That could work, but I'd bet against it! In the medium term at least. It would be a big R&D problem to make it work at all. Even if it worked, is a train like

That could work, but I'd bet against it! In the medium term at least. It would be a big R&D problem to make it work at all. Even if it worked, is a train like that really going to be as efficient as a bus? And finally, even if those obstacles are overcome, it seems like everyone has to buy the same model (or at least compatible models, and who's going to make that happen?) to get decent economies of scale. On the other hand -- in-flight refueling is a kind of similar problem that sounds similarly unlikely, but actually works! On the other other hand, that's a very specialized (and I'm guessing very expensive) system that isn't used by commercial airlines. I think pod-trains will go roughly the same way.