Subject:
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Re: what is the use of a caboose?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Wed, 1 Aug 2001 17:47:16 GMT
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Viewed:
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1177 times
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In lugnet.trains, Simon Bennett writes:
<snip some very interesting info>
Good info on the reasons why monorails just aren't that practical. The
example people always trot out about the Wuppertalbahn kind of highlights
the right of way issues! It was built to follow (and span) the course of a
river. So no problems clearing right of way and no problems with
withstanding lorry impacts.
That sort of situation is so rare that you can just dismiss it.
Regarding battery buses, I'm wondering if you hear anything more about these
proposals for flywheel buses? If you just do the maths, the amount of energy
you can store in a flywheel is limited only by the material strength under
tension of the wheel. People keep saying "if we can use graphite or strong
wire radially, build a flywheel and spin it in a vacuum at 30K rpm with
essentially frictionless magnetic bearings we can easily power a bus!" What
a lot of... well, a lot of ifs.
Regarding Maglev, I hear tell that the PRC has let contracts on a maglev
train to go from some airport to some city center and is claiming 2003 as
the opening date. Again, a great proof of why maglev isn't practical... they
care not about economics, apparently, since they're not capitalist. Prolly
doing it for brag factor, I think the talk of setting up a nationwide system
by 2020 is just idle chit chat.
Also about that system, I hear they are proposing to use attractive. That
seems daft to me since attractive (where the car essentially hangs from the
rail/attractor magnets) is dynamic equilibrium, (as the car moves a bit away
from the rails the force holding it up drops to where it can fall away, and
as it moves closer, it is more strongly attracted to where it may move the
rest of the way) while repulsive (where the car hovers above the repulsor
magnets) is self correcting without control circuitry, if the car moves
closer to the track it is pushed away harder. No statement on how propulsion
works but I think probably LIM.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: what is the use of a caboose?
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| (...) Actually, flywheel is perfectly practical. Sentinel (once again!) made a loco that was powered by, IIRC, 2 2 ton flywheels, and it was reasonably capable (but expensive). I tend to think that a flywheel drive system is more practical for bus (...) (23 years ago, 1-Aug-01, to lugnet.trains)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: what is the use of a caboose?
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| Now this is long and maybe too off-topic but I thought you trainheads might be interested in transport issues, let me know if I shouldn't post this sort of thing: (...) Lawrence wrote: (...) The life of a battery used in a bus application, which is (...) (23 years ago, 31-Jul-01, to lugnet.trains)
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