Rethinking Rail Travel: Boarding a Moving Train 357
PolygamousRanchKid tips this article about an idea for revolutionizing the rail system in the long-term:
"The idea is to have a city-wide network of trams that travel in a loop and connect with a high-speed rail service. But instead of passengers having to get off the tram at a rail station and wait for the next HSR service to arrive, the moving tram would 'dock' with a moving train, allowing passengers to cross between tram and train without either vehicle ever stopping. 'The trams speed up and the high-speed train slows down and they join, so they dock at high speed,' explains Priestman. 'They stay docked for the same amount of time that it would stop at a station,' he adds. While Priestman admits that it will be some time before his vision could be implemented, he says the time has come to rethink how we travel. 'This idea is a far-future thought but wouldn't it be brilliant to just re-evaluate and just re-think the whole process?' he says."
Caves (Score:5, Insightful)
and perhaps to encase cities in caves of steel
docking planes (Score:2)
I would think that the time savings would even be more dramatic on a plane. plus the planes would not have to go through as amny pressure cycles. thus the long-distance planes could be built lighter, while the short haul dock ing craft built heavier.
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For air travel, the long distance craft never needs to set down at all, so make it an airship. Transport passengers up and down using catapult-launched gliders. No airplanes needed at all. What could possibly go wrong?
The gliders sound superfluous as well. Just use catapults aiming for nets on the airships.
What could possibly go wrong?
Is the real problem here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the time has come to rethink _how much_ we travel...
Re:Is the real problem here? (Score:5, Interesting)
See, this is a thought that should get modded up. We walk around with smartphones and tablets, our laptops carry more power then most mainframes, yet there is still this requirement that we get into a vehicle and travel some distance to sit in a cube or office and do work. Seriously?
Granted, not all jobs are suited for telecommuted, but more and more these days we have tools to start sending people home, with jobs. The energy savings would be huge I feel. It could help local business as more people shop near home and not work. Were I able to work from home, the savings in gas and food would be worth a raise. Companies would not need to spend so much on heating/cooling large buildings. They would also be able to save money by not having to maintain large networks for inter/intra office communication. As far as productivity goes, if an office is preferred, open smaller local offices or shops where people could go to work riding a bike, walking, or other mode other then a vehicle.
Instead of trying to re-invent how to move the drones to and from offices, lets figure a way to bring the office, the work back home.
God no! (Score:5, Insightful)
lets figure a way to bring the office, the work back home.
Home is home. Workplace is workplace.
The problem we have with all the smart phones and tablets and wifi and the internets is that we CANNOT shut ourselves of from our daily grind.
No thanks. I'm much happier knowing that when I leave my offices I'm done. There is no expectation that I am available to do work.
This is just moving back to 'cubes' where instead of being in a cube in an office space, your 'cube' is your room at home. That on so many levels is horrendous.
Why not instead of bring the work back home, all move in and live at work like.. oh I don't know.. those folks at Foxconn.
Yeah sounds great.
Re:God no! (Score:5, Interesting)
There are already solutions to this where you go to work at a generic office within waling distance of your home. You have co-workers, coffee machine or water cooler, a work-style environment with no family interruptions. There is a reception for deliveries if needed. You have the "commute" of a ten minute walk, which allows you to switch between home and work modes.
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"Instead of trying to re-invent how to move the drones to and from offices, lets figure a way to bring the office, the work back home."
You mean: "Instead of trying to re-invent how to move the drones to and from offices, lets figure a way to bring the office, the work to India"?
Re:Is the real problem here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, I like "my" smartphone and tablet for "personal" use because that is why "I" bought them with "my" money. I like having my work and home separate and I don't want to be available 24/7 because I have no interest in being a "drone".
You might find this hard to believe but, as a software developer, I feel that I'm much more productive now that I work in the main development office than even when I worked from a satellite office. Modern software development is a very social pursuit with standup meetings, white boarding sessions and meetings with stakeholders.
Software is no longer written using the waterfall approach where some analyst talks to the user to get requirements, writes up a large requirements document and then the developer works off that and later hands it off to QA for testing.
Re:Is the real problem here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Software is no longer written using the waterfall approach...
Speak for yourself.
