Prototype Autonomous Battery-powered Wagon!

[Baxenden Bank]

This article appeared in my timeline on twitter. Any views?

It received some rather negative responses. I can kind of see some point if they can be coupled together to form a 'real' train for a long distance haul (say from port to inland clearance yard) then be split and sent individually on short haul trip workings to their final destination, or haul themselves around a rail-served distribution depot. But the idea of sending one cross-country on its own, nah. Perhaps suitable for remote / less congested parts of the network. But as a twitter post says, we already have these, they are called lorries and they have much more flexibility.

Now if they combined the proposed model with a road-rail chassis.... Daventry to Inverness to Wick by rail, final mile by road to Tesco.

As an aside, as an autonomous vehicle why would it need a cab-type design? Surely you can sling the controlling electronics in a bland rectangular window free box on the end or underneath. It seems that all autonomous vehicles are designed to have a shape which is similar to current non-autonomous vehicles.

Prototype autonomous battery-powered wagon aims to help rail compete with trucks​

4 November 2021

USA: Technology company Intramotev is developing a prototype self-powered autonomous wagon, which it hopes can make rail freight more competitive over distances of up to 1 500 km.

link here: Railway Gazette

USA: ‘We envision a future in which freight can move itself without waiting for a locomotive’, says Intramotev CEO Tim Luchini as he tells
@RailwayGazette
about the development of a prototype battery powered self-powered autonomous wagon

tweet here


The article, which is behind a registration wall, pictures a grain hopper wagon type with an Optare Solo cab tagged on one end.

​

 

[furnessvale]

As demonstrated on Tomorrows World 50+? years ago.

The fact that the demonstrator lowmac wagon had been propelled into camera shot by a class 08 hidden round the bend is neither here nor there!

 

[Baxenden Bank]

As demonstrated on Tomorrows World 50+? years ago.

The fact that the demonstrator lowmac wagon had been propelled into camera shot by a class 08 hidden round the bend is neither here nor there!

Yes, one of the twitter responses said something similar, pointing to an american rail magazine article. Same type of rail wagon as this version but with a lorry cab stuck on the front.

a response to the original tweet

I highkey believe this is a scam, because it's *precisely* the same idea as published in the January 1968 issue of TRAINS, known then as "The True Train". Or at worst it's "microwave reheated" innovation. Get an original idea, FFS.

Pictures show a copy of the January 1968 issue of TRAINS, which has diagrams of the proposal and a sketch mock-up of the proposed vehicle.


I also remember road/rail trailers where you would drive the lorry up, drop the rail wheels and form them into a train (can't remember the name).

Also the freight multiple unit - which at least did arrive sort ofand is in use by Network Rail.

 

[HSTEd]

Also the freight multiple unit - which at least did arrive sort ofand is in use by Network Rail.

Freight multiple units are also in use in Japan.

 

[Irascible]

Makes more sense in the US where wagonload freight & small terminals are alive ( it'd cut shunting costs on local freight considerably, I'd imagine )... can't see much use here without a big change in infrastructure. We need autonomous containers that self-transship

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

A battery powered lorry would transform the world, this wagon won't however.

 

[Irascible]

Autonomous electric lorry runs on motorways would change a lot - depost your trailer one end of the run & someone collects it at the other. Remains to be seen if that's more energy efficient than the train ( 100% the future here though, I'd think - far easier to create something that sticks to a motorway than deal with every possible road ).

For places with low margin terminal lines etc like the US, this sort of thing might help & even promote more terminals, which might mean less transshipment & less road traffic.