4 ms·

I wonder if anyone’s considered making a kind of modular way for vehicles to connect to something like a train.

by ianai 7y ago

braythwayt 7y ago
I recall Popular-Science-ish illustrations of systems like that where you’d drive onto the freeway and your car would hook into a chain of cars to be driven to a “stop,” where you could unhook. If I understand it correctly, we are just now experimenting with something very like that for trucking, where multiple trucks can convoy, and the systems communicate with each other so that all the vehicles in a convoy adjust their speed simultaneously.
oceliker 7y ago
Wasn't this part of the Hyperloop project idea in LA? You drive to a specific parking spot, the vehicle gets lowered to a tunnel, then the tunnel takes you to wherever you need to go.
Moto7451 7y ago
I can think of two examples. In LA there are busways that are built on former train paths. When they need to divert for whatever reason (road repairs, special event routes, etc) they can just make a turn and act like any other bus. Something like the Hyperloop car carrier could work here or at the very least an expansion of bus ways could provide train like access with a lower infrastructure cost. Amtrak will also let a certain number of vehicles onto some of their train lines. I don’t know how well that works, but it seems like for a well run popular route you could have a ferry like experience.
- whatusername 7y ago
  Similar to the LA example -- the O-Bahn in Adelaide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway
edf13 7y ago
Not being sarcastic but cars can go “on” trains.... checkout EuroTunnel for example
cwmma 7y ago
like some sort of train that a car could drive onto and be transported? This has existed for years.
- ianai 7y ago
  More crazy. Something they either create by linking up to each other or drive onto but can drive off of at speed and any time. Needs to be immediate to join and leave or people won’t use it.
  - braythwayt 7y ago
    Or it has its own lane, and if you don’t use it, you sit in a traffic jam watching the people who do use it whizz past. Not everything has to be instant gratification catering to your every need or else you’re buying a helicopter :-)
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Road trains don't really give you much savings from a traffic jam unless there is something else that prevents most people from using it. Single passenger cars take up a lot of space. Getting cars/people out of the train will slow the whole thing down where they need to leave the "fast?" lane for the traffic jam to get to their exit. Unless you are talking about all new freeways usable only by road trains. However at that point putting down steel rail is cheaper and can handle an order of magnitude more people for the investment.
      - braythwayt 7y ago
        Road trains could give us greater efficiencies from aerodynamics, and if used in dedicated lanes, could also give us something almost as useful as autonomous driving with much less work. As for steel rail, gosh, I really wish there was a way to make the politics work in North America.
        bluGill 7y ago
wffurr 7y ago
Bike and scooter racks on a train. Rental kiosks at stations. This is a solved problem, it just requires investment.
chongli 7y ago
We have those; they’re called parking lots and they’re usually found at commuter train stations. Snark aside, I don’t think it makes much sense to try to merge cars together at high speed. It’s a very complicated maneuver, requiring all cars behind the intended merge point to back up and make room, and the consequences of an accident have unlimited catastrophic potential. We could see hundreds of cars destroyed in a massive collision. Besides that, the costs seem astronomical: actually developing the technology, making sure all car manufacturers comply with the standard, and replacing every single car on the road with a compliant model. Wouldn’t it be much easier to put all of that money into building high speed railways? We’ve already perfected that technology.
- bluGill 7y ago
  The biggest issue is trust. I maintain my own cars: I trust myself, but do you trust me? I don't trust some of the professional mechanics that work on cars. In the current scheme we are told to maintain a large enough following distance that this question don't matter: no matter what happens in front of you, you can still react in time to recover. (You will not that the vast majority of drivers do not maintain this following distance) In a raid train situation all cars must be maintained to high enough standards for the most risk adverse person. In trains we already have standards, and have developed schemes to ensure that cars are maintained to standards. Note that trust above needs to account for the terrorist trying to kill people. It is debatable what systems works.
- notacoward 7y ago
  Docking wouldn't have to occur at high speed, or moving at all, for this to be useful. For example, I live in Massachusetts and I have a car full of gear that I'd like to have for my vacation in New Hampshire or New Jersey or Michigan. So I drive down to the local train depot, where my car is docked (or even just loaded onto) a train, I get in the passenger compartment, we're reunited at the other end. Already more efficient than driving, and more pleasant too. Now start adding tweaks like loading only the passenger compartment, which is already a separate thing in electric vehicles. Or running rails along one lane of existing highway, with docking/undocking at existing rest areas. Once the basic "dock instead of driving" idea gets established, it's possible to iterate on it.
freefal 7y ago
I think this is a really neat idea. Imagine cars arranging themselves and coupling into a train and then seamlessly decoupling as they need to exit. That would save energy (air resistance) and be a more efficient way to move more cars down the same piece of road faster. It also removes the lost time of intermodal transportation. No idea if it's practical.
organsnyder 7y ago
If you need to rely on the customer vehicles themselves for any part of the train's operation (wheels touching the ground, coupling, electrical connections...), it's going to be extremely difficult. Railways have strict requirements for inspections, etc. of customer cars—one malfunctioning car can be catastrophic (if a coupler malfunctions and lets go, for instance). If you're not relying on the customer vehicles for any part of the operation, you're basically describing existing auto-rail operations. They're not extremely common, probably because they're a terrible waste of space compared to traditional passenger rail cars. Our goal is to move people and goods around—not extra vehicles.

