The train that never stops

Got this from my sister-n-law so don't know the source, sorry.

How to get on and off the non-stop high speed train! A new Chinese train innovation - How to get on & off the bullet train without stopping. VERY COOL CONCEPT ! No time is wasted. The bullet train is moving all the time. If there are 30 stations between Beijing and Guangzhou, just stopping and accelerating again at each station will waste both energy and time. A mere 5 min stop per station (elderly passengers cannot be hurried) will result in a total loss of 5 min x 30 stations or 2.5 hours of train journey time! The Chinese are innovative enough to come up with a non-stopping train concept. When the train arrives at a station, it will not stop at all. The passenger at a station embarked onto to a connector cabin way before the train even arrive at the station. When the train arrives, it will not stop at all. It just slows down to pick up the connector cabin which will move with the train on the roof of the train. While the train is still traveling away from the station, those passengers will board the train from the connector cabin mounted on the train's roof. After fully unloading all its passengers, the cabin connector cabin will be moved to the back of the train so that the next batch of outgoing passengers who want to alight at the next station will board the connector cabin at the rear of the train roof. When the train arrives at the next station, it will simply drop the whole connector cabin at the station itself and leave it behind at the station. The outgoing passengers can take their own time to disembark at the station while the train had already left. At the same time, the train will pick up the incoming embarking passengers on another connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof. So the train will always drop one connector cabin at the rear of its roof and pick up a new connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof at each station.

(Link to short animated video)

formatting link

Reply to
The Seabat
Loading thread data ...

Here's the youtube link if you don't like using those download sites.

formatting link

How to get on and off the non-stop high speed train! A new Chinese train innovation - How to get on & off the bullet train without stopping. VERY COOL CONCEPT ! No time is wasted. The bullet train is moving all the time. If there are 30 stations between Beijing and Guangzhou, just stopping and accelerating again at each station will waste both energy and time. A mere 5 min stop per station (elderly passengers cannot be hurried) will result in a total loss of 5 min x 30 stations or 2.5 hours of train journey time! The Chinese are innovative enough to come up with a non-stopping train concept. When the train arrives at a station, it will not stop at all. The passenger at a station embarked onto to a connector cabin way before the train even arrive at the station. When the train arrives, it will not stop at all. It just slows down to pick up the connector cabin which will move with the train on the roof of the train. While the train is still traveling away from the station, those passengers will board the train from the connector cabin mounted on the train's roof. After fully unloading all its passengers, the cabin connector cabin will be moved to the back of the train so that the next batch of outgoing passengers who want to alight at the next station will board the connector cabin at the rear of the train roof.

When the train arrives at the next station, it will simply drop the whole connector cabin at the station itself and leave it behind at the station. The outgoing passengers can take their own time to disembark at the station while the train had already left. At the same time, the train will pick up the incoming embarking passengers on another connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof. So the train will always drop one connector cabin at the rear of its roof and pick up a new connector cabin in the front part of the train's roof at each station.

(Link to short animated video)

formatting link

Reply to
vmanes

That is interesting, but what about the catenary? The module will rip out the wire and overhead supports since it would have to be taller than the pantographs so people can get in and out without crawling.

Reply to
Frank A. Rosenbaum

Thanks for posting the YouTube link.

One other problem I can see is the g-forces. Its going to need a lot more than what looks like a few hundred meters of acceleration/deceleration "zones". Also it appears the only electrical pickup is through the "pod". That should be interesting. Neat thing is the idea is just crazy enough that someone will probably make it work.

Jim

Reply to
Jim

The whole thing reminds me of an old 1930-something "Yearbook of technical innovations" - they were planning on "hop-off-air-travel": a powered plane pulling one or more gliders, carrying passengers. As the powered plane neared one of the destinations, the corresponding glider (obviously the last in the chain) would be released from the cable and the crew in that glider would land it at the place. Finally the powered plane would land. There are some obvious problems ;-) So the thing never got past "idea stage"...

With the hop-on-hop-off High-Speed-Trains there are similar problems involved, and while I could imagine the thing working, I couldn't imagnine coupling two trains (that's what it is, right?) at 250 km/h speed. No way!

In the end the Chinese will end up copying the Japanese: the express train starts right before the "local" and while the "local" stops at every station, the "express" will only stop once or twice in between. This is cheaper, safer and easier than any fancy hop-on-hop-of-chrash-train-parts-at-high-speed-thingy...

