traveled 0.6 hours x 65 miles/hour = 39 miles. After this both trains are heading towards each other at 65mph + 75mph =140mph.

So the question is... how many HOURS does it take to travel 389 miles?

Use the formula: 389 miles = 39 miles + (140miles/ hour) x (? hours)

Using algebra to solve for (? hours) we get exactly 2.5 hours total. This means that it took 2.5 hours from 7am for the trains to reach each other.

I'll leave the very last step to you.

Answer 2

Thanks