or screw is like a wheelset with extremely different diameter wheels. The head is analogous to a large diameter wheel and the pointed end is like a small diameter wheel. While the nail or screw will turn around in a full circle (and more) the railroad wheelset behaves differently because as soon at it starts to turn in a curve, the effective diameters change in such a way as to decrease the curvature of the path. Note that "radius" and "curvature" refer to the curvature of the trajectory of the wheelset and not the curvature of the railway since this is perfectly straight track. As the wheelset rolls on, the curvature decreases until the wheels reach the point where their effective diameters are equal and the path is no longer curving. But the trajectory has a slope at this point (it is a straight line which crosses diagonally over the centerline of the track) so that it overshoots the centerline of the track and the effective diameters reverse (the formerly smaller diameter wheel becomes the larger diameter and conversely). This results in the wheelset moving in a curve in the opposite direction. Again it overshoots the centerline and this phenomenon continues indefinitely with the wheelset oscillating from side to side. Note that the wheel flange never makes contact with the rail. In this model, the rails are assumed to always contact the wheel tread along the same line on the rail head which assumes that the rails are knife-edge and only make contact with the wheel tread along a line (of zero width). Mathematical analysis The train stays on the track by virtue of the conical shape of the wheel treads. If a wheelset is displaced to one side by an amount (the tracking error), the radius of the tread in contact with the rail on one side is reduced, while on the other side it is increased. The angular velocity is the same for both wheels (they are coupled via a rigid axle), so the larger diameter tread speeds up, while the smaller slows down. The wheel set steers around a centre of curvature defined by the intersection of the generator of a cone passing through the points of contact with the wheels on the rails and the axis of the wheel set. Applying similar triangles, we have for the turn radius: where is the track gauge, the wheel