Paul_D_North_Jr John Kneiling once wrote that the AAR's idea of research was an atomic-powered switch lamp (instead of his 'baby', integral train systems).
John Kneiling once wrote that the AAR's idea of research was an atomic-powered switch lamp (instead of his 'baby', integral train systems).
But it does have to be said that the essentially ‘permanent’ illumination of switch lamps was a highly desirable object, achievable by no other means than decay emission... and that most other uses of atomic power that would fall under AAR’s research would be similarly low-key and nonlethal.
I don’t think the integral train was that different from the BCR coal turbine in being a project whose R&D costs should rightly be switched from commonly-supported bodies to those manufacturers standing to profit from sales and support of the equipment. I believe that was done with the HPIT when the integral-train idea was tried in the early ‘80s ... of course, the results then were not particularly compelling, and the primary factor leading to the present success of integral-type consists other than dedicated bulk is much more due to the peculiarities of ISO marine containers than ingenuities of rail-specific swap-bodies like Flexi-Van or specialized trailers like the ‘kangarou’ system that would optimize Kneiling-style integral train consists, fitting ‘legacy’ East Coast loading gage, with distributed power.
Norm48327One of my aunts was born just short of the turn of the twentieth century and openly declared man would never walk on the moon. Time proved her wrong. She also said five cents for a pound of butter was equivalent to extortion. I wonder what she would think of the price today. Times change.
She also said five cents for a pound of butter was equivalent to extortion. I wonder what she would think of the price today.
Times change.
My Grandfather was born in 1892 - he would regale me of stories of the first man to fly a plane over downtown Baltimore to be able to collect some form of challenge prize some time in the middle 19 oughts. Hired out on the B&O in 1910, ran the B&O's dining car department from 1937 until he retired in 1957. He was able to watch man land on the Moon before he took his first airplane flight with my father in about 1975. He passed on at 98 years of age. His only complaint was that all his close friends had preceeded him in death.
I won't say the Hyper-loop won't work - it may have the technical merits to function, however, will it become economically viable? If it isn't anywhere near self supporting, let alone profitable it will be good money thrown after bad.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
- PDN.
One of my aunts was born just short of the turn of the twentieth century and openly declared man would never walk on the moon. Time proved her wrong.
Norm
If I remember correctly the Ford ‘atomic’ stuff was like the Nucleon: car-show rolling chassis with a little sign on the engine bay that essentially said ‘reserved for atomic (and nuclear, after atomic lost its special cachet the way ‘pile’ did) power’. The closest I can recall to something actually providing that was the nuclear-electric battery, and while it is hard to imagine one of those rolling down the road in a truck or car without an attendant guard of armed Marines, it sure beats molten-salt or anything with sodium in the heat exchangers...
I'm very doubtful that a practical hyperloop system will be built. One challenge not often mentioned is the need for a very precisely surveyed right-of-way acquired and built over a long distance. Major employment opportunities for surveyors and geologists ....
This ROW must be designed for low G forces that a human body can tolerate. Healthy twenty-somethings will have few problems, but your frail 80 y/o grandmother or carsick prone brother not so. High employment rates predicted for car cleaners!
The hyperloop tube will require an immense amount of tunneling and/or long elevated sections that property owners will not appreciate. Lawyers are salivating already ....
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Hmm- I didn't save all my issues of National Lampoon but that does sound familiar. I do believe that Ford was working on an atomic truck 50 years ago. Wouldn't that have been something? "Been taking little white pills and my eyes are open wide" like the song says.
There were several prospective designs for ’atomic locomotives’ which we have discussed in the past (a couple of which were more than just ‘proof-of-concept’ designs) but they would all fall squarely in the ‘gadgetbahn’ category when Brotherhood rules are considered... even before you get to fuel-cycle economics and ... certain other concerns.
Wasn’t that Lampoon issue the one with the Diesel (not lowercase in THAT future) typewriter, and ‘Tap-A-Toe’ control for thousand-horsepower automobiles? (“Tap once to stop. Tap twice to GO! Tap three times to back up”... a railroad tie-in!)
CMStPnP Hyperloop is going nowhere, in my opinion. Technology is not at the point where that makes sense with either the electromagnetic model or with the vacuum model. The ticket costs to support such a system long term would be astronomical and the capacity limitation on how many people could be moved between point A and point B in a given timeframe would be limited as well driving up ticket prices further over time. Many of us are still waiting for Tesla to be self-sustaining. At some point the government aid as well as the junk bond sales will dry up.........then what?
Hyperloop is going nowhere, in my opinion. Technology is not at the point where that makes sense with either the electromagnetic model or with the vacuum model. The ticket costs to support such a system long term would be astronomical and the capacity limitation on how many people could be moved between point A and point B in a given timeframe would be limited as well driving up ticket prices further over time.