You agile folk like to claim that "requirements will always change, so let's plan for it and embrace it." Bullshit. Requirements only change when (1) people don't plan properly, and (2) developer and project managers cater to the whims of clients without charging what they should for change orders. If I hire an engineering firm to build a commercial building, I can't expect to keep changing the requirements after I sign off on the spec, the way people seem to think they can when they hire a software developer. The change order charges would be exorbitant, because with every change a traditional engineer will properly re-evaluate the plan from the ground up and adjust the infrastructure as necessary.
There's a joke out there about what would happen if structural engineers built structures the way software developers build software. I don't remember the exact punch line, but it doesn't take much imagination to realize that it's along the lines of "no one would dare use bridges or enter commercial buildings out of fear that they would fail." It's funny because it's true. We've set such low standards for software reliability that there is now an entire development methodology that advocates (and attempts to justify) a lack of planning and QC only of completed work, rather than QC'ing design plans BEFORE we waste time building something that may or may not pass QC.
Apologies for the rant, but the whole agile mindset just pisses me off.
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I don't know about you, but the social interactions at my workplace are crucial to keeping me happy. You can sit at home with your high speed internet and IM system, I'd rather be able to see my co-workers face to face and occasionally through the scope of a nerf gun.
Re:Is the real problem here? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Face time with your boss. The difference between the Office Drone and the guy who gets a raise and promoted, is the person who gets more face time with the boss. This isn't a bad thing, I don't mean sucking up to the boss, but being there where he can see what you are doing and you can show him your good job that you are doing. Bad news travels up naturally to the boss. If you have good news you need to push it there.
2. Interaction with other workers, across your department. Normal office chat helps build up teamwork, you learn the strengths and weaknesses of different people and you have a better idea on how to make the best solution with them.
3. Anticipate problems. If you hear something is going on you can have a solution almost done before it gets to your place to be done tomorrow.
4. You are not slacking off as much. We all need a break to clear our mind. But when you are working from home, the comforts from home are quite compelling, especially if you are doing something you don't want to do. In the Office knowing your boss can come over and see you playing WoW or what ever game that is now hip and cool or browsing youtube for hours on end. You will make sure you temper your habits. At home it is much harder. Sure the argument is if I get my work done on time it really doesn't matter. Well it won't get you fired, but the slack off time is a period where you could really prove that you excel.
By agreeing to be a telecommuter you have basically agreed for most companies to stay in your positions for the duration of your employment unless you are much better then most people.
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hurdle not hurtle
pedestal not pedal stool
Re:Is the real problem here? (Score:5, Insightful)
My work doesn't require 'just' interaction with systems and data. It also requires interaction with co-workers both in the physical office and in newrly every time zone on the planet. My 'customers' are no longer just in North American, but on every continent except Antarctica and Africa, and the latter is coming on board soon. I already telecommute, but I need to do so from a location where my most important collaborators are physically available, and that is the 'office'. I project my services from there.
To be at home would deny me both ready and rich access to my team. Physical presence permits ad hoc meetings, adding in team members, quick face-to-face covnersations for minutes that avoid IMs and email chains that take much of an hour, and avoid misunderstandings. No teleconferencing works like that yet. For one thing, cameras are banned - data loss policy. We have a teleconferencing space to use, but it's for extended international or cross-continent needs.
And I very much prefer to be part of a team, not alone. I did that for the better part of 14 years, and it's not very attractive.
Telecommuting is so attractive in principle.
And to answer the unasked question of telecommuting offering the equivalence of a raise, well there are things to consider. Including your employer's reasonable and justifiable perception that saving money on commuting translates into a lower pay rate, since your expenses are decreased. This will probably be expressed as either lower raises or slower raises. Compensation is often based on market forces, and if a telecommuting job is attractive to others who would take less pay for the convenience of being home (mothers seem to fit this model very well), then you are competing with people who otherwise would not be in the market. Child raisers in particular may use the calculus of a tlecommuting job permitting them to avoid expensive day care. This lets them see a discounted job as actually incremental income where an office job is income offset by expenses. Work that out and tell me you can compete. Maybe.
Telecommuting will, one day, be seen as another advantage to Corporations, and a detriment to the worker. Watch.
Let's not get too far into the collision of telecommuting data access (ISPs) and bandwidth. If we start streaming our favorite videos during the day to avoid the nighttime crush and gamers, watch when telecommuters start using that bandwidth all day long. And watch when ISPs filter VPNs and ask you to pay more for unfettered corporate access. I would expect them to offer corporations that deploy their workes to home a 'deal' on dedicated access. Wait, I bet they do already... SOHO accounts and such. For more money.
