Put another way, "smoothness" is in the eye of the beholder. That is, VISIBLE smoothness has nothing much to do with what is going on at the microscopic level. Steel-on-steel has an almost 45% coefficient of adhesion at about 8% slip (IIRC-maybe some of the Railroaders here can comment). That is, with the drive wheels slipping just a little bit the drawbar pull will be a little under 45% of the weight on those drivers. Steel-on-steel is actually pretty sticky.
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