Flying Train design

[mickjoebill]

Deteachable airline cabin tube that converts to a railway carriage with passengers onboard.


https://twitter.com/i/moments/1017132382179209219

[KRviator]

At several tonnes for each bogie, I can't see it being useful. That's an awful lot of dead weight to lug around, coupled with the structural strength (= weight...)required for a modern passenger rail vehicle would likely render it prohibitive.

[Pugilistic Animus]

As soon as I saw Twitter in the link, I knew from the get go that it's absolute Muppettry!:rolleyes:

[safetypee]

On the other hand, Skycrane comes to mind, and ‘Lockspeiser’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockspeiser_LDA-01, a brilliant concept which flew.
Now a few years later, new technologies, demand, and an entrepreneur ...

[uffington sb]

I think the tube drops onto the bogeys and chassis, but when you take into account different loading gauges etc, what’s the point.
Whatever next, flying boats?

[Heathrow Harry]

You don't get passengers trains that convert to buses - although there are "guided bus-ways" in some cities

Generally the extra weight and cost of designing for two or three different transport modes greatly outweighs the efficiencies of a single optimised design

[surely not]

Aside from the practical difficulties of loading gauges etc there are other reasons it is not going to happen anytime soon.

Security, Immigration and Customs is carried out where? At each and every station that passengers get on and off? Most people do not live near a railway station and will still drive to the airports, therefore the load factors on routes will be low.

As for the claim that the Lockspeiser design was a brilliant concept, . . . . it appears the rest of the world were/are too thick to appreciate its brilliance!

[Less Hair]

There is no problem with loading or unloading passengers into aircraft or trains. So a module seat container with all the hassle is not needed to transfer them. I see no practical use or advantage for this concept. Isn't it just making both trains and aircraft more complex?

For specific cargo it might make sense, like say an AWACS-module or tanker module to clip on an Osprey or similar but not for just passenger transport.

[Less Hair]

They can walk.That's the easiest and fastest way.
This is a solution without a problem.

[GrahamO]

At several tonnes for each bogie, I can't see it being useful.

Okay, so maybe I am missing the sarcasm here, but I had assumed the bogie stays on the ground - only the actual tube goes with the aircraft ?!

The advantage is that one could have multiple chassis sitting at a gate, and an aircraft lands, the bogey takes away the arrival passengers to one gate and another tube already loaded with passengers, strapped in, hand luggage stowed etc. rolls out to the aircraft as soon as its refuelled and off it goes.In effect, the tube is loaded at the gate even though the aircraft is elsewhere and you save all the tedious loading time while the aircraft is at the gate awaiting everyone to slowly get on board.

No idea about the fixing of the tube onto the aircraft but the pre-loading of the passengers just as the aircraft lands and before it gets to the game could at least save the entire boarding time.

Security and immigration happens exactly as now, except once into the lounge and checked, people can load onto the tube even though the aircraft is elsewhere in the airport. As soon as the aircraft arrives, the tube of arriving passengers is dropped onto the bogey and it taken to another gate and the new tube of people is added onto the airframe. One could imagine that the aircraft never comes to the gate - only the passenger tubes would do that.

[rationalfunctions]

This is a bonkers as circular runways. Just because something could be different it doesn't mean there is any discernible benefit or ounce of technical feasibility.

Setting aside all technical, logistical concerns, showstoppers and questionable benefits - airline operations and funding models are fundamentally different from rail ops and funding models. How on earth would this work as an operational business, with O&M, payment collection, investment in the vehicles, infrastructure etc etc

I'm sure I could help the 'French entrepreneur' find a better use for their money....

[Less Hair]

There is nothing wrong with strange ideas and innovation. Especially when it comes to aviation.
However these days with start ups looking for investors or crowdfunding more and more vaporware ideas get promoted and nobody seems to think if they make any sense before publishing and republishing them. All those drones, new concordes and mars taxis. Build them first please and then go public.

[esa-aardvark]

You don't get passengers trains that convert to buses - although there are "guided bus-ways" in some cities

Generally the extra weight and cost of designing for two or three different transport modes greatly outweighs the efficiencies of a single optimised design

Actually you once did. In Germany after (during?) WW2. Saw them when I was at school there.
Somehow the steel wheels retracted and the rubber ones came down.
Might be useful if somehow there was a bit of rail missing.

[n5296s]

It would give those precision landing competitions a practical objective... when I told my wife about the idea she figured that you would have to land on the train tracks. Can you land with the nosewheels straddling the centre line? Good as a starting point, a little more practice required.
You don't get passengers trains that convert to buses
It has been done: E&WJR and SMJ - Locomotives and Rolling Stock: The Ro-Railer undergoing fare-paying trials on the route between Blisworth, Stratford upon Avon and the Welcombe Hotel (http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/smjsa311.htm) . In the 1930s the LMS railway briefly tried a bus that converted, in Stratford on Avon. It didn't last long though.

[bullfox]

This is like flying cars which gives you a car that drives like an airplane and an airplane that flies likes car.

[rationalfunctions]

It has been done: E&WJR and SMJ - Locomotives and Rolling Stock: The Ro-Railer undergoing fare-paying trials on the route between Blisworth, Stratford upon Avon and the Welcombe Hotel (http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/smjsa311.htm) . In the 1930s the LMS railway briefly tried a bus that converted, in Stratford on Avon. It didn't last long though.

and you get buses that converted into trains, although the Pacer Railbuses are a bit of a bodge job https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35725299

[n5296s]

although the Pacer Railbuses are a bit of a bodge job
That's like saying the Titanic had a couple of problems on its maiden voyage, or that AF447 caused its passengers some discomfort.

[jack11111]

Someone, somewhere will make money from folks with more dollars than sense with this video.

[GrahamO]

Someone, somewhere will make money from folks with more dollars than sense with this video.

How do you think flying was invented ?

[tdracer]

Looks like a structural and certification nightmare. Multiple pressure vessels hooked together, structural load sharing with flight safety critical connections, single points of failure with catastrophic consequence of failure. The weight/efficiency penalties of making something like this remotely safe would be a showstopper.
Something dreamed up by someone with zero real world experience of making something actually work when failure means killing hundreds of people...

[peterperfect]

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmforum.com-vbulletin/459x344/feonb_7a1c6814f71760f78f0e29210ab647153f4ff919.jpg
been done already !

[andrasz]

Anybody else noticed the Pan Am 707 parked at the gate in the background...? :p

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmforum.com-vbulletin/621x352/image1_9f1c467bd71c37eeafc78347261ea2eb48558e2d.jpg

[Mechta]

Fairchild XC-120 Packplane
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmforum.com-vbulletin/500x333/xc_120_packplane_composite_0b19a5b9dfaf23ef534aa205c481a110e 59780cb.jpg

Sikorsky Skycrane with Mission Pod

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmforum.com-vbulletin/440x330/skycrane_and_pod_160e484c9a0b80cb4b858e0a623e22d2b2c4540d.jp g

The one case in which a passenger pod might make some sense would be on helicopters used for offshore work. In the event of ditching, by having passengers are already contained within something similar to a freefall lifeboat, they would not have to try and leave an inverted, submerged cabin and then try to inflate and board a life raft.

[s6b]

Looks like Thunderbird 2 ��

[Downwind Lander]

This is a bonkers as circular runways ...

What an inspired idea.
We will need some steep banking, actually, very steep banking, and an upward spiral to absorb the kinetic energy. Clearly a job for the proposed new 3rd runway at LHR.

There will be some Luddite pax resistance, of course, and some from the airport management, NATS, CAA, AAIB and a few other Luddites. But then, a prophet is never recognised in his own time.