You sound like an America (Score:5, Interesting)
I've found that living 10 min walking distance from work eliminates most advantages of telecommuting while granting all the advantages of the office. People should live in smallish but densely packed cities with few cars. And exorbitant gas prices should help keep the cars away.
There are of course people who must commute for personal reasons, mostly couples with serious jobs in different cities. European style high speed rail serves them infinitely better than automobile gridlock. Read on the train vs. stress out in the car.
Just fyi, there is a Bahn Card 100 for 3500 Euros per years which gives you unlimited train usage in Germany without buying any tickets. Ergo, if your commute costs like 130 Euros per week without any Bahn Card, then you might as well buy a Bahn Card 100 and enjoy the freedom of never even needing to buy a ticket! Amtrack won't sell you any ticket without requiring ID by comparison.
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Employers with apropriate standards don't even care. Instead they monitor your total output and if it isn't eough, you are counseled, and later fired if you don't improve. And in my experience, telecommuters don't make efficient use of their time. You can blame facebook, coffee and cig breaks, being gabby, being distraught, being lazy, whatever.... output is what matters and management worth keeping are managers who focus on that. The best employers I know of, with the most highly performing employees, ha
Re:Is the real problem here? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, I get at least the same amount of work done, but I waste less time on the company dime.
At home, I don't have to deal with
- office gossip
- stressed out coworkers yammering all day about their psychological issues
- walking over to a boss/manager/secretary/idiot's desk to stare at an error message they could have pasted in an email
- petty one-upmanship
- bathrooms halfway around the building
- staff managers timing my shit breaks
- pointless unit meetings that exist solely to justify having so many goddamned staff managers
- playing bejeweled for hours because the office environment depresses me
- noisy coworkers threatening to call the union and/or burn down the building if I deprive them of their precious Kanyé
If I want to waste time playing video games or watching TV, it's my problem and my boss/clients don't pay for that idle time. The corollary is that I am motivated to work more efficiently and waste less time, because that time is now MY money and not my employer's. In that sense, I get a heck of a lot more done since I started telecommuting, and cutting out that hour or two of bus/traffic every day makes a huge difference in my energy level and mood. I have no trouble pulling a 10 or 12 hour work day at home, when inspiration strikes, but in an office those 7.5 hours seem like eternity.
Asimov. Strips. (Score:3, Insightful)
Subject says it all, really.
Simon.
Re:Asimov. Strips. (Score:5, Funny)
If you mean Rule 34...no thanks.
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Which answers the question: what could possibly go wrong?
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The most annoying thing about taking the train (or a public bus or subway, for that matter) is when it stops to let other people on or off. To a passenger, that's just a huge waste of time that could be spent actually moving towards his or her destination.
The reason continental rail travel in the US is so slow compared to auto travel is because it has to stop all the time to let people on and off. When your train weighs 50+ tons per rail car, it takes a long time to speed up and slow down. I've heard it said that the trains themselves almost never reach full speed because they have to begin decelerating before they ever reach full speed.
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The most annoying thing about taking the train (or a public bus or subway, for that matter) is when it stops to let other people on or off.
No, the most annoying thing about taking a train is being crammed in a metal tube with people I would normally pay good money to avoid being near.
In the UK back in the late 1800s/early 1900s I believe that trains often used to drop off carriages as they passed stations so the people going to that station would roll into it and stop while the rest of the train carried on. So it's not such a new idea.
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Grow up. You've got the attitude of a bitchy spoiled brat.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
This.
Why have trams catch up to HSTs, engage in a complex procedure of transferring passengers, then needing to circle back round (potentially taking ages to get back to their 'route')
Much better to have the trams double as carriages. When you want to get off at a destination you simply go and sit in one of the last few carriages and when the train passes the station they automatically detach and roll up to the platform. At the same time trams with new passengers leave the platform, catch up with the train and attach as replacement carriages to the end.
Better to do that at both ends (Score:3)
With every carriage/set having its own drive power (as our V/Locity and I'm sure many others already do) and superseding driver cabins though use of remote (including onboard remote) sensing and control functions, or even fully automatic, you can have stopping services docking at the front and dropping off the back of an always moving train system.