Many of us are still waiting for Tesla to be self-sustaining. At some point the government aid as well as the junk bond sales will dry up.........then what?
Dear CMSTP&P,
I have been on a Yahoo! E-group for a number of years called the Light Rail Professional’s Group. It is a group of light rail, transit and general rail advocates. Many of the members are professionals who have been involved in the transit industry for years although the group is open to anyone (as long as you’re pro-rail).
On that group they have a name for things like the hyperloop: “Gadgetbahn”. The “hyperloop” is only one of the latest “Gadgetbahns” to come to light but there have been many.
The oldest form of gadgetbahn is probably the monorail. There have been many, many monorails built but they have never really prevailed. The Wuppertal line in Germany is probably the longest lived and most successful of any monorail. Many other monorails have been little more than novelties or tourist lines.
The problem with monorail is that you need to go to great efforts and expense in order to make a single rail work when it’s just as easy to have two!
Then came tracked air cushion vehicles and maglev. Maglev might be coming into its own but has some of the same issues that monorail has. One of the things that’s made the French TGV so successful is that it can use conventional tracks to access large terminals and yards. A maglev can’t do that. One of the things they like to promote about maglev is speed. They can travel at speeds up to 350 MPH. But test trains have reached nearly that speed with conventional steel wheels and steel rails.
And now we have “hyperloop”. Will this be any different? Most of the members on the light rail list see a real danger with gadgetbahn. It is namely that it's a major distraction from real, practical rail solutions that are available now and will continue to be available far into the future. At least Musk is using his own money in this endeavor.
In my own personal, honest, humble opinion, I believe that in the future we will have all of these including hyperloop. But will they prevail over twin steel rails? I don’t know but I tend to be very skeptical about that.
Regards,
Fred M. Cain
54light15And then there was the atomic-powered zeppelin in an old Mechanix Illustrated magazine.
There was an atomic engine (locomotive), too. Wait - that was a movie. But I do know where the actual locomotive is... It was an ALCO, of course.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Hyperloop, eh? It might be do-able if there's enough sucker I mean taxpayer money behind it. But I did see a plan for a bridge across the Atlantic ocean once, complete with motels and gas stations. Oh wait, that was a Superman comic book. A few years later I saw a plan for a monorail throught the center of the Earth. Nope, that was a satire of Popular Mechanics in the old National Lampoon magazine. And then there was the atomic-powered zeppelin in an old Mechanix Illustrated magazine. All seem about as feasible as the hyper loop. What nonsense!
mudchicken Thank you - Beat me to it. Santa Fe Skyways - 7/1/46 thru late 1947 with a fleet of DC-4's and DC-3s PRR ATSF and Transcontinental Air Transport (laterTWA) were networking as far back as 1929...C&EI started air transport between Chicago and points south.
Thank you - Beat me to it.
Santa Fe Skyways - 7/1/46 thru late 1947 with a fleet of DC-4's and DC-3s
PRR ATSF and Transcontinental Air Transport (laterTWA) were networking as far back as 1929...C&EI started air transport between Chicago and points south.
By the time the Santa Fe operation came about, the airlines were well established enough to have an effective lobby group. The government snuffed it out after a little over a year. There's also some indication that the railroad unions frowned upon the idea, and exerted pressure as well. History is sketchy on this venture. A Google search yields very little.
WM7471 BLS53 Arguably, one of the railroad industry's biggest mistakes was not investing in aviation in the 1920's and 30's. IIRC several of the larger railroads (the Santa Fe & the Pennsylvania come to mind.) started to invest in the fledgling airlines in the years before WWII. They were stopped by Congress over fears that they would buy up the airlines and then shut them down to prevent competition.
BLS53 Arguably, one of the railroad industry's biggest mistakes was not investing in aviation in the 1920's and 30's.
Arguably, one of the railroad industry's biggest mistakes was not investing in aviation in the 1920's and 30's.
IIRC several of the larger railroads (the Santa Fe & the Pennsylvania come to mind.) started to invest in the fledgling airlines in the years before WWII. They were stopped by Congress over fears that they would buy up the airlines and then shut them down to prevent competition.
Railroads came into the act, when the then already established airlines wanted transcontinental routes, but the technology didn't exist yet (couldn't fly reliably enough at night and in weather). That's when some short lived partnerships came about. Once the DC-3 was introduced, and instrument flying procedures were developed, the partnerships disolved.
The time to act was the late 1920's when the government awarded the original air mail contracts. It would've been a minimal investment for the major railroads of the era. The upstart companies that came about, evolved into the airline system we have today.
beaulieu BLS53 Richard Branson, Virgin Group, has just invested in the project: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/richard-bransons-virgin-group-invests-in-hyperloop-one.html Virgin's primary business today is in the airline industry. Virgin Group's is no longer a major investor in the airline industry. It only owns a 20% stake in Virgin Atlantic Airlines. It actually owns 51% of Virgin Rail Group the operator of the West Coast passenger franchise in Great Britain. They are now a diversified holding company with interests in primarily Hospitality and Travel industries.
