So exactly what was the idea? It doesn’t say.
And how is it done “without diesel engines or electric motors”?
Sorry, but I smell another perpetual-motion machine here.
EDIT: ah, found it. She’s basically reinvented this:
I know she’s only 13, but someone should have explained to her at some point that you can’t get something for nothing. Just because it uses compressed air doesn’t mean it’s going to use less energy than, say, an ordinary train to move something from A to B. And that an air compressor still needs a motor.
The problem with air is they can leak… so if the only way for the train to move is air pressure, then what if the air leaks and the train is stuck. Not to mention leaking tube means more fuel consumption.
Also converting mechanical energy to air is really inefficient. A power tool can have lots of power but to get the same power out of the air version of that tool requires a large 5HP compressor.
“Magnetic shuttles would travel through these vacuum tubes, connected via magnetic arm to trains traveling on the existing tracks.”
What’s the point of it when you an existing train to magnetically pull a vehicle in a tube? You need a train!
I invented a perpetual motion machine when I was about 15 or so.
Now if I could just get off the damn thing I’d like to explain to you how I did it.
As far as I understand all those Atmospheric railway ideas aim to move the engine from the train to a fixed location. This avoids having to move the weight of the engine, and allows the engine to be bulkier etc. Or the engine can use some form of energy directly (not indirectly through an electrical power line) that’s not viable in a train engine (like water power etc ).
Still, from the available info I don’t see how this whole idea is anything realistically useful and so much more environmental friendly. I expect issues similar to all other similar previous inventions, and would expect renewable energy powered regular electric trains to be way easier to implement.
Indeed.
God only knows why people are so obsessed with inventing outlandish technology when stuff that worked fine in 1990 will still work just fine today, with the benefit of new-and-improved power converters etc.
“The technology just isn’t there yet” looks like common-or-garden procrastination to me. The technology was there decades ago. It’s just that nobody wants to use it because it’s boring.
Maglev!
Yup, that technology splits the engine into a part in the train, another very long part in the track.
The Maglev can theoretically ride at speeds of over 800 Km/h, what more do people want?
A train that stops somewhere useful (you will know what I’m talking about if you took the Shanghai maglev)
Her parents are probably in PR…
can we just bring concord back please. i’d like to fly back home in two hours. with champagne.
I hate to say it but this is little more than a publicity stunt. Technologies that work have existed for a long while. Using something a little ecologically sound is only a question of economics and willingness.