It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport.
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall a remarkable evolution of the thinking may be had by the following insight: you can save on battery mass by delivering electricity along the predictable paths the vehicles take, thus even further lowering running costs, and even increasing the power available! in this essay i will
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall Uday Schultz has written extensively and persuasively about this, and why the perverse financial incentives of the operators ensure that we have worse intermodal freight service now than we did forty years ago.
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall uh your fatal mistake with that ides is not coming up with a s3xy name like Trillionaire Lead Man transforming transportation.
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@david_chisnall And with a fixed path, we could ditch the batteries completely, and just provide electrical power along the track, perhaps overhead! I think you are on to something here!
Think about that. No more expensive batteries that regularly need to be replaced. No more time wasted recharging these things. In fact, because they have a fixed track and route and don't need to stop for recharging, they can run day and night, you can make a roster and have drivers hop on and off along the route, which would make the whole thing even more economical.
It is a really great idea! Why did nobody think of it before?
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@david_chisnall As someone that worked for a railroad, there are lots of reasons this isn't the solution you think it is.
First, only a single train can be on a given segment of track, unlike trucks which can have dozens.
Second, trains are slower. They are more difficult to control because of the lower friction of steel wheels on steel rails. This also makes it a lot more difficult (read: impossible) for them to travel steep inclines directly. Descending sharp inclines is actually more difficult.
The infrastructure needed for monitoring and controlling trains is a lot more complicated than it is for automobiles / trucks.
The last mile problem: trains are great for moving bulk freight over long distances, but getting that freight to its final destination still requires another mode of transportation.
Trains actually use diesel fuel, they just do it more efficiently by using the fuel to power a generator to produce electricity. Converting them to batteries would have similar issues to electric trucks (IE, the weight required in batteries to power the train). Not to mention a balancing issue: you'd need some way to have the batteries distributed along the length of the train - if you centralize them into the engine or a single car, you create more problems for controlling the train.
There are so many more issues than you've thought of here. I know this was likely meant as a shitpost, but it's not a well considered one.
@unattributed @david_chisnall It was rather odd to read that "Trains actually use diesel fuel" when our local commuter railroad just switched to electric trains with overhead wires, reducing trip time noticeably due to better acceleration after each stop.
Of course, they should have done this decades ago.
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall Monocab is an attempt to disrupt transportation with this idea. Anything to get some VC money. Also, we could hydrate people if we burned hydrogen and oxygen in a specially lined vessel and collected the condensate. I call it Hydr@to. Please invest in my disruption of the beverage market.
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@jpetazzo @david_chisnall but why? Have you ever been to a parcel sorting center? Why, with our current level of software and robotics, is there no system where standardized boxes are automatically routed cross-country, leaving just the first and last mile to trucks?
Building roads is a lot cheaper than building railroad tracks.
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall Oh! Like a road train... on rails? A rail train. Intriguing idea.
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It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
@david_chisnall Infrastructure never gets enough love. It's not sexy. But it is critical to our civilization's continued survival.
Like most important but overlooked parts of our manufactured world, it has a public image problem. Like government, waste management, libraries, and social services. So most people don't want to invest in these things. And they are a prime target for corruption.
A healthy society would celebrate these things, and the people and organizations who make them possible. We should be invested in making them work efficiently and effectively. We should understand them. But they are banal and complicated. While our attention is drawn to what is novel and exciting (regardless of how trivial or silly or wasteful).
At least, we should be reminding ourselves of all the important things we rely on, and why they need to be cared for, and what bad things will happen if we don't.
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@unattributed @david_chisnall It was rather odd to read that "Trains actually use diesel fuel" when our local commuter railroad just switched to electric trains with overhead wires, reducing trip time noticeably due to better acceleration after each stop.
Of course, they should have done this decades ago.
@bzdev @david_chisnall There is a huge difference between short distance commuter trains and long haul freight trains. Here's a History of Diesel Engines from Union Pacific.
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@unattributed @david_chisnall One train per segment of track - nope that's a solved problem. Trams have done it forever by simple means but for fast trains we have the tech to do it and it's in active use in Europe. Movable blocks are a thing.
Trains are slower. Only in America. Japan has a cargo shinkansen.
Inclines are a solved problem - don't run 5 mile long trains. In fact for high speed rail grades are better than curves.
Rail is not more efficient because it uses a generator
@etchedpixels Okay - so I likely mistook @david_chisnall to be posting from an American perspective.
