The Japanese government is planning to connect major cities with automated zero-emissions logistics links that can quietly and efficiently shift millions of tons of cargo, while getting tens of thousands of trucks off the road.
Hmmmm I’m still skeptical mind you, but hear me out …
What if there’s benefits to be had by the traction motors being stationary, the electrical connections being fixed instead of moving contacts (read: not 3rd rail or overhead catenary), and the simplicity of containers not being all connected for easy removal from the conveyor without disrupting the movement of other containers?
A train sends 100 cargo boxes from town A to B in an hour. It takes 4 hours to put all the boxes in, and 5 hours to pull the boxes off the train and stack them in the yard
Conveyer sends 1 box every 6 minutes for 10 hours.
Same throughput, but one is easier to schedule workers around at both ends. I’ve never worked in a train yard or anything, don’t know how accurate my time frames are or anything, just trying to imagine what’s better about this.
I don’t think speed is the thing we need to concentrate on anymore. You could have this country spanning convayer belt essentially, and power it all with solar. Thereby reducing pollution by a HUGE amount within Japan.
And hopefully other European countries will follow. Then we’d have to deal with the beast that is North America. Large sprawling land, both in Canada, and America. Especially America would be difficult. Canada probably has an entire unused northern half. Whereas America doesn’t really have much unused open space in the eastern half. And it’s just sooooooo big.
I have zero faith this will ever come to America. Too much politics. Too much zoning issues. Too much distance.
Hmmmm I’m still skeptical mind you, but hear me out …
What if there’s benefits to be had by the traction motors being stationary, the electrical connections being fixed instead of moving contacts (read: not 3rd rail or overhead catenary), and the simplicity of containers not being all connected for easy removal from the conveyor without disrupting the movement of other containers?
Mind you I can’t imagine how this system can operate at reasonable speeds vs cargo trains that apparently hit 100km/h in Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_Freight_Trains_(Japan) ) but surely my imagination isn’t good enough.
A train sends 100 cargo boxes from town A to B in an hour. It takes 4 hours to put all the boxes in, and 5 hours to pull the boxes off the train and stack them in the yard
Conveyer sends 1 box every 6 minutes for 10 hours.
Same throughput, but one is easier to schedule workers around at both ends. I’ve never worked in a train yard or anything, don’t know how accurate my time frames are or anything, just trying to imagine what’s better about this.
I don’t think speed is the thing we need to concentrate on anymore. You could have this country spanning convayer belt essentially, and power it all with solar. Thereby reducing pollution by a HUGE amount within Japan.
And hopefully other European countries will follow. Then we’d have to deal with the beast that is North America. Large sprawling land, both in Canada, and America. Especially America would be difficult. Canada probably has an entire unused northern half. Whereas America doesn’t really have much unused open space in the eastern half. And it’s just sooooooo big.
I have zero faith this will ever come to America. Too much politics. Too much zoning issues. Too much distance.
But it should work great in Japan and Europe.