318266
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I would make a train that looks like a class 150, but is a bi-mode.
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If you can make a train, what would you make?
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Bletchleyite
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318266
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No, a Class 750 that crashes into the buffers on the test track!
What, any sort of train? Completely free hand? Doesn't have to fulfil a particular role on British railways as they currently are?
Right, then I'd make a "Daedalus Horse", which is a train that eats grass.
A long time ago the Ariadne column in the back of New Scientist had Daedalus proposing an idea for a train which powers itself by mowing grass growing between the rails as it goes along and burning the clippings. So I checked out the proposal and found that yes, it does just about work. You'd have to do something more efficient than simply chucking the clippings into the firebox of a steam engine, which I think was the original idea; I would suggest drying them using the exhaust heat, pulverising them, and using the powder as fuel for a diesel engine (cf. Rudolf Diesel's original invention, which ran on coal dust); but it is just about possible to scarf up enough energy to run a rural branch line type service, at least in the summer. So I'd build one of those, to check it out in the metal.
Right, then I'd make a "Daedalus Horse", which is a train that eats grass.
A long time ago the Ariadne column in the back of New Scientist had Daedalus proposing an idea for a train which powers itself by mowing grass growing between the rails as it goes along and burning the clippings. So I checked out the proposal and found that yes, it does just about work. You'd have to do something more efficient than simply chucking the clippings into the firebox of a steam engine, which I think was the original idea; I would suggest drying them using the exhaust heat, pulverising them, and using the powder as fuel for a diesel engine (cf. Rudolf Diesel's original invention, which ran on coal dust); but it is just about possible to scarf up enough energy to run a rural branch line type service, at least in the summer. So I'd build one of those, to check it out in the metal.
LOL The Irony
Established Member
A light, go anywhere, BMMU. The ones that need it can be fitted with dual voltage. All will have end gangways and a top speed of 100 or 110 mph. Interior will be endlessly configurable to be anything from like a 707 to an Intercity layout with first class and a shop.
Halifaxlad
Established Member
A 170's with nothing but a 2+1 seating layout on the inside for long distance services between Manchester - Rochdale - Halifax - Bradford - Leeds!
Bevan Price
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An oil-fired, one-person operated steam loco -- with oil flow controlled by computer. To replace some dmus on scenic routes in order to attract more passengers. Without the problem of variable coal quality, and no need for a "fire"person, it ought to be possible to design a steam loco to equal dmu performance on lines with lowish speed limits (up to 60 mph). Loco would also have a steam driven generator to provide electricity supply to the coaches.
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I quite like this.
Would it have a proper bark though?
I’d be worried that a ‘new’ steam locomotive would be a bit stilted with a modern efficient quiet exhaust...
Halifaxlad
Established Member
I quite like this.
Would it have a proper bark though?
I’d be worried that a ‘new’ steam locomotive would be a bit stilted with a modern efficient quiet exhaust...
Wouldn't this just be a battery driven locomotive with a steam engine outline?
GrimShady
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A steam turbine loco would do this.
Whistler40145
Established Member
I'd build a tri-mode loco, fitted with a Diesel Engine and capable to both 3rd rail DC and 25kV ohle
ALAN BYRNE
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Diesel Hydraulic transmission with twin Maybach engines, and the styling that'll last across the decades; then I'd call it a 'Western' !!!
The Swiss did that during WW2. Can't get coal, but lots of hydroelectric power => stick an immersion heater in the boiler and a panto on the roof.
there's me thinking I was innovating.
Whistler40145
Established Member
I’d love to come up with a bizarre idea on newer trains whereby to stop fare evasion, that train doors would only be able to open by swiping a ticket on a pad next to the carriage doors.
Bevan Price
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That would only stop the first passenger - unless the doors closed rapidly after each passenger, and reopened for the next passenger. In that case, station dwell times would be massively extended.
An even more bizarre idea might be better (but will never be adopted) - abolish tickets and payments at the time of travel -- instead let the national tax budget pay for all travel, hopefully to encourage more car owners to leave their cars at home.........
A personal rapid rail pod.
That is, a car-sized, driverless rail vehicle with four or six seats around a table.
It can go anywhere on the network, intelligently driving you from any station where it picks you up to any station where you want to go, using a hybrid of CBTC signalling and driverless car technology to avoid running in to any other units and do intelligent routing.
Powered by fuel cell, capacitor or rechargeable batteries, replenished in the depots or at various stations.
They're summoned by app or the platform assistant (for those less well versed in technology). You can pay a higher price to reserve one for just your group, or a lower price to ride share with other passengers for parts of your journey.
Stations will need more passing loops constructed for this to be practical.
That is, a car-sized, driverless rail vehicle with four or six seats around a table.
