Future Trains may never stop
A Taiwanese inventor has proposed a new power saving idea for train travel – trains that never stop. Even with regenerative breaking, stopping the train loses energy and is inefficient. So why not change the method of boarding and leaving the train?
Peng Yu-lun, a worker in a sand and construction plant in Sanwan, used toy trains and tracks to illustrate his idea. Not many people can envision a train system where passengers get on and off a train that never stops, but he did.
The system proposed by Yu-lun, involves special rail cars that that passengers enter to get on and off the train. The train moves beneath a special platform that leaves one car as it enters and picks up another car as it exits. Last minute arrivals would be out of luck since the platform, as proposed, requires climbing two flights of stairs.
Presumably, once the loading car attaches to the train, passengers switch to the main body of the train, leaving the car to be filled by passengers exiting at the next station. Depending on the speed of the train and the spacing between stations, this frantic shifting of passengers could resemble a bad version of musical chairs with passengers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Since the train never stops, the time between trains would hopefully be short, so if you get trapped getting off at the wrong station or missing your station, you could catch the next train to the right destination.
The model of the train, detachable cars and station, shows no provisions for handicapped individuals confined to wheelchairs, parents pushing strollers, or travelers with luggage. Moving from a car on top of the train down to the main train body could be a nightmare for anyone unable to move quickly from one to the other.
Yu-lun admits that his idea requires more refinement and scientific study before ever becoming reality. Clearly modifications will be needed and studies on moving passengers efficiently and quickly from loading, to traveling, to unloading will need to be done to create the most easily navigated system.
The underlying idea is fascinating, but the practicality of implementing the never stopping train is currently unknown.
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