Trams are a local, short distance solution. That won't scale well to long distance freight hauling, especially not for a country the size of America. Japan's cargo shinkansen is very new: it's only been in operation for about the last 3 weeks, and is currently a single train running once a day, over a limited route... Basically it's a test case being done in response to a shortage in trucks.
Now, if we wanted to look at the idea of using trams as a solution to the last mile problem, that would be interesting... But given the politics of this country it would likely not happen. (sigh)
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@unattributed @david_chisnall rail is mostly more efficient because the wheels are solid and the track is solid. Tyred vehicles lose loads of energy moving air around tyres - there's a reason they are blazing hot after a drive.
We generally also supply power from wires overhead which is great because your fuel weight is almost zero.
The big issue is the last kilometre problem. Intermodal solves a bunch of it but we really need containers that hop off the train and drive themselves
@etchedpixels @david_chisnall Trains are more efficient because the steel on steel design has a lower contact surface between the rail and the wheel. I was wrong in stating that there is more friction, especially when compared to rubber against concrete, which has a much larger contact surface, and the softer rubber material is more prone to heating from friction.
But, friction is still an issue for long haul freight trains. I can clearly state this from first-hand knowledge that the company I worked for did experiments with lowering the temperature and friction of the wheels / rails. Unfortunately, the experiment they did while I was with the company did not achieve the desired results. I don't know if they were going to work any more on it.
Intermodal does address quite a few issues. Now, if an intermodal tram system could be developed, that might go some distance in addressing the last mile//kilometer problem. (See what I did there?
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@etchedpixels Okay - so I likely mistook @david_chisnall to be posting from an American perspective.
Trams are a local, short distance solution. That won't scale well to long distance freight hauling, especially not for a country the size of America. Japan's cargo shinkansen is very new: it's only been in operation for about the last 3 weeks, and is currently a single train running once a day, over a limited route... Basically it's a test case being done in response to a shortage in trucks.
Now, if we wanted to look at the idea of using trams as a solution to the last mile problem, that would be interesting... But given the politics of this country it would likely not happen. (sigh)
@unattributed @david_chisnall tram in a UK sense is any railway operating in a situation where it is not fenced off from other users. We had some quite long tramways, and we are building a lot more in light rail form. I don't think they solve most cases though.
High speed freight is old here - even before WW2 the LNER ran some very fast freight, and it seems in places even the US is now doing 75mph Intermodal.Autonomous delivery bots are probably needed to keep the handling costs low
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@bzdev @david_chisnall There is a huge difference between short distance commuter trains and long haul freight trains. Here's a History of Diesel Engines from Union Pacific.
@unattributed @david_chisnall Nice picture, but all it shows is that the U.S. is rather backwards in this regard. Electric trains are used to haul freight in Europe,
and trains running on electricity are not just "short distance commuter trains". -
It sounds as if electric trucks are great for long-range land transport. But they require heavy batteries, so rather than putting them on the road (where they'll damage the road surface), why don't we build special metal tracks for them to go on? And, on long trips, join a bunch of them together so that you only need one motor and driver for a load of them travelling in a convoy? I bet you could make freight transport a lot more efficient if you did that.
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@david_chisnall Meanwhile #Vietnam is doing boring stuff, like #HighSpeedRail along it's major cities...
- Almost as if #Japan, #Korea, #France and #Germany had the right idea doing that!
- Plus it's pretty clear that it's unsustainable to have everyone own a #car - or even #scooter, and #PublicTransport is the only #scalable and #sustainable option...
@kkarhan @david_chisnall literally the only person who could through speech checks alone trick america into rail again
- Almost as if #Japan, #Korea, #France and #Germany had the right idea doing that!
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@david_chisnall Infrastructure never gets enough love. It's not sexy. But it is critical to our civilization's continued survival.
Like most important but overlooked parts of our manufactured world, it has a public image problem. Like government, waste management, libraries, and social services. So most people don't want to invest in these things. And they are a prime target for corruption.
A healthy society would celebrate these things, and the people and organizations who make them possible. We should be invested in making them work efficiently and effectively. We should understand them. But they are banal and complicated. While our attention is drawn to what is novel and exciting (regardless of how trivial or silly or wasteful).
At least, we should be reminding ourselves of all the important things we rely on, and why they need to be cared for, and what bad things will happen if we don't.
@8r3n7 This is so very well stated! Sounds like this might be a special interest of yours?
