superbeThe idea was short lived but you have to wonder how this mower and lazer idea could ever be approved by management
North American managers are bean counters, not engineers. Saving money is good, problems are found/thought of in the field much later. I do not know about Dutch companies.
Dave
This lazer idea reminds me of a far out idea CSX had 30 / 40 years ago. They had a small self propeled vehicle with giant "lawn mowers" attaced to hydraulic arms on all four corners of the car. The operator sat in a cage made out of heavy criss crossed rebar. The car rode the rails and litteraly mowed down brush, tree branches as well as small trees.
I saw it in action and a negative result of it as well . A blade broke and sliced through our chain link fence. Fortuantely no one was in the way and it didn't hit anything else. The blade could just as well gone in the other direction where a major road was located. We also heard that farmers lost cattle.
The idea was short lived but you have to wonder how this mower and lazer idea could ever be approved by management.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
I can see the headline now.
"Railway Lazer Sparks 10000 Hectare Forest Fire after successfully Zapping Pine Cone From Rail"
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Here's a link to the New Scientist article on this."the lasers vaporise built-up residue as the train passes. They also dry the rails".Well, the drying part makes sense, but "vaporise"? Does this burn up the leaves then (sounds like it does)?
Just what we need - locomotives with built-in death rays.
The US Navy has unveiled a seriously powerful shipborne laser that can do a serious hurt to airborne or seaborne threats. I would assume that anyone on the target who was looking at it when it fired would never see anything else again.
Hopefully, the loco-mounted units wouldn't ever hit anything but the railheads.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - careful about laser levels and my computer mouse)
...Star Trek meets Casey Jones!