This could even allow a return to the once very comfortable mode of separate cabins opening off the side of a long corridor rather than the current fashion of squ
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is not the engines but the tracks. They are owned by firms which ship bulk cargo, and so do not need speeds greater than about 45 MPH, as compared to 120 MPH, the top speed of the pre-WWII rail network, or the even higher speeds of 1970s era high speed rail links like the Hokkaido Express. Not needing such perfect rail links, they do not maintain them to handle 100+ MPH speeds (or even 60 MPH, for that matter). Not needing the high speeds, GE, etc., build the engines to work best at the speeds actually used. If the lines needed faster engines, they would order them, and the companies which build the engines would build them to go faster efficiently (as long as there were enough engines to make money building them, or the lines were willing to pay for individually designed engines).
Oh, and BTW, diesel train engines are actually electric trains with a co-located generator powered by a diesel engine, AKA hybrids. They aren't the poorly built and designed things that you apparently think that they are.
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That is poor rail network flaw, not szome absolute barrier. If you've ever used european mass transit, you know th system can be designed well. You get on a bus for the ride to yojr local station, which connects to larger stations... there are multiple paths, fast trains that only top at major cities, and slower trains that split off and stop at each, or every other town. The efficiency is awesome, and you can beat a car easily.
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In the US, the government pays for all air traffic control, air security and frequently contributes to funding airport construction and improvements. Railroads are private companies which pay for all of their own equipment and management. Government funding is pretty much limited to road crossings. Amtrak is a joke because Congress won't cut unprofitable passenger service in their districts.
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Population density is the problem. The Subways work great in large cities. But once you leave some people will need to drive 20-30 miles just to get to the nearest station, and if the place you want to go is 100 miles away you figure well I am partially there already so I will keep on going in my car. Vs. waiting hours to be picked up take a train where it needs to stop every 30 miles. And sometimes you need to go from one train to an other.
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- Bus Departs from GERMANTOWN TRANSI
Is Sandra Bullock Driving? (Score:5, Funny)
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Some just needs to loop the camera feeds (Score:2)
Some just needs to loop the camera feeds
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Already foreseen? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Sorry, I think the Russians published this stop-less train station concept. Instead of a stretch of linear tracks they used concentric tracks. The HSR arrives at the station on the outer rail and docks with the slower moving inner rail. The HSR transfers the passengers and the inner rail then transfers passengers to the second inner rail slowing down slightly and then speeds up again to wait for the next HSR.
Well too bad most of the world including Russians never read Russian "Propaganda" from books like sc
China has been thining about this for a while (Score:2)
those British guys need to learn to infringe on other people's intellectual property
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Re:China has been thining about this for a while (Score:5, Funny)
What if you are too slow or someone puts their foot into the gap, or if there is a stone or wobble on the neighbouring track?
Oh you Americans ... always letting liability lawsuits stand in the way of progress!
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Ummm ... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, when we have our city with flying cars, domestic robots and all of the other commensurate sci-fi amenities which will never happen, we will also have a train we board at speed.
I'm sure in some abstract, never-going-to-happen way this is a really cool idea.
But it's so far detached from anything which will ever happen as to basically be a meaningless suggestion. These fantastic cities of the future will never actually happen unless we suddenly have unlimited cheap energy or resources ... the cost of rebuilding any major city would be absolutely ridiculous.
Harumph ... I must be getting old. Time was I'd think this was something cool. Now it's just another pointless futurist thought experiment.
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Exactly, I hold more hope for automated driving cabs and buses. They can use the existing infrastructure without interfering with the existing ways of travel. It will be personal chauffeurs for everyone.
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Exactly, I hold more hope for automated driving cabs and buses. They can use the existing infrastructure without interfering with the existing ways of travel. It will be personal chauffeurs for everyone.
You could use the same principle. Cabs dock with 250mph "super coaches" for inter-city travel. Manual driving on high speed routes forbidden obviously.
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Except, an automated bus is going to be the same riding experience as a current bus ... crowded, takes too long to get there, and still full of creepy weird bus people.
To a hypothetical bus rider ... what, exactly, does an automated driver bring to the table? Hardly a "personal chauffeur" and no meaningful change to the experience.
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Well, other than machine reliability, and 24x7x365 buss routs as needed or even on demand busing.
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Maybe. But, you still need to pay for fuel, maintenance, and the gadgetry which does that in the first place .. and I'm not convinced the gadgetry wouldn't end up costing more than human labor anyway.
It is a cool idea, but it's hard to see it as anything but a sci-fi pipe-dream which will never actually come to fruition. I'd happily eat crow over my cynicism if this ever comes to pass.
