High speed, passenger rail from Vancouver to Tijuana?
I think the best way to approach passenger rail should be to hire the people who build roller coasters.
Now when you stop laughing........... imagine a flat, super high speed rail line that is as simple as an overhead, tubular steel frame, that's lightweight, reliable, cheap, doesn't displace surface users and uses lightweight cars.
Cars would be short like a bus, haul maybe 30 people or whatever seems best based on destinations and would have their own electric propulsion systems capable of pushing a car in front that has broken down. Broken down cars would be pushed to the next station/stop where they would be shunted to a maintenance track.
After ya got a basic design, go talk to the people who build and operate chair lifts and gondolas at ski resorts - they will tell you how to operate and time the system.
Our current inter-city, passenger rail approach uses heavy cars that aren't all that different than a boxcar, displaces freight and costs WAY too much because it's too overbuilt from roadbed to car.
Passenger rail today is built as if every single person needs their own 6000 pound SUV when all that's needed is a 1600 pound SMART car.
Thoughts?
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ReplyDeleteThis is extremely silly. Please learn about how trains work in other countries.
ReplyDeleteYes, our current passenger cars are too heavy -- this is due to FRA rules.
However, the optimal way to build trains is angled bodies on steel track -- normal trains, not roller-coaster rides. This is the most energy-efficient method of horizontal motorized travel yet devised due to its passive stabilization properties.
And the other great advantage of it is that trains can be LONG. Little 30-person cars aren't efficient! "Short like a bus" == STUPID. The great advantage of trains is that it costs much the same amount to pull a 50-car train as a three-car train. This is not true of other forms of transportation. So, long trains are good (if you can fill them)!
Don't get seduced by "gadgetbahns". Chairlifts and gondolas and rollercoasters generally have low reliability, low volume, and high energy usage. The people running them know absolutely nothing about *mass* transportation. If you want efficient transportation of LOTS of people, you want plain old trains.
Now, you do want lighter trains than in the US. European and Japanese trains are much lighter. The FRA needs to change its weight rules.
And it is better to have separate passenger tracks (like Vancouver's SkyLink has) rather than shared passenger-and-freight tracks.
And they really should be electrified.
But still, they're trains. Not gondolas, not 30-person bus-sized vehicles, not rollercoasters, plain old *TRAINS*.
Typo. "Angled-wheeled BOGIES on steel track", not "angled bodies".
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