Concept of Elimination of High Speed Train Stations | Revolutionary or a total failure?
Yesterday, I was searching for some information on High Speed Railways development. HSR is an upcoming field in which rapid development is taking place.
I came across a very interesting article on “A new concept of rail travel”.
Boarding a Moving train – the core concept
Sounds really fascinating, isn’t it?
A British designer Paul Priestman came up with this new idea of boarding a moving train. According to him, this is the futuristic solution of speeding up rail travel. He is proposing the idea of MOVING PLATFORMS. He wants to completely eliminate the need for stations and not make any changes in the engines or tracks. According to his concept, Passengers would cross between the tram and train without either vehicle stopping. He does not want the passengers to get down on the stations and wait for the trains to come rather he wants complete integration of Tram – train crossing so that passengers can travel seamlessly and reach their destinations without having to stop at any intermediate station and wait for another train to come…
Sounds really cool…! But is it really possible? Forget about the possibilities. Technology can make everything possible. But the right question to ask would be; is it really feasible to do so??
Would it be as wonderful as it sounds? It is truly a very debatable concept.
A reason why Moving Platforms concept could fail
I would not deny the creativity of the concept but of course I would definitely question its feasibility. We can do so many better things than evolving a concept that will increase the burden on our economy. In United States of America, the rail stations are in a complete state of despair. So, wouldn’t it be great if we could work towards renovating and rehabilitation of stations. It would be more cost effective as well as it will help preserve the Architectural style of the past.
For example, Buffalo Central Terminal Station
Apart from just the rehabilitation concept, why can we not work on improving our railway network and standard of construction?
The concept is completely mechanical. One has to realize that we are heading towards peak oil and I personally feel the peak oil has already come. We should be looking at minimizing the use of resources but the “Moving Platforms concept” is not in favour of that.
For this concept to be successful, it will require billions of dollars. Inspite of spending so much on the project, it will still not be a perfect one.
How do you propose to change the entire rail network of a country?? If someone can answer me that satisfactorily, then I shall be really proud of your intelligence. Even if you are able to establish this concept and design a rail network for a mini-city; how expensive would it for the government to run it? How expensive would it be for the travellers? That is something very important and should be taken into consideration. If travelling by trains is going to be more expensive than travelling by aeroplane, it is obvious that it is going to be a total failure.
So, give it a thought and let me know your opinions about the new concept of Rail Development.