It can go anywhere on the network, intelligently driving you from any station where it picks you up to any station where you want to go, using a hybrid of CBTC signalling and driverless car technology to avoid running in to any other units and do intelligent routing.
Powered by fuel cell, capacitor or rechargeable batteries, replenished in the depots or at various stations.
They're summoned by app or the platform assistant (for those less well versed in technology). You can pay a higher price to reserve one for just your group, or a lower price to ride share with other passengers for parts of your journey.
Stations will need more passing loops constructed for this to be practical.
Oh well, if you're going to construct a whole new signalling system and loads of passing loops, then I'm going to construct a whole new network of track to run my urban rapid transit system on.
The trouble with monorails is that they are almost always a self-defeating concept. If you run a train on one rail, it falls off. And the simplest way to stop it falling off is to use two rails. Any other support configuration which confers static stability is considerably more elaborate, so all the supposed advantages of simple track, ease of construction, unobtrusiveness, and what-have-you, go out the window and you end up with this great beam that actually is wide enough to put two rails on if people didn't insist that you're not allowed to and have to do something more complicated instead. And the pointwork is a massive pain.
To make it work with one rail that is no bigger than a normal one, instead of cheating by making it as wide as a whole normal track, means giving up the idea of static stability and using some kind of dynamic stabiliser instead. While there are other possibilities, this almost always means a gyroscope. This is awkward in the case of a loco-and-wagons arrangement, as each vehicle has to have its own stabiliser, but that doesn't matter for an individual-pod type system as they all have to anyway.
They are also light, so the rail needs minimal bridgework to support it. If you have the supports at a close enough spacing - say by combining them with existing lamp posts - it can span the gaps on its own. So it is about as minimally intrusive as you can get - no massive great bridges, just a single thin bar connecting the tops of posts that already exist. And for large gaps - such as crossing a river - you can use a cable under tension.
The vehicles run on a pair of two-wheeled bogies, fore and aft, the wheels having a semicircular groove and running on circular-section rails (ie. steel tubes, like big scaff poles). Junctions are simply one tube meeting another at a merging angle, with slots like a frog to allow the flanges to pass and guide rails to ensure they don't try and pass some other way. Route selection is done on board the vehicle, by applying a slight rotational bias to the bogie pivots when approaching a junction to steer the wheels to take one route or the other. A pattern of magnetisation in the tube approaching the junction lets the steering system know when to perform and which junction it is; at other times the bogies are self-steering as per usual. If flange lubricators are needed the reservoir can go inside the tube.
The vehicles are both powered and balanced by a pair of counter-rotating force-precessed gyroscopes/flywheels. Because the precession torque is linear with speed but the stored energy goes as the square, they can be arranged to "run down" as far as their "battery" aspect is concerned while still having plenty of speed for balancing. When the speed drops below a given threshold the vehicle automatically routes itself to a depot where the flywheels are spun up again from a shore supply.
They also have considerably more torque capacity than is required for simple balancing. The vehicle, as has been obvious, normally runs on top of the rail - and the rail is up in the air out of the way. For boarding and alighting, the vehicle extends a set of circular steel bands which go all the way around the rail, and the gyros are then commanded to tip it over sideways at a controlled rate until it is hanging underneath the rail. To set off, the gyros torque the vehicle upright again, the bands are retracted and off we go. There is thus no need for stations and the pods can stop anywhere along the route. The bands gain their strength from width rather than thickness, and have bevelled edges, so that other vehicles can simply run over the top of a vehicle which is loading/unloading and do not have to wait for it. The bands are also loaded with a powerful spring which can bang them out in an instant if for some reason the vehicle does lose its balancing ability while going along.
The vehicle body is ovoid in shape, with the long axis parallel to the track, and is fixed to the chassis by two large ring bearings, fore and aft. It rotates in these bearings by its own weight to keep itself upright while the vehicle is turning itself upside down. There is a door in each side, hinged from the bottom so it can also act as a wheelchair ramp, and a longitudinal bar joins the ring bearings on both sides in such a position that it blocks the doors from being opened when the vehicle is in the running position.
The body consists of a front/upper transparent section and a back/lower seating section, which is opaque. Both are one-piece mouldings of suitable material, so there are no joints apart from that between the sections; the seats have an impervious, hydrophobic surface, and are shaped so as to have all corners smoothly rounded, no crannies, and no pond-like depressions. This is so that while the vehicle is at a depot having its flywheels recharged, it can at the same time be rapidly and efficiently cleaned with automatic hot water jets, and the water will all run off by itself leaving the seats not needing further drying. There is sufficient space in front of the seats to fit a wheelchair and turn it round on itself.
