I’m always amazed every time someone tried really hard to invent new technology that’s just a worse train. I love the overall concept, but damn they’re making it way more complicated than it needs to be.
Usually these systems are more costly and have lower throughput than trains because: 1. Trains use existing, mature technology and there are plenty existing manufacturers 2. Because trains are coupled together into trains, throughput is higher because there is not a need to space self-driving carriages apart 3. Because trains are coupled together, the expensive bits go in the locomotives and the carriage construction is simpler and cheaper
That's why this proposal has tiny cars and even tinier overhead vehicles. It's not so much a train-but-worse, but a truck-but-on-tracks.
Of course we could just put autonomous small vehicles on existing train tracks, but that won't happen in the next two decades because they are incompatible with the existing users of those rails.
https://www.bnsf.com/ship-with-bnsf/ways-of-shipping/equipme...
This allows a quicker switch to last-mile whilst still moving much of the distance on rail.
The CST system seems to operate at almost zero distance between carriages, which even with the lower speed of 30 km/h should still have a greater total bandwidth than an equivalent-sized two track railway system. Also, it can operate 24/7 unlike rail systems (because of noise complaints and co-existence with passenger trains), which should further increase the available bandwidth.
If you find yourself living next to tracks, the best you can do is try to drown out the noise like this person did [0]
The only really odd thing I noticed was there was a wall that would squeak as the freight train approached. I suspect this had to do something with the houses construction however.
The main cost is the double-sided crossing guards necessary, and/or closure of some crossings deemed no longer necessary.
https://railroads.dot.gov/highway-rail-crossing-and-trespass...
As the railways here belong to the nation states instead of the private freight companies, freight trains are at the bottom of the barrel in priority... and given that it takes a lot of energy to accelerate a fully laden freight train, most operators tend to run freight trains exclusively at night where the amount of stops is minimal.
There are certainly advantages to single-unit cars that avoid the need for shunting, but the maintenance cost on these will be tremendously higher on a per-unit basis. Hard to say that it's a clear win.
So factories had a single motor, a giant steam engine that fed a complicated web of pulleys and crankshafts.
Electric motors killed those old single motor factories.
The same logic results in a single locomotive pulling a giant train. You need a human per locomotive, keeping the messy diesel in one place helps a lot, diesel engines need a lot of maintenance, etc.
In 2021, electric motors and batteries are cheap and tiny. Trains on a dedicated track don't need humans. Automated swarms of small motors are the future.
Rail where each car is powered is usually called light rail when used for passengers, but I guess there wouldn't be much stopping light rail being used for freight.
The key now isn't the motors but the remote controlling.
The last mile transport to stores will be by van or bike. And that's a metaphorical last mile; the density of the hubs appears to be pretty low, with e.g. 2-3 hubs in Zürich.
The thing they claim makes this work is bundling all deliveries going to the same receiver (across all suppliers) into the same carriage on the sending end, which then makes it easy to optimize that last mile delivery with small vehicles.
This doesn't seem very compelling.
Really this is more about not messing with the existing mix of safety and liability defenses used to keep the current situation on the current tracks. These systems have to be sufficiently different because we aren't going to do a flag day to full automation.