Question

Two trains left a station at the same time. One traveled north at a certain speed and the other traveled south at twice that speed. After 4 hours, the trains were 600 miles apart. How fast was cach train traveling?

Answer 1

Train going north = 50mph

Train going south = 100 mph

Explanation:

Let:

x = train traveling north

2x = train traveling south

D = Distance

S = Speed

T = Time

Let's use the formula for time, speed, and distance. Since we are looking for distance,

D = S * T

Both trains traveled 4 hours and in the end were 600 miles apart, this sets up our equation to be,

4x + 8x = 600

Now solve for s to find our speed.

`(12x/12)/(600/12)`

x = 50 mph

This represents how fast the train going north was, since the train going south was going twice as much, then our second answer will be 100mph