Is this the answer for rural rail routes? One has to wonder what kind of crash testing will be done. You can’t exactly fit an anti-climber on it. A corn field meet would be catastrophic. An interesting concept…the price is certainly right.
The vehicle is being developed by the JR Hokkaido Railway Company. A prototype minibus has been built which has retractable train wheels for use on conventional railway tracks. Estimates are that these vehicles will be available for use in 2006. It is currently estimated that it will cost approximately 15,000,000 yen or about $145,000 at current (December, 2004) exchange rates (= 103 yen/$). The prototype was developed from a JR Hokkaido project that was started in 2000. The 25-seat minibus has four highway wheels for roads and four steel wheels plus two rubber tires for tracks. It can be switched from rail to highway in 10-15 seconds and can be operated on the highway at 60 kph.
Below is a summary of a translation of a recent report (in Japanese) from the JR Hokkaido Railway Company
There have seen many attempts to develop a vehicle that can run on roadways and rails throughout the world but none has succeeded.
JR Hokkaido has been working to implement this dual mode concept.
About a third of JR Hokkaido’s rail lines carry less than 500 passengers per day, which are not productive.
Many attempts have been made to reduce the cost of those lines, and they have been implemented.
Increased ridership cannot be expected under the current conditions.
Non-traditional ideas have been explored to further reduce the cost and make the services more attractive.
A Dual Mode Vehicle has been developed as a part of the Dual Mode Transport System,
Thats a good question. My best guess is that it’s an attempt to avoid intermodal transfer of passengers-more flexibilty in routing-you could pick up folks on a city street and then perhaps run at more mph on a rail route…like the interurbans used to run- less expense to purchase and operate-when I saw it I immediately thought of those remote rail lines up in Canada where rail is the only option for transport-it would be cheaper than an RDC to operate.
My concern would be–will it activate grade crossing signal circuits, or be “seen” on signalled trackage, with or without CTC/TCS? If not, then it would have to run on a trackcar permit. Top speed for them: 25 on NORAC roads.
I doubt that it would be allowed to operate on anything but a light rail system unless it were designed to meet crashworthiness standards of commuter lines. And be able to couple to their cars and locomotives, and so on. (And you’re right about signal activation, though that can usually be taken care of–UP hi-rail trucks activite the signals around here.)
I can see them as a commute tool - perhaps even using lightly used lines that would be able to accomodate their mode of transportation. This would also assume that the rail went between points that need/would use the service.
AM rush - running as buses, they make their rounds, ending up at the point at which they will get on the rails. All traffic will be in one direction between ? am and ? am, before and after which other traffic could use the tracks. Once they reach certain points, they get off the rails and deliver their passengers on regular routes.
PM rush - same as the AM rush, but in the opposite direction.
Of course, light rail would work just as well, and two-way traffic could be accomodated given appropriate signalling and sufficient means for handling meets, be it dual tracks or passing sidings.
The real draw, from what I can see, is the passenger not having to change “cars”, at least not as much.
Now, if you want to sell some to railfans, set them up as motorhomes…
Believe me, pilgrim, if you had ever driven in Japan, you wouldn’t even ask!
Another, less obvious, reason is that the rails frequently provide a much more desirable route than the roads. In the less developed North (Hokkaido) the roads mostly replicate ancient routes that don’t follow straight lines and connect places that were a lot more important in the seventeenth century than they are now. Today’s trade and population hubs are connected by railroads which were built for commercial purposes, not to perpetuate ancient cultural heritage, so they actually provide the shortest routes between the places that people want to go.
Where this dual-mode vehicle comes into its own is when it reaches the end of the rails (at, for example, a town that once had a colliery, now closed.) Instead of de-training to board a bus, the passengers will remain on board the same vehicle. With mode transition like a hi-rail truck, the “bus” will be ready to go up some winding mountain road almost as fast as if had arrived on highway wheels.
It can also bridge the gap between two branch lines with terminals separated by rugged terrain too expensive to build a railroad through, thereby shortcutting the long trip along the coast. If the idea proves out, larger vehicles might follow.
The whole point of having a railroad is having a few, HUGE vehicles on a roadway instead of many small ones. This increases efficiency and makes the best use of the railway, which is very limited. You can’t pass or overtake someone on a railway, so there has to be rigid control over their use (a dispatcher). I can see how it might be neat to get in one of these things on Long Island, drive it down the tracks, and straight into Grand Central or onto the subway tracks to your place of business, but lots of these things going on the rails would make roadway gridlock look like a picnic by comparison. And it isn’t like roads or air travel, where you are travelling on a surface (or through the air) that you don’t have to pay for - somebody has to pay for the rails, and unless the government is doing the maintaining, you’re going to need a toll system for the rails (like many private roads in Japan are today).
I just had an interesting thought. Consider a train of about a half-dozen or more of these, m.u.ed, under the control of one engineer. Then at the end of the line, the cars are separated, flanged wheels lifted, a bunch of drivers get on board, and take these things thither and yon (presumably over established routes).
Admittedly, even something like this wouldn’t negate the low speeds (on roads) or the crashworthiness standards (on railroads) mentioned somewhere above. And six of these little buggers would still haul less than a single suburban gallery car.
As was suggested in a prior posting, this idea seems to be aimed at addressing a transportation issue in Hokkaido and probably isn’t applicable just about anywhere else, including most of the rest of Japan.
