Anthony Matonak
Even before I saw that SkyWeb Express site a year or two ago, I personally had this dream of a similar automated rail system. My idea was a little more elaborate: you'd have the ability to have privately owned carriages that would automatically mate to the rest of the system, so you could have your own private space just like you do in a car (which means you'd have privacy, but also a place to securely store cargo, and you'd be able to customize it and make it your own if you wanted). In effect, you'd still own a car (if you wanted); it just wouldn't have a powertrain or wheels and would instead sit atop a flat car or similar. And the trains would be mostly under automated control, just like with SkyWeb Express, except on a huge scale, so that you could use an automated system to arrange for your car to travel hundreds of miles if you wanted.
Gas: The good 'ol days 2242Pouta If you can find it, there is a good article in NY Times recently called Out of Oil. An excerpt: The most worrisome part of the crisis ahead revolves...
Gas: The good 'ol days 2244Well, i certainly can't argue against the possibility of such a thing; certainly there are more than enough examples of such behavior... But my perspective, as a main...
I always knew this was a bit of a pipedream since it would require every car and every road in the whole nation to be replaced, but it seemed like it could happen eventually, so I always kept the idea in the back of my mind. But, yesterday, I decided to give up on the idea while watching the coverage of the devastaion of Hurricane Katrina. The reason is, they were talking about some roads that were damaged to the point where all but one lane in some places had been completely washed away. But the thing is, those roads were still pbuttable, which is invaluable in an emergency like this. I finally realized that any kind of complex automated rail system is never going to be as resilient as a simple blacktop road combined with a driver who doesn't mind driving over into the grbutt to pbutt some damaged section of road if he thinks it's necessary and it's safe.
So, personally, I think we're going to have to mostly keep cars which have wheels and tires on them. They're just too flexible to get rid of. Now, we might largely supplant them with something else (like rail inside the cities), but I don't think they're ever going to be eliminated.
- Logan
