Force meter
A force meter is an instrument to measure the magnitude of a force. This is often just a spring contained within a cylinder that has a scale to mark the extension of the spring produced by the force. In the International System of Units, the unit of force is the newton (symbol N). A force meter that measures force in newtons may be referred to as a newtonmeter.
Rolling resistance
formula_3 is the force needed to push (or tow) a wheeled vehicle forward (at constant speed on a level surface, or zero grade, with zero air resistance) per unit force of weight. It is assumed that all wheels are the same and bear identical weight. Thus: formula_6 means that it would only take 0.01 pounds to tow a vehicle weighing one pound. For a 1000-pound vehicle, it would take 1000 times more tow force, i.e. 10 pounds. One could say that formula_3 is in lb(tow-force)/lb(vehicle weight). Since this lb/lb is force divided by force, formula_3 is dimensionless. Multiply it by 100 and you get the percent (%) of the weight of the vehicle required to maintain slow steady speed. formula_3 is often multiplied by 1000 to get the parts per thousand, which is the same as kilograms (kg force) per metric ton (tonne = 1000 kg ), which is the same as pounds of resistance per 1000 pounds
of load or Newtons/kilo-Newton, etc. For the US railroads, lb/ton has been traditionally used; this is just formula_10. Thus, they are all just measures of resistance per unit vehicle weight. While they are all "specific resistances", sometimes they are just called "resistance" although they are really a coefficient (ratio)or a multiple thereof. If using pounds or kilograms as force units, mass is equal to weight (in earth's gravity a kilogram a mass weighs a kilogram and exerts a kilogram of force) so one could claim that formula_3 is also the force per unit mass in such units. The SI system would use N/tonne (N/T, N/t), which is formula_12 and is force per unit mass, where "g" is the acceleration of gravity in SI units (meters per second square).