I wonder if anyone’s considered making a kind of modular way for vehicles to connect to something like a train.

by ianai 7y ago

I wonder if anyone’s considered making a kind of modular way for vehicles to connect to something like a train.

I recall Popular-Science-ish illustrations of systems like that where you’d drive onto the freeway and your car would hook into a chain of cars to be driven to a “stop,” where you could unhook. If I understand it correctly, we are just now experimenting with something very like that for trucking, where multiple trucks can convoy, and the systems communicate with each other so that all the vehicles in a convoy adjust their speed simultaneously.

oceliker 7y ago

Wasn't this part of the Hyperloop project idea in LA? You drive to a specific parking spot, the vehicle gets lowered to a tunnel, then the tunnel takes you to wherever you need to go.

Moto7451 7y ago

I can think of two examples. In LA there are busways that are built on former train paths. When they need to divert for whatever reason (road repairs, special event routes, etc) they can just make a turn and act like any other bus. Something like the Hyperloop car carrier could work here or at the very least an expansion of bus ways could provide train like access with a lower infrastructure cost. Amtrak will also let a certain number of vehicles onto some of their train lines. I don’t know how well that works, but it seems like for a well run popular route you could have a ferry like experience.

whatusername 7y ago
Similar to the LA example -- the O-Bahn in Adelaide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway

edf13 7y ago

Not being sarcastic but cars can go “on” trains.... checkout EuroTunnel for example

cwmma 7y ago

like some sort of train that a car could drive onto and be transported? This has existed for years.

ianai 7y ago
More crazy. Something they either create by linking up to each other or drive onto but can drive off of at speed and any time. Needs to be immediate to join and leave or people won’t use it.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  Or it has its own lane, and if you don’t use it, you sit in a traffic jam watching the people who do use it whizz past. Not everything has to be instant gratification catering to your every need or else you’re buying a helicopter :-)
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Road trains don't really give you much savings from a traffic jam unless there is something else that prevents most people from using it. Single passenger cars take up a lot of space. Getting cars/people out of the train will slow the whole thing down where they need to leave the "fast?" lane for the traffic jam to get to their exit. Unless you are talking about all new freeways usable only by road trains. However at that point putting down steel rail is cheaper and can handle an order of magnitude more people for the investment.
    - braythwayt 7y ago
      Road trains could give us greater efficiencies from aerodynamics, and if used in dedicated lanes, could also give us something almost as useful as autonomous driving with much less work. As for steel rail, gosh, I really wish there was a way to make the politics work in North America.
      - bluGill 7y ago

wffurr 7y ago

Bike and scooter racks on a train. Rental kiosks at stations. This is a solved problem, it just requires investment.

chongli 7y ago

We have those; they’re called parking lots and they’re usually found at commuter train stations. Snark aside, I don’t think it makes much sense to try to merge cars together at high speed. It’s a very complicated maneuver, requiring all cars behind the intended merge point to back up and make room, and the consequences of an accident have unlimited catastrophic potential. We could see hundreds of cars destroyed in a massive collision. Besides that, the costs seem astronomical: actually developing the technology, making sure all car manufacturers comply with the standard, and replacing every single car on the road with a compliant model. Wouldn’t it be much easier to put all of that money into building high speed railways? We’ve already perfected that technology.

bluGill 7y ago
The biggest issue is trust. I maintain my own cars: I trust myself, but do you trust me? I don't trust some of the professional mechanics that work on cars. In the current scheme we are told to maintain a large enough following distance that this question don't matter: no matter what happens in front of you, you can still react in time to recover. (You will not that the vast majority of drivers do not maintain this following distance) In a raid train situation all cars must be maintained to high enough standards for the most risk adverse person. In trains we already have standards, and have developed schemes to ensure that cars are maintained to standards. Note that trust above needs to account for the terrorist trying to kill people. It is debatable what systems works.
notacoward 7y ago
Docking wouldn't have to occur at high speed, or moving at all, for this to be useful. For example, I live in Massachusetts and I have a car full of gear that I'd like to have for my vacation in New Hampshire or New Jersey or Michigan. So I drive down to the local train depot, where my car is docked (or even just loaded onto) a train, I get in the passenger compartment, we're reunited at the other end. Already more efficient than driving, and more pleasant too. Now start adding tweaks like loading only the passenger compartment, which is already a separate thing in electric vehicles. Or running rails along one lane of existing highway, with docking/undocking at existing rest areas. Once the basic "dock instead of driving" idea gets established, it's possible to iterate on it.

freefal 7y ago

I think this is a really neat idea. Imagine cars arranging themselves and coupling into a train and then seamlessly decoupling as they need to exit. That would save energy (air resistance) and be a more efficient way to move more cars down the same piece of road faster. It also removes the lost time of intermodal transportation. No idea if it's practical.

organsnyder 7y ago

If you need to rely on the customer vehicles themselves for any part of the train's operation (wheels touching the ground, coupling, electrical connections...), it's going to be extremely difficult. Railways have strict requirements for inspections, etc. of customer cars—one malfunctioning car can be catastrophic (if a coupler malfunctions and lets go, for instance). If you're not relying on the customer vehicles for any part of the operation, you're basically describing existing auto-rail operations. They're not extremely common, probably because they're a terrible waste of space compared to traditional passenger rail cars. Our goal is to move people and goods around—not extra vehicles.