Prove me wrong kids ... p
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Uhh, i think the 1% already have chauffeurs. Part of capitalist economy shows that the things the rich do for luxury today will be common place in 10-50 years. The socialist will just complain about the out of work chauffeurs.
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These fantastic cities of the future will never actually happen unless we suddenly have unlimited cheap energy or resources ... the cost of rebuilding any major city would be absolutely ridiculous.
Oh, you never simply rebuild a whole city. The only time you do anything like that is when the city has been completely obliterated by war or natural disaster.
So the only way we will get a future city is:
a) War or disaster destroys the city;
b) All the old buildings are individually replaced over time;
c) Some crazy person decides to build a new instant city (e.g., Brasilia, Dubai).
People like you (Score:2)
Trams would still need to stop (Score:2)
If we could get trams not to stop because of traffic that would be very good already.
Had to read the article (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, so the obvious first question is - how do you get on the trams? Do they stop? Unfortunately the article is a hand-waving fluff piece and doesn't explicitly answer that (or, really, any other) question; but it strongly implies "yes, they do stop". So what's the real advantage to the traveler here?
It seems to me the main thing this guy is proposing is actually a transit system with connections on every street, so you don't have to own a car at all. But that's nothing new and exciting, so he had to "jazz it up" to get attention - and that's where the "high-speed trains that never stop" idea comes in. But, really, that's not going to save a traveler any time. Plus, frankly, as soon as I started thinking about the potential details of this system... I quickly came to the conclusion it would seem logistically sub-optimal.
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The real advantage to the traveler is, in theory, saving on wait time. As it is now, the process is "tram-transfer station-train-transfer station-tram". With this system in place, the process would be "tram-train-tram". Thus, in theory, saving the time of having to wait at the transfer station.
The only way that would happen is if every tram that hit every street met the train, which simply wouldn't work.
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Okay, so the obvious first question is - how do you get on the trams? Do they stop?
Here's how a typical journey might work without his plan:
- You get on a slow local service
- It has, say, 7 stops on your route, which is what makes it slow.
- You get to the high speed station and disembark
- You walk to another platform
- You board the high speed train
- Two possibilities here:
- (a) the high speed train goes direct to your destination without stops, which is great for you, but not as generally useful to others
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Exit the train (Score:5, Interesting)
Disney has been doing this for decades. The ride slows, the passenger steps onto a moving belt and from there onto the platform. It requires one or more attendants available to help and occasionally hit the emergency stop when the slow and/or unwary find themselves rushing toward the dark chasm at the end of the platform.
Now if they would just install parachutes and ejection seats in airliners ...
I can imagine a scenario... (Score:2, Insightful)
I can imagine a scenario where one of the trains is packed, users try to squeeze in from one train into another. One person (or more..) does not fit in, there is no more track for the trains to be coupled, they HAVE to split even if the doors are held open by the passengers, and people up on the track between the wheels of both trains.
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Exactly what I was thinking... Strange how such a flawed concept can gain ground so easily without anyone mentioning the 500lb gorilla... :(
GrpA
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First, you can design docking port to be safe in this case.
Second, trains can _stop_. It's easy - you ALWAYS leave some part of parallel track for emergency braking and if trains reach it with doors open then brakes are applied automatically. You can make the emergency strip long enough for gentle braking.
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You'd simply have to not allow these trains to get packed. Rigidly enforce maximum occupancy; problem solved.
Heinlein - The Roads Must Roll (Score:4, Interesting)
WEDWay People Mover (Score:4, Insightful)
This is nothing new. Disney has been doing this for decades. In fact, the rest of the world could take a lesson or two from Disney's playbook. Notice that Disney designs its rides such that the line (queue) is constantly in motion. By contrast, Six Flags and other theme parks, you have to wait while the people on the ride are off. We should take this a step further and design aircraft with a removable passenger compartment akin to the 747 air freighter. The nose would open up and the incoming passenger module would slide out to be replaced by another outgoing module. This has the advantage of eliminating the one door bottleneck.
Re:WEDWay People Mover (Score:5, Funny)
This is nothing new. Disney has been doing this for decades. In fact, the rest of the world could take a lesson or two from Disney's playbook. Notice that Disney designs its rides such that the line (queue) is constantly in motion. By contrast, Six Flags and other theme parks, you have to wait while the people on the ride are off. We should take this a step further and design aircraft with a removable passenger compartment akin to the 747 air freighter. The nose would open up and the incoming passenger module would slide out to be replaced by another outgoing module. This has the advantage of eliminating the one door bottleneck.
