Super-Efficient Train Never Stops Moving
July 12, 2008 · Print This Article
A Taiwanese inventor is proposing a novel idea that could revolutionize train travel: it’s a way to keep the train moving at all times, even through train stations. If that just gave you visions of jumping on and off trains as fast as you can, you’ll be surprised at how easy Peng Yu-Lun’s idea actually is.
From EcoGeek:
Instead, Yu-Lun envisions a small separated car perched atop the train. When the train enters a station, this car slides along on elevated rails that smoothly and gradually remove the car from the rest of the train and bring it to a stop.
Another identical car travels from these elevated tracks and gradually slides along the top of the train to pick up speed for boarding passengers. The end result: a train with no need to stop at stations.
Sure, regenerative braking – the process that converts the energy typically wasted as heat when slowing down and storing it as electrical power in batteries – is a terrific energy saving solution. Many hybrid cars, such as the Prius, use regenerative braking and it’s starting to appear aboard hybrid diesel/electric trains as well. But more efficient still is to maintain your momentum and dispense with a train’s need to make stops.
Check out the video below to see a demonstration (in Chinese).
Now if only we could get trains in America, period. The closest rail service to me is an hour away in South Carolina, and if I wanted to drive down there to catch a train to Florida, I’d have to go to Washington D.C. first. WTF? We obviously have a long way to go here in the U.S. before inventions like this one are helpful to us, but it’s nice to get a peek of the possible future!
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Is the rest of the train just for cargo? I don’t see any way for passengers to get down into the main body of the train.
Spiral staircase.
Seems to me that it would be pretty easy to set something like this up without radically altering existing infrastructure. Instead of a car that rides on top of the train, how about simply using the last car on the train as a shuttle? Passengers who are getting off at the next station all move to the last car, which separates and is shunted into the station. As the train passes, this shuttle car accelerates, links to the train, the passengers swap, and the shuttle separates near the next station.
[...] earthfirst, check out this video of the nonstop train (In Taiwanese, [...]
just so you know
there is no such thing as taiwanese
in taiwan, they speak and write chinese
great idea though, for a train
good going, stephanie.
with the amount of passengers that get on a train in japan/china & america at a time how could that little car cram them in?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RKnWHa8k8VQ
regenerative breaking is a great idea… the prius is pretty much the only car that saves as much gas milage until they find a way to produce solar powered cars for less manufacturing & consumer cost.
“Is the rest of the train just for cargo? I don’t see any way for passengers to get down into the main body of the train.”
I’d think that short term passengers would stay in the top mounted car. Longer term passengers would be given access to a stairwell which would be located at the last car and be accessible when the car was stationary atop the last car. They could then go down into the main train…though it sounds like it might be a bit hectic if there are a lot of short stops between. People would be accidentally getting off at the wrong stops all the time…