Intending passengers summon a vehicle by putting the coins to pay their (flat) fare in a slot provided in every post (a specialised robot vehicle comes round at intervals to empty the boxes via an emptying port at the top of the post). This means that if anyone decides to bugger up the system by ringing the bell and running away it will cost them. Route selection is done by means of a streetmap of the area with all the routes marked, laminated onto the inside of the passenger compartment with touch sensors embedded behind it; touching it at any point along a route commands the vehicle's guidance system to direct it to that location, stop, and turn upside down.
The trouble with monorails is that they are almost always a self-defeating concept. If you run a train on one rail, it falls off. And the simplest way to stop it falling off is to use two rails. Any other support configuration which confers static stability is considerably more elaborate, so all the supposed advantages of simple track, ease of construction, unobtrusiveness, and what-have-you, go out the window and you end up with this great beam that actually is wide enough to put two rails on if people didn't insist that you're not allowed to and have to do something more complicated instead. And the pointwork is a massive pain.
To make it work with one rail that is no bigger than a normal one, instead of cheating by making it as wide as a whole normal track, means giving up the idea of static stability and using some kind of dynamic stabiliser instead. While there are other possibilities, this almost always means a gyroscope. This is awkward in the case of a loco-and-wagons arrangement, as each vehicle has to have its own stabiliser, but that doesn't matter for an individual-pod type system as they all have to anyway.
They are also light, so the rail needs minimal bridgework to support it. If you have the supports at a close enough spacing - say by combining them with existing lamp posts - it can span the gaps on its own. So it is about as minimally intrusive as you can get - no massive great bridges, just a single thin bar connecting the tops of posts that already exist. And for large gaps - such as crossing a river - you can use a cable under tension.
The vehicles run on a pair of two-wheeled bogies, fore and aft, the wheels having a semicircular groove and running on circular-section rails (ie. steel tubes, like big scaff poles). Junctions are simply one tube meeting another at a merging angle, with slots like a frog to allow the flanges to pass and guide rails to ensure they don't try and pass some other way. Route selection is done on board the vehicle, by applying a slight rotational bias to the bogie pivots when approaching a junction to steer the wheels to take one route or the other. A pattern of magnetisation in the tube approaching the junction lets the steering system know when to perform and which junction it is; at other times the bogies are self-steering as per usual. If flange lubricators are needed the reservoir can go inside the tube.
The vehicles are both powered and balanced by a pair of counter-rotating force-precessed gyroscopes/flywheels. Because the precession torque is linear with speed but the stored energy goes as the square, they can be arranged to "run down" as far as their "battery" aspect is concerned while still having plenty of speed for balancing. When the speed drops below a given threshold the vehicle automatically routes itself to a depot where the flywheels are spun up again from a shore supply.
They also have considerably more torque capacity than is required for simple balancing. The vehicle, as has been obvious, normally runs on top of the rail - and the rail is up in the air out of the way. For boarding and alighting, the vehicle extends a set of circular steel bands which go all the way around the rail, and the gyros are then commanded to tip it over sideways at a controlled rate until it is hanging underneath the rail. To set off, the gyros torque the vehicle upright again, the bands are retracted and off we go. There is thus no need for stations and the pods can stop anywhere along the route. The bands gain their strength from width rather than thickness, and have bevelled edges, so that other vehicles can simply run over the top of a vehicle which is loading/unloading and do not have to wait for it. The bands are also loaded with a powerful spring which can bang them out in an instant if for some reason the vehicle does lose its balancing ability while going along.
The vehicle body is ovoid in shape, with the long axis parallel to the track, and is fixed to the chassis by two large ring bearings, fore and aft. It rotates in these bearings by its own weight to keep itself upright while the vehicle is turning itself upside down. There is a door in each side, hinged from the bottom so it can also act as a wheelchair ramp, and a longitudinal bar joins the ring bearings on both sides in such a position that it blocks the doors from being opened when the vehicle is in the running position.
The body consists of a front/upper transparent section and a back/lower seating section, which is opaque. Both are one-piece mouldings of suitable material, so there are no joints apart from that between the sections; the seats have an impervious, hydrophobic surface, and are shaped so as to have all corners smoothly rounded, no crannies, and no pond-like depressions. This is so that while the vehicle is at a depot having its flywheels recharged, it can at the same time be rapidly and efficiently cleaned with automatic hot water jets, and the water will all run off by itself leaving the seats not needing further drying. There is sufficient space in front of the seats to fit a wheelchair and turn it round on itself.
Intending passengers summon a vehicle by putting the coins to pay their (flat) fare in a slot provided in every post (a specialised robot vehicle comes round at intervals to empty the boxes via an emptying port at the top of the post). This means that if anyone decides to bugger up the system by ringing the bell and running away it will cost them. Route selection is done by means of a streetmap of the area with all the routes marked, laminated onto the inside of the passenger compartment with touch sensors embedded behind it; touching it at any point along a route commands the vehicle's guidance system to direct it to that location, stop, and turn upside down.
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