Just use the standard pallets that they use in air freighters. You could probably stack 15 -20 people in a container. Just lock'em in. No worries about feeding them, dealing with the bathroom or various security issues.
Have you thought about a career at RyanAir?
And the problem with this plan: (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever been at the station when there was a really slow moving old lady at the front of the line, trying to get into the train, but moving at a snail's pace, holding up the whole line, and then still being in the doorway when it starts trying to close? Remember the loud buzzer that sounds to signal people to get out of the doors, that she's too deaf to hear, and ignores as she slowly continues toddling her way into the car, holding up the train, and still nobody else has managed to even get in?
I've been behind her several times. It's weird, almost every time I go to Toronto (the nearest place I've had to ride the subway), she's there in line in front of me. She's a really nice lady, but oh so very slow moving, and she won't accept help.
This proposed system would ensure that I would only ever be behind her once, because when the high-speed train and moving tram were not able to un-dock because she was still toddling along in the gap between them, they would either end up crashing and killing everyone, or they would separate anyways and either tear her in half, or drop her between the tracks and grind her into paste on the ground.
The safety issue (Score:2)
Exactly what problem... (Score:2)
Exactly what problem is this supposed to solve? It reminds me of the scene in Robots (2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0AsgfVIOeQ [youtube.com]) where they travel around the big city on a collection of various "rube goldberg" contraptions that seemingly never stop moving...
The buses in Brasil already do this.... (Score:5, Interesting)
In Rio de Janeiro, when I lived there, if you looked at all agile the bus would not completely stop to let you on. It would slow down to a walking pace so you could grab the handle next to the door and let the momentum of the train swing you aboard. Since you boarded at the rear door and exited at the front door you never go in the way of disembarking passengers; who also often exited while the bus was moving.
It was great sport and probably saved a lot of fuel. Not sure I'd like to do it at my age now (68) but I might just for old times' sake. LOL
How long a straight would this need? (Score:2)
Not fully baked (Score:2)
Assume that you make the transfer at 120 km/hr, that means that if you want to have a 5 minute dwell time, you need 10 km of track to make the transfer. You'll need more track for a buffer to slow down in case there's mechanical difficulty or a passenger problem and you need to bring the trains to a halt.
Now, a "tram" is typically a one or maybe two car light rail vehicle. Your HSR trains are typically 10 cars. Are you only loading onto 2 cars at a time? That's workable in rural areas but how do you han
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If I remember correctly, the rolling truck stops in 'Judge Dredd' would pick your car/truck up with a crane when you wanted to 'stop' to use their facilities and then put it back down on the road when you were done.
So that's another option. It would be much cooler too.
may work for rual / small city stops only (Score:2)
With the big citys being a full stop
Disneyland already does this (in a small way)... (Score:2)
Some of the rides at Disneyland have started taking advantage of this idea by moving the passengers along on a moving beltway (kind of like at the airport) next to the ride... So you board the ride without the ride having to slow down at all... e.g. the Buzz Lightyear ride does this and I recall that it worked pretty well.
Cheaper Solution (Score:2)
It would be a lot simpler to just have all the passengers watch old Buster Keaton movies to teach them how to jump onto a moving train with no special equipment required.
Who is this design firm's client? (Score:2)
Many posters have spotted that this post is a rehash, a troll or perhaps a straight faced sendup joke from a design firm.
The graphic art accompanying the original article might have been copied from a 1930's art deco transportation fantasy science fiction book cover.
But here is a really good question: What client paid this design firm to develop this specific presentation? How much do design firms charge per hour? $100 at least?
From the name of the design firm, I guess this is a two person design firm, and
Side-by-side is impractical (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd need a significant length of straight track to accomplish the transfer. In corners, the different corner radii mean that you'd need to increase the distance between the train cars on the outside of the bend to make sure the cars stay lined up.
It'd be much simpler to link up the trains front-to-back. The Dutch ICM [wikipedia.org] shows a practical design to do this. The ICM is only linked at standstill, but a few tweaks to the coupling (and possibly the doors) would allow it to be linked while moving. The mechanical link also makes it easy to ensure the trains keep matching speeds (just drive the rear train at a slightly higher power level than the front).
The drawback of this design is that there's only one connection point so the transfer is much slower.
