this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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Solarpunk technology
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Its kinda cool how by making it mono-rail, they can use a single track rail to have pods moving in both directions, and the rail could still be used during the night for regular cargo trains.
It looks monorail at first but if you look closer its not.
I also wouldn’t want to be the forgetful dumb person that forgot how late it was before taking this thing home because those cargo trains ain't gonna stop.
It actually is monorail. It looks like the stabilizing arm is for when the vehicle is off and not moving. It uses a gyroscope while moving for stabilization
It is a monorail, the outrigger is just for testing purposes. It's gyro stabilized. The tech has been around for more than 100 years, developers always wanted higher capacity which is problematic.
The arms connecting the 2nd rail are being used during testing.
Using that for monorails and regular cargo trains would require the monorails to follow regulations and I don't see that happening.
Not if it is strictly time separated. Like I wrote, I could see these pods operate exclusively during the day and regular/cargo trains operate exclusively during the night. Or any other such time based system.
That isn't acceptable. One person who for whatever reason is out late (emergency at work, or invited to a party) will be screwed when they can't get back home and tell everyone else.
At 3am? Come on. And that's also true for all public transport.
I know it is true almost everywhere, but that doesn't make it acceptable. People need to get places, transit is just a tool.
Better than nothing still, don't let perfect be the enemy of good and all that
While you are not wrong, you should always strive to perfection. Running train transit 24x7x365 is low hanging fruit (modern fully automated trains exist - note that the topic here is trains not buses). You do need to do something about maintenance, so I'll let you get by with 30 minute headways overnight, while during the day you should be running every 5 minutes.
Man I wish our trains ran anywhere near that constantly. They stop the public transit around midnight in my city, but that doesn't stop it from being tremendously useful during the rest of the time. You learn to plan for it, and advocate for improvements whenever you can
It is stupid not to. It doesn't cost much and makes transit so much nicer.
Does that mean that these things can't go across points? (and anywhere that there isn't an outer edge to the rail)