[:-^] CORRECTED LINK…
I found this item this morning and thought it is a great idea. So I wanted to share it with all of you.
I found this video quite interesting, read first and then launch the video.
Read how it works below, before viewing the video link. A brilliant new Chinese train innovation - get on & off the bullet train without the train stopping. No time is wasted. The bullet train is moving all the time. If there are 30 stations between and , just stop |
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No video with that link.
Could you give us the video link? the suspense is killing me.
It was posted on the Toy Train Forum a couple of days ago. It is on YouTube. Just go to Youtube and search for Board train without stopping. There are 8 or 9 copies of it posted.
Innovative thinking, huh? Well…I’d say that the passengers aboard that overhead car will have to be strapped in like astronauts to ride out the acceleration that will be necessary to accomplish this link-up, unless the train slows down from its ~300kph to just a crawl at each station. Just don’t be caught still standing in the aisle when the car starts to move! [;)]
Likewise, so much time/distance would be required to accomplish the train’s deceleration/acceleration evolution for each link-up I’m wondering just how much time actually gets saved, to say nothing of the needed station platform length to allow for matching speeds. The link-up, as shown in the animation, would be quite impossible.
The critical logistics necessary to accomplish such a link-up sure would worry me and the whole idea seems more fantasy concept than anything with real potential.
CNJ831
Looks like they will be losing a few people. That thing has a lot of potential safety issues. Imagine moving between the main train and top tram and having it shift. It would also require bridges be raised to accommodate the extra height of at least 8 feet. When the wheels of the straddle car hit the rail surface at the station there’s potential for hanging up and running off the back and onto the tracks and 3rd rail. As noted already with acceleration/deceleration it doesn’t take much to throw you. Just watch a roller coaster come to a stop.
I agree with CNJ831. This does not look practical.
Something workable might be achieved by adapting the moving roads/sidewalk concept in The Roads Must Roll by Robert Heinlein to the trains. Of course the cost and complexity would be much greater.
Enjoy
Paul
Enjoy
Paul
Interesting idea. Thanks for posting the link. I wonder how the passengers get from the connecting car into the train itself? Stairs would be a problem. Strange that the cabin uses front and rear overhead doors instead of side doors.
If a train does not even stop to take me on board, why should I take the train?
Should this be the future of Chinese engineering, I start to feel comfortable again. This is not innovative thinking - this is just sick!
[:-^]
Well guys, I wouldn’t be too fast on debunking the idea. I thought that train they proposed from high in Tibet into China looked unfeasible but they pulled it off successfully.
I wouldn’t be holding my breath on this one. There maybe some adjustments that they will make, but my money would be on the fact that they will pull this off in one degree or another.
If they can save 2 1/2 hours on thirty stops and the amount of energy needed to brake and regain that speed just imagine the savings when talking about going from one end of China to the other.
In a couple of years there maybe some real change in thinking here.
And Ulrich, you know you would ride the train if you had to parachute on to it. Lol…
As I said, “Don’t be holding your breath” thinking this is not going to happen, or some version of it.
Johnboy out…for now.
I’ve seen a lot of people fall when the COMMUTER RAIL starts or stops moving…if the high-speed train slowed down to a full stop to allow the passenger cabin to be added to the train, it might be feasible. Any kind of start from a dead stop is out of the questions unless the passenger cabin is already moving when it attaches to the train. Also, clearance may be a problem under tunnels, bridges, signals, etc, and having something like that mounted above the train totally rules out overhead wire operation.
IF SOMEHOW you could make it work, you’d save a few minutes because the train could start right back up again (not counting time releasing the brakes) but would the small savings in time pay for the infrastructure costs?
One could save himself to death [:-^]
What to do with those 2 1/2 hrs. - wait for a taxi to take you from the train station? Ideas like this may have cost benefits, but at the risk of human health and safety.
The video was not by any chance posted to youtube on April 1st?
The Chinese are masters of copying other countries stuff. Now you see why. But hey, they have a few hundred million people to experiment with. You’d never hear about the failures since it’s a communist country with the media controlled. Hey isn’t that what we’ve become?[:-^]
Wouldn’t it be easier to do with a DMU that drops off and re attaches to the back of the train?
I guess the Chinese never saw how they used to pick up mail pouches or train orders back in the days when big steam ruled the high iron, why waste all that money on fancy cars attaching and detaching over head when they could just have people stuffed into canvas mail bags sitting on poles waiting for the bullet train to come whizzing by…lol
Sorry but that just some pencil pushing engineer (not the type that drives the trains) trying to justify his existence. If you’ve ever been to China and seen their industry up close you will know that they do not know the meaning of worker safety nor do they wish to learn it.
Might make a neat video game though, one other thing was it just me or did that narrator not sound like he had a Chinese accent but more like an Indian one?
To reiterate what I posted when I found this in the Toy Trains forum:
They intend to accelerate from zero to train speed in about 1.75 x train length. HEL -lo G forces. That mimics top fuel dragster performance.
The matching deceleration would equal or exceed drag chute performance!
There’s overhead wire in the cartoon, but no sign of pantographs. If there are supposed to be pantographs, what are they doing during this gyration? (Raising or lowering pans at speed comes under the heading, Avoid if possible.)
On a practicality scale of 1 to 10, this scheme merits an honest negative 6! I wonder how many people they’ll kill finding out that there are better ways to do this.
One aside. The elderly people in Japan must be more agile than those in China. The Shinkansen doesn’t spend five minutes standing at an intermediate station platform.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with passenger trains that actually stop)
I wouldn’t accuse the Chinese too much for G forces, as the Japanese just developed a maglev that is much more like an airplane. It rests on wheels when below flight speed, and when it gets going fast enough, the wing like shape of the entire train lifts it off the ground. The magnets are only to move it. This particular train has exceeded 600 kph, and reached a G force enough to knock a person out, and kill some. Compared to that, this really isnt too bad an idea. Also, this being addressed to others, I did see a pantograph from the car, and assuming the bullet train itself took power from a 3rd rail, I think this idea would work fine.
The Chinese are a nation of bumbling idiots when it comes to technology and I defy anyone with any credentials to ague this point. Back in the mid 90’s I was employed with Lockheed Martin who was contracted by the Chinese government to build and launch communications satellites. We sent three satellites into orbit successfully before going home for Christmas and resupply while we were away the Chinese decided to launch their own rocket and the end result killed many more then the 750 claimed by the Chinese government. Probably more in to the thousands would be more accurate. So is it a stretch of the imagination that the same people who killed thousand of people with their own rocket, tainted out dog food with melamine and painted our kids toys with lead paint probably not like someone else mentioned they have a lot of disposable people over there.
If you think my comment about them being a nation of bumbling idiots when it comes to technology click on the youtube link below.
There are structural challenges with the train. To handle the weight of the transfer pod the car shell will have to be built as strong as a bridge, since that is what it becomes. It has to withstand the impact loading as the car arrives, and the longitudinal stresses as the pod accelerates to speed. In other words, as well as the straight vertical loads there are going to be very high dynamic loads. HSR advocates in North America complain that equipment here is forced to be heavier than in Europe because of collision standards - they both will seem featherweights compared with this concept.
Power supply will also be a problem. Third rail is probably out of the question since high voltages will be the obvious need. The wire can’t be overhead, so some form of side catenary is needed. Perhaps doable, but difficult.
John