Holland has trains (Score:2)
One very simple solution to a LOT of the problems in Holland is to cut the train journeys up. Right now you got a service that runs from Heerlen to Den Helder and Nijmegen to Alkmaar. For those to whom this means nothing? It is the line you are on between Amsterdam and Utrecht, a VERY busy section of track WITH a HUGE bottle neck because it is 2 tracks only in Amsterdam, the capitol. So if a train gets stuck at Amstel (small station in Amsterdam) everything is stuck.
Heerlen is about as far south as you can
I hate to say this but (Score:2)
Mass transit is an energy hog (Score:5, Insightful)
The inconvenient truth is that mass transit must be sized for peak loads, and therefore runs no where near capacity most of the time. A train, tram, or bus fully loaded is very energy efficient. A train, tram, or bus lightly loaded uses way more energy per passenger-mile than a car. No transit authority remakes trains between rush hour and mid-day, nor do they have two fleets of buses so that they can switch from long articulateds at rush hour to mini-vans during mid day. Mass transit wastes huge amounts of energy, and we can't afford it any more.
The answer is self-driving cars. We already have door-to-door infrastructure for cars. With self-driving cars road capacity increases because the cars can run closer together and at higher or at least more consistent speeds. A self-driving car is a self-valet-parking vehicle, so parking lots and structures can be moved further from office buildings.
People working on any kind of mass transit solution that involves large vehicles like trains are exactly the fools that are wasting our fossil fuels the fastest. Show me solutions that scale up/down with the daily load fluctuation, and you have my interest.
Better approaches from others. (Score:3)
As others have pointed out, this isn't a very good idea for high speed rail. It's not original [youtube.com], either. It was proposed in Taiwan a few years ago, and that design is more workable.
It's been used a few times for very low speed systems in amusement parks. The original, of course, was the moving sidewalk at the 190 Paris Exposition. [youtube.com] That had two speeds of moving walkway side by side, to allow getting on and off. The mechanism was not a conveyor belt. It was an endless train of railroad flatcars with turntables between them. Also see the Never Stop Railway [britishpathe.com], in 1925, which is a cute mechanical solution to slowing down at stations.
Some railroads have used systems where cars were dropped off the rear of a train while the train was in motion. This never worked all that well, and there was no reverse operation to assemble the train on the fly. It's been suggested for transit systems where all cars have power, and it could be made to work.
Special railroad car offices (Score:3)
I would like to have an office on a train such that I have a workspace and internet connection and a window. I don't care if the train takes a long time to get to the destination, or if there is a destination. I envision trains for devs that are full of compartments for this purpose. Maybe an entire development team on a private railroad car.
As an example consider the proposals for high speed trains, say, between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The most recent Amtrak passenger service on the route was criticized because, due to noncooperation by the freight railroads, the trip would take eight hours. But that was before the internet. Internet access, if available, changes the nature of train trips for people who can telecommute. An eight-hour train trip, or even a ten-hour trip, with a comfortable workspace and internet access is uptime, as opposed to a five-hour drive.
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Re:How do you get on? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is the last point that gets me. one would need a couple of miles of track next to each to be moving fast enough to make it worth while, however that eats up space, and the slow train would have to circle back around for the next train in sequence.
Also how do you do multi train platforms?
to me it seems like someone didn't think the idea through all the way.
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Well, it's not like the high speed train is incapable of stopping.
You just set your "must undock" point far enough back that if for some reason the undock can't happen, the high speed train has enough room to come to a stop with the streetcar still docked. Throws a bit of delay into the trip, but nobody dies.
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Side by side is the insane part, if they did it high speed in front, slow behind then it can take as long as it needs to.
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For the most part, by damn well waiting until the ship is docked. You can use a launch -- that's how harbor pilots board a ship -- but the ship still has to be at a near-stop in relatively protected water.
In emergencies, you use a helicopter at great expense and more than a little hazard.
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Stop both trains, find that yahoo, put him on the track before one train and his friend on the track before the second train. Then start both trains again.
There, problem solved.
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Hanging off a metal bar and being picked up in a net would be way cooler than a tram. You could probably charge extra for the 'Xtreme'-ness.
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First, the transfer window would have to be LONG. Like, 5 miles or so, such that at 60MPH you had five minutes to make the transfer.
Then the doors would need to close in plenty of time before the tracks diverge, such that you'd be on one carriage or the other. Nobody need ever be dumped between the tracks.
It's all *possible*. It's just the scale of the infrastructure it needs that's huge.