The Train That Literally Never Stops

[loomis86]

[citation][nom]shin0bi272[/nom]Im sorry but this idea is just dumb. If all the cars are able to drive themselves to get up to speed congratulations ... you just invented the bus. Only this bus is on set rails and it attaches to the other busses on that particular route. It wont save any energy and it wont lead to any more or less time efficiency (in japan if the train is more than 1 min late you get a voucher for a free ride and a note for work).[/citation]
watch the vid fool. you just made an ass of yourself by commenting without knowing what you are talking about.

 

[loomis86]

Cool idea. Now lets see them work up something similar for airplanes!

 

[Guest]

This concept was described by Isaac Asimov 50 years ago.

 

[Guest]

In my mind a dangerous and foolish design that calls attention to terrorists, and increases chances of accidents.

 

[Guest]

A/ for those ignoring physics, the energy is
E=1/2.M.V.V

So if the energy to go from 0 to 50mph if "E0-50" then
the energy from 50 to 200 is "E50-200" and:

E0-50=1/2.M.50.50
E0-200=1/2.M.200.200=1/2.M.50.50.4.4=16.E0-50
E50-200=E0-200 - E0-50=15.E0-50

So if you slow down to 50 instead of doing a full stop, you loose 15/16 (93.75%) of your energy instead of 16/16 (100%)
the gain is only 6.25%

B/ if you look at the video carefully, you see that they are problems in particular cases like this one:

towns: A ... B ... C ... D ... E ... F ...
some customers enters in B and leave in E
some customers enters in C and leave in D

on the video, we see that the train has those customers on a small cabin on top of the main train.
if the train leaves A with an empty top, then customers from B are on the only cabin between B and C

cabin_B
-------train--------->

at C another cabin is added on from of the cabin from B
cabin_B cabin_C
-------train--------->

but when the train arrives in D, the customers in cabin_C cannot leaves the train from the rear (cabins enter the top from the front of the train and leaves from the rear of the train)
or cabin_B must also stop in D but the customers wanted to go to E...

C/ conclusion
-this works only for cabins going only to the next station.
-if the train has to slow down for the cabin attach/detach procedure, the energy gain is quite small and you have already lost a lot of time even without stopping
-if someone wants to skip a few towns but not go to the last station, then this doesn't work: the train must stop.

 

[belardo]

(Why is text in grey?)

The changing of cards and timing issue isn't that much of a problem.

- The passengers are going to transfer from the carriage to and from the main train body.

- If a passenger is only going from C --- > D, he can stay in the carriage while it moves into position to be dropped off.

- Bullet/Hi-speed rail trains are not the same as sub-way/light rail or commuter lines. A typical light rail is about 25~50 miles from end to end and usually go to downtown. Avg top speed is 50~60mph. Stops every 2~4 miles. Station time is usually 30~60seconds.

Commuter lines are usually downtown to sub-burbs and for areas where there are no electric power. The stops are usually 5~10, very few stops - every 5~10 miles. Station time is usually 60~240 seconds.

A HI-SPEED train is for City to City with a line about 100~500 miles. So lets say we have a 300mile line with 30 stations. Train stops at both ends. So every 10 miles or so there is a station. The train is traveling at 200mph so it will hit each station in about 5~7 minutes. That is a LOT of time and energy saved because the train is not spending so much time slowing and speeding up constantly... and actually, it allows the trains to be used in more stations. That gives passengers about 2~3 minutes to get ON/OFF the carriage.

NOTES: Japan's trains travel about 160MPh, China does 200~220MPH, China's maglev does about 275MPH. Why doesn't the USA have a maglev... this sucks. Also, I have no idea how much the train slows down at stations... I pulled 50mph out of the air... who know, maybe 100mph is slow enough to safely exchange the carriages. Airliners go from 150MPh to 0 when landing in about 15 seconds without much G-forces. Light-rail goes from 50mph to 0 in about 10secs in about 100 yards.


It sucks that the superpowers of USA and Russia have NO high-speed rail network. The Acela Express the best the USA has, but its not a network - its a single 470mile line... nothing else. It can go up to 150MPH, but due to limitations, it avg about 70mph.

 

[bp 4575]

Wow that video is completely different to what I imagined. Very cool.

 

[jabliese]

@df You have misplaced inertia in the universe, and your theoretical work ignores the realities of current drivetrains.

 

[Guest]

I had this idea 15 years ago, i should've patented it!