Elavated bullet train with no tracks!!!

[francolettieri]

Tubular Rail, a futuristic high speed train technology that operates without conventional rail tracks or bridges and drastically lower construction costs/time/materials.

Unbelievably innovative!!!!

The fact that this country isn't already scrambling to construct this incredible idea is frusterating. Just Do it!!!!

http://www.tubularrail.com

[Fumesucker]

1. Very similar in concept to Stringrail..

http://www.gizmag.com/unitsky-string-transport-rail-suspended/15300/

[spin]

2. K&R (n/t)

[rsmith6621]

3. Can You Say JOBS!!!!!!....Wake up America

I have been saying for several years that the way to relieve the air traffic delays on the east coast is with high speed rail between the major east coast airports.....Boston to New York 45 minutes....New York to Washington DC 1hour......New York to Pittsburgh....2.5 hours...

The jobs this would create alone in construction would be substantial... The time savings waiting at the airports...PRICELESS.

[francolettieri]

4. Why isn't this concept already under construction?? Its a no brainer

[yellowcanine]

7. NOTHING this high tech is a "no brainer". See my comments below.

[frazzled]

5. How do you know this even works?

It seems very much in the "I've got an idea" stage right now. That some graduate students looked at it seems to be their main confirmation.

It could be great ... but I'd let someone else ride in it first.

[yellowcanine]

6. Idea sounds promising....but let's not short cut environmental impact assessments, etc.

This would be a major addition to infrastructure. ALL projects like this have negative environmental impacts. There are also always potential safety, economic, social, political pitfalls as well. Let's make sure we know what they all are and how to mitigate/minimize them before proceeding. "Just Do It" does not cut it for me. That is the way we have gotten into trouble in the past.

[francolettieri]

8. environmental

I think the environmental impacts would be far less than with trains and railroad tracks. At least wildlife would easy be able to pass underneath a system like this.

[yellowcanine]

21. maybe but looking good on paper is not enough. Let's do the research.

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. An elevated train has inherent environmental benefits relative to roads.

e.g. no squished skunks.

[yellowcanine]

22. I still want to see the environmental impact assessments, safety studies, economic analysis, etc..

Right now all we have is someone's brainstorm and some artist drawings. No engineering, no nothing.

[valerief]

16. Yeah, let's keep our gas-guzzling SUVs instead. I love the smell of benzene.

:sarcasm:

[yellowcanine]

20. False Choice logical fallacy.

[valerief]

25. B'bye forever! nt

[zeemike]

9. Oddly enough a similar proposal was made by National Geographic

about 1969.
But the tubes were air tubes and the cars were driven by the air much like the tubs they use in banks to send things from the drive up.
the advantage to that is that speeds could be as fast as a jet airliner but cost much less to operate.
A high speed one of these could be made just by enclosing the supports in tubes and using air flow.

[formercia]

15. That wouldn't work

The GOP would confuse it with the Internet.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. The last time this was posted here, there were a series of very serious questions posted re: safety

There are a lot of incredible ideas that this country isn't scrambling to construct, but I'm not sure this is one of them.

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. This rocks really hard. n/t

[tridim]

13. A refined version could make a super-scary, trackless roller coaster.

The whole ride would look like you're falling through a series of holes. Ride the front car for best effect!

[DirkGently]

14. Cool. Whether this is "it" or not, we need a serious transporation infrastructure effort.

[slackmaster]

17. TubularRail appears to be the MetalStorm of transportation infrastructure companies

Except for the fact that MetalStorm has actually built prototypes and submitted them to potential customers for testing.

http://www.metalstorm.com/

[immoderate]

19. Or the Air Car?

--imm

[drm604]

18. Interesting but purely speculative at this point.

I'd have some questions about safety.

[Poll_Blind]

23. Venture capital scams coming back into style? Maybe the economy IS on the upswing!

:puke:

PB

[krispos42]

24. I wonder how smooth it would ride.

Seems to be it would be awfully lumpy.