Ciao, and thanks for the laugh...

Reply to
Bernhard Agthe

The system _might_ work if they ran side by side. A connection like an airport "airbridge" between the two would allow single level transfer of passengers. Whoa betide the last or slowest passenger who couldn't get across withing the alloted length of parallel track! They would require a very long parallel track to go from 0-250km/hr, allow time to cross and then deaccelerate to a stop. Add to that the time to return to the required station and you might as well have a whole new train and railway.

Reply to
Greg.Procter

Perhaps they could pick up the passengers from between the tracks, as in the days of taking on water that way. LOL!

Reply to
LDosser

There was the "Neverstop Railway" at the Wembley Exhibition in 1924.

This was driven by a screw thread of varying pitch between the rails. It slowed don but didn't stop, at stations, and sped up between them.

Reply to
Christopher A. Lee

I don't think you're taking this seriously! ;-)

Passengers in solution would definitely be easier to collect than dry. I foresee other problems, which might be solved with lifejackets.

Reply to
Greg.Procter

Ha! Well how about this. Remember those pneumatic tube thingies they had in department stores to send paper and money hither and yonder? Now scale it up! :o()

Reply to
LDosser

Been channeling the intro to "Futurama" have we?

formatting link

Reply to
Twibil

Been channeling the intro to "Futurama" have we?

formatting link

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Cool! Now That's what I'm talking about ...

Reply to
LDosser

Better yet, I remember (early '50s) The Mercantile in Peru, Indiana.

Ever see these?

formatting link
Whirring wires and whizzing little thin metal baskets carrieded little tinplate cars, carried cash and receipt to cashiers on the mezzanine who made change and returned it to the floor clerk.

Reply to
Steve Caple

I do like the Ball version!

Reply to
LDosser

Okay - Gimbal (or gymbal) mounted cabin with some self-centering mechanism to align the exit on arrival - It'd only take a spot of friction to induce 'gerbelling' though (thats the engineering use of the term by the way). Also there are issues with 'gimbal locking' when two axes line up.

Some possibly useful research has already been done

formatting link
When I was a nipper there was a TV puppet show called Space Patrol, the opening sequence featured a 'city of the future' and at the time kids all over the country were building their own versions, including the pneumatic 'train' systems, with varying degrees of success.

One I liked used a system of canals, inclined planes along which water flowed, opening into lagoons to slow the craft down. Worked okay but problems with leaks brought a Cease and Desist Order from the Elders.

Regards

Mike

Reply to
Mike Smith

Space patrol (planet patrol in the US) - the city starts at about 45 seconds in -

formatting link
Regards

Mike

Reply to
Mike Smith

The dept. store in Grays, Essex, had one with a carriage on wheels hung bellow a wire. The shop assistant put the sales slip & money in a tube, reached up and screwed it onto the carriage. Then pulled a string that pulled back a hammer against the spring. At the end of the pull the hammer was tripped and drove the carriage off on it's trip to the cashier. A bell rang too.

Now that was where the fun started. To go round corners there was a brass rail, pierced with hexagonal holes.

Now at some point my mate graham and I discovered that the hexagonal hole was just the same size as one of Rowney's pencils. So we'd nick one from the stationery dept, and lean off the staircase to poke it through the brass rail. Then hide.

'Ding' - the carriage is off. 'Thud' - it hits the pencil, which breaks in half and stops. We retrieve the two halves off the floor, to add to the confusion, and wait. After a few minutes the customer gets nervous about where her change has got to, and the shop assistant gets flustered. After a few more minutes there would be frock coated floorwalkers hunting about, then poking above their heads with window poles trying to retrieve the thing back to one end or t' other.

The entertainment would last half an hour. Sometimes a very old man in a brown dustcoat would appear, and climb a tall stepladder, slowly and shakily. On one occasion, when coming down again, he put his leg through the glass top of a counter.

Happy days.

Reply to
bobharvey

West Bridgford, and some of the other power stations in the Vale of Trent perhaps, was fed by a 'carousel' train that did not stop. The hopper cars were fed by a coaling depot while crawling, and dropped their load through bottom doors without stopping at the power station. A dumbell track at both depots allowed continuous running without reversal. The drivers had a special mounting block next to the drop point to board a moving loco. They only stopped to take on Diesel, as I understand it.

I watched one in 1971.

Reply to
bobharvey

Just amazing what's Out There now. Reminds me of Saturdays at the matinee!

Reply to
LDosser

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.