why self balancing?? lmao just make a tiny autonomous rail car that uses both rails. This is dumb. Though I will say sparsely used/rural lines are probably the least bad place to try on-demand type systems, since even if they succeed wildly they can't be a victim of their own success since there's only a small manageable population to pull riders from.

[–] flan@hexbear.net 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

if it’s on one rail you could have them pass each other without needing to build a second set of tracks or relying on sidings to exist

[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The concept art shows both rails being used by a single car but still having the balancing problem. Worst of both worlds.

[–] jack@hexbear.net 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's a little deployable arm that presumably allows it to travel faster. When it needs to pass, that can come up.

[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oh God that's even worse. Guaranteed collisions via an unnecessary slow-moving part that is assumed to always function correctly.

Rail comes in pairs already so that you only have to build one engineered area, tunnel, bridge, etc. This is a bazinga idea.

[–] Chronicon@hexbear.net 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

if you read the article, the bar is a safety mechanism for the prototype/testing stage and would not be in place on the production run.

these test models are equipped with extendible "catching devices" that keep them from tipping over in the event of a mishap

[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 3 points 5 months ago

Yes I read the article and that ambiguous language doesn't challenge what I said.

This is a really bad idea. The kind cooked up by academic transportation grifters looking to take a pile of money from the government to do a bad idea with the right buzzwords. This is how the bazinga industrial complex works.