The experimental railway in London that never stopped | Hacker News Reader

The experimental railway in London that never stopped

ianvisits.co.uk

38 pointsdavidbarker23 comments

Current HN title “The experimental railway in London that never stopped” implies that the railway is still operating. THe actual title “Wembley’s experimental “never stop” railway line” is much better, as it uses the actual name of the train – the “Never Stop Railway”.

Don’t we get enough clickbait titles here so we have to make the HN titles even worse?

There is also this Chinese concept train that never stops at a station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Ig19gYP9o

And a European concept that is similar:

https://vimeo.com/25403519

Side-by-side instead of on-top. The Chinese concept has the benefit of using less space. I don't know if either could be engineered to be practical or safe.

At any rate, the most important question is... Did you NUGGET your boots this morning?

European one seems really over-engineered.

Practical or safe? Probably. Practical and safe? I doubt it. On a standard railway platform, leaving late because some passengers hold up the train is a nuisance. With systems such as these, it is lethal.

For the EU one, the critical timing is in detaching from the fast train. It _has_ to happen before the two tracks split up.

For the Chinese one, detaching can be postponed indefinitely, if slow cars in front know it soon enough, and can pull up fast enough. I think that makes this system slightly safer. Worst-case, an emergency command 'all trains to full speed' will 'just' move most passengers to stations a few hundred miles from where they wanted to go.

In either case, I would expect that, to guarantee proper timing of detachment, the doors between fast and slow trains would have to close at least a minute, probably more, before separation. For the EU design, that means long side-by-side tracks. For the Chinese one, it limits the distance between stops of the docking train. One could solve that by allowing two slower trains to dock at the same time, but that increases the risk of collisions tremendously (two half-width trains docking side by side might be the best solution here)

Same concept for elevators

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster

Hint: they are dangerous

Also like the old busses which had no doors so you could just jump on

+1 for mentioning them. I have used paternosters, and I don't consider these dangerous at all. Paternosters are G.R.E.A.T fun :)

I am very aware that this type of response is anecdotal, and has a tendency to degenerate quickly into "he said, she said" style of tangents, but can we please stop calling these things "dangerous" every time they are mentioned anywhere?

I have also used old school trams that you hop on and off of, and I was a wee little kid back then and had to hop in and out, holding my father's hands. Those experience always felt more fun to me than dangerous.

Never mind trams/trolleys.

Those buses are back in London:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Routemaster

" is notable for featuring a "hop-on hop-off" rear open platform similar to the original Routemaster bus design, but updated to meet requirements for modern buses to be fully accessible. The first bus entered service on 27 February 2012."

Please don't hide youtube video controls.

https://youtu.be/EX_MlWL7YKM

That's one of the more successful "fast in the middle, slow at the ends" conveyor-type systems for people. Several moving walkway systems have been built with similar properties.[1] None were very successful. There was a system where escalator-like plates made of twin combs expanded and contracted. There have been systems with belts moving at different speeds. There was a system which went from slow and wide to fast and narrow as it turned a corner. So far, none have been successful enough to be installed in any quantity.

The SF version, in Arthur C. Clarke's "The City and the Stars", used a material that was solid in the vertical dimension and liquid in horizontal, so it could be both used as a moving floor and pumped.

[1] http://www.liberation.fr/culture/2009/08/01/l-echec-au-bout-...

Reminds me of the rides at Disneyland that run continuously. The Haunted Mansion cars don't stop to let people on; people step onto a moving walkway at the same speed as the cars.

(The exception is to let someone who can't use the walkway or get on quickly enough, like a wheelchair user, to board.)

What about using some type of pod system that you get into, and then get picked up by the train while moving. Then when you arrive at your destination your pod jumps on a different track and comes to a halt at the exit from the station. This would also allow for a inter-train exchange point, so you stay in your pod from start to end of your trip. The pods could be individual, or multi person, and hook on to different train wagons. The entire system could be close to 100% automated, and inter passenger crime could probably be lowered.

I think it could be done relatively easy, if the train slows in the stations etc. We have the advantage that it could be speedup in the future when the tech allows it.

I like when the nanny state is occasionally thwarted by its toddler citizens' wants: the New Routemasters in London are a great example. Rather than the agonising 20-metre, 10-minute wait to the stop, you can assess the road yourself and hop off (and on if you just miss it).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Routemaster

Boris, the London mayor, re-introduced these. I look forward to his PMship after Cameron, mainly because of the points he makes about freedom in this piece, using the Routemaster metaphorically (paragraph 7 on).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/10067598/Hop-on-and-off-...

> you can assess the road yourself and hop off (and on if you just miss it)

Unless it's evening, or there's a staff shortage, or it's being run on one of several routes which now never have a second staff member and hence always shut the door between stops.

Such a shame.

http://www.museoscienza.org/approfondimenti/documenti/gamb_d... Milan had something like this.

Pretty Interesting. Anyone knows the economics of this today?

Or a related note, what happens is one can use light rail tracks in SF Bay area as extra car lanes? Does it help in any way? Lets say we have special cars which can run on rails when train is not coming.

Adding extra car lanes will not solve the traffic problem in dense areas. See the pictures that compares public transit density with cars: http://www.humantransit.org/2012/09/the-photo-that-explains-...

Maybe if everyone car-pooled optimally and we prohibited not-pooling during rush we would not have this problem. My dream world would have more extensive subways in the bay area that runs 24hrs a day so that I can never drive again.

Cars generate more congestion simply because they take more space:

http://tlcminnesota.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553d253af88330176173...

Isn't that similar to how skiing lifts work?

Sadly constructing new public transit that isn't wheelchair accessible is impossible in 2015.

As long as we don't have bionic limbs for, let's say 80% of cases, and can pay taxis (self driving cars?) for the rest, I don't think we should be sad about this. One important aspect of a civilised society is to leave noone behind, or at least have that as a goal.

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