BLS53 Richard Branson, Virgin Group, has just invested in the project: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/richard-bransons-virgin-group-invests-in-hyperloop-one.html Virgin's primary business today is in the airline industry.
Richard Branson, Virgin Group, has just invested in the project:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/12/richard-bransons-virgin-group-invests-in-hyperloop-one.html
Virgin's primary business today is in the airline industry.
Virgin Group's is no longer a major investor in the airline industry. It only owns a 20% stake in Virgin Atlantic Airlines. It actually owns 51% of Virgin Rail Group the operator of the West Coast passenger franchise in Great Britain. They are now a diversified holding company with interests in primarily Hospitality and Travel industries.
I'm stating Richard Branson is forward thinking when it comes to the evolution and integration of a transportation ecosystem. How that particions out among his other interest is irrelevant. In fact such diversity, further illustrates his acumen in this regard.
Other transportation entities have tried such integration, but didn't have the stones to go hardcore, and instead dabbled in rent-a-cars (United), and of all things, soda pop (IC).
I'd wager that three tunnels would be the minimum as the traffic densities needed to support a Hyper loop would be such to preclude switching and passing if one tunnel had to be taken out of service.
The tunnels would likely be larger than what Musk was projecting for the Hyperloop to accomodate cars larger than he projected. The cars are small enough to trigger claustrophobia in some people and I haven't heard about any provision for a toilet. The latter would be needed unless there were robust provisions for getting all passengers out within an hour or so after a system breakdown.
I would also expect that passenger screening would need to be as least as tight on the Hyperloop as it is for airline passengers.
MiningmanTrue that. You must have ground support, ventilation bringing fresh air in and removing the old air, and you need to muck out each round. Conveyor belts do not work well in hard rock at all. This is not like cutting cheese.
*See any monorail or 'AirTram' operation to see how complicated and cumbersome they can get.
Gramp What do you think of this? http://fortune.com/video/2017/08/02/first-look-at-the-hyperloop-one/ https://electrek.co/2017/08/02/hyperloop-one-top-speed-test/ https://electrek.co/2017/04/06/hyperloop-one-us-routes/
What do you think of this?
http://fortune.com/video/2017/08/02/first-look-at-the-hyperloop-one/
https://electrek.co/2017/08/02/hyperloop-one-top-speed-test/
https://electrek.co/2017/04/06/hyperloop-one-us-routes/
Of course it can be done! Lots of things can be done. Some have economic merit. Some don't.
There are lots of details to work out with Hyperloop before it's a practical transport system.
That aside, the big problem with economic viability will be throughput. How fast can the terminals load, unload and turn equipment? You have to have a lot of riders per hour to pay for infrastructure, equipment and operating costs.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
True that. You must have ground support, ventilation bringing fresh air in and removing the old air, and you need to muck out each round. Conveyor belts do not work well in hard rock at all. This is not like cutting cheese.
Gramp Musk’s goal is to create a machine that can tunnel through the earth as fast as a snail, 10 times faster than current technology.
CSSHEGEWISCH In a similar vein, North Central Airlines (now part of Delta) started out as Wisconsin Central Airlines, a subsidiary of Wisconsin Central RR.
In a similar vein, North Central Airlines (now part of Delta) started out as Wisconsin Central Airlines, a subsidiary of Wisconsin Central RR.
Not true. The Wiscconsin Central Railroad was in receivership during the 1940's and was in no position to start an airline. Wisconsin Central Airlines was founded by two executives from the FWD Company, a manufacturer of heavy-duty 4x4 trucks based in Clintonville, WI plus another executive of an Engineering company based in Green Bay, WI. The Airline was founded in 1944 in response to the C&NW eliminating all passenger service to Clintonville and the lack of good roads to the community. They bought two used Lockheed Electra 10A airplanes to start with.
CSSHEGEWISCHIn a similar vein, North Central Airlines (now part of Delta) started out as Wisconsin Central Airlines, a subsidiary of Wisconsin Central RR. Northeast Airlines (also now part of Delta) was originally Boston-Maine Airways, owned by B&M.
Flew with Herman the Duck a time or two.
In a similar vein, North Central Airlines (now part of Delta) started out as Wisconsin Central Airlines, a subsidiary of Wisconsin Central RR. Northeast Airlines (also now part of Delta) was originally Boston-Maine Airways, owned by B&M.
Could they come up with giant clear plastic tubes that you can watch the scenery zip by?
Virgin's primary business today is in the airline industry. Arguably, one of the railroad industry's biggest mistakes was not investing in aviation in the 1920's and 30's. "Nobody will ever get on one of those things". Branson is forward thinking. I wouldn't doubt that in 50 years the hyperloop has replaced the short to medium haul airline business.
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