The idea of a magnetic coupling between the engine and the passenger compartment is very interesting. This could be adapted to use with self-driving automobiles on highways. They could run on their own electric power train for local journeys, then pick up a "thrust carriage" when joining a highway. This pulls them along until their exit, when they decouple and return to using their battery and on-board motors. The on-board motors could also take over for short sections for example between different thrust carriage runs.<p>Perhaps the thrust carriage control systems could be made smart so they automatically maintain safe spacing between vehicles and adapt their speed to the volume of traffic. They'd communicate with the vehicle to tell them when the coupling was about to end so that the vehicle can engage its own drive train to take over smoothly. Or the vehicle's self-driving systems tell the thrust carriage how fast to go depending on the traffic conditions.<p>This could massively extend the range of electric cars. Burying the pipes in the road network would obviously be very expensive, but the size mentioned in the article (12 inch diameter) is not prohibitive.
A pilot line using similar technology was built in 1983 in Porto Alegre, south of Brazil (I used to live there). It was deactivated shortly after, but the elevated track still exists [1]. A new 600m stretch was built in 2013 at the airport using updated technology and still runs today.<p>The same company also installed a line in Jakarta, Indonesia which has been in operation for 28 years.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_railway#Aeromovel" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_railway#Aeromovel</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruriak/3270276680/in/photolist-5YZ2jG-nKkfux-kWD35z-TDdR7" rel="nofollow">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruriak/3270276680/in/photolist...</a>
[2] more pictures including the new one: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=aeromovel%20porto%20alegre" rel="nofollow">https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=aeromovel%20porto%20aleg...</a>
When they ask 'why has it not been this way" isn't the obvious answer 1) Infrastructure cost. Building this vs tracks on the ground would be a significantly higher investment. And 2) if something goes wrong with the engine, the entire line is shut down, vs pushing a train off the track and other trains continuing.<p>And I missing something but aside form the gradient capability I didn't see much advantage presented here. And if you are going to build these atmospheric pipes why not put the carriages inside them? I wonder if you could combine the 2. Have express trains shooting through the pipes and local/scenic trains riding that energy on-top. Workable or not, great to see people developing ideas!
There's a working modern atmospheric railway, from Aeromovel, with two installations.[1] It's a reasonable low-speed system, but hasn't sold elsewhere.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM2Zxn7ybNQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM2Zxn7ybNQ</a>
What is the advantage of this over a classic electric train? Weight of the locomotive? I think it is more than compensated by the ease of having more than one train on a line at a given time.<p>An electric cable seems way easier to maintain (and repair) than an atmospheric sealed tube.<p>And this has absolutely no relation with hyperloop, that solves a completely different problem (air drag at high speed)
Cool idea. The main drawback is that the train still has to push the air in front of it so it's no better than a regular train. I think this is the main advantage of hyperloop. Air drag is significant over 40km/h.
I don't understand how you could have many trains on the same track. If one train needs to stop then do they all stop?<p>I guess you could have sections every half mile or so but that sounds crazy expensive. Putting a pump out in the middle of nowhere.<p>And how would train yards work? Assuming you used sections how long would they be? 10 feet?<p>Cool idea though, first time I've seen it.
I like trains. Because of different reasons, Europe and China is better suited for trains (e.g. public transport in cities available).<p>What I would like to see:
1. An inter European Rail network. Possible 4 Tracks (freight and personal.<p>2. This trains should be able to connect and disconnect wagons automatically. Hence a fast train may ride from Lisbon , 3 wagons get disconnected outside the city in a railroad shunting yard and then continue to Madrid, the rest of the train bypasses the city and heads to the next big center.<p>3. See this technology widely used for the freight trains:
<a href="http://www.cargobeamer.eu/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cargobeamer.eu/</a><p>The big advantage of trains is that you can run them nuclear and with Thorium reactors in the future.
One of the earliest working applications of this in the 19th century was very near to where I live in Dublin: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalkey_Atmospheric_Railway" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalkey_Atmospheric_Railway</a>. The railway was used to carry stone from the quarry (which was a few hundred feet above sea level) to the shore a couple of kilometres away, to build what is now Dun Laoghaire harbour.<p>One of the small roads near where the line used to run is still called Atmospheric Road.
So this looks cool, but where's the improvement here over a current electric train car? Genuinely curious. The drag remains the same, and it's still electric.<p>Hmm, actually, I just thought of a big plus: you're not moving your massively heavy engines with you.
This page as some videos showing the VECTORR scale model operating in various modes: <a href="http://www.flightrail.com/our-prototype.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.flightrail.com/our-prototype.html</a>.
The Wired article is devoid of media but there are a number of good videos of the Flight Rail on their website:<p><a href="http://www.flightrail.com/our-prototype.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.flightrail.com/our-prototype.html</a>
Just FYI: <a href="http://www.mtn-top-hs.org/ashley_planes.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.mtn-top-hs.org/ashley_planes.htm</a>
As always the reason we do not have such ingenuity in the mainstream is that the mainstream is an industry addicted to the easy profits that is essentially big oil. Think of it what you will.