So was the interstate highway system (costly), but we built it.
OK, I don't see how you missed this fact so far, but this would run on fixed plant nuclear power - IOW, an ordinary nuclear power station (a lot of them, really) that send the power to the rails over conventional wire lines.
Yes, that would be the way to do it.
Great. Now, we just need to put those motors in individual railcars so they can enter and leave a "train" independently, keeping in mind that a "train" in this case is just a group of self-propelled railcars that travel close together to take advantage of the railcar ahead breaking the wind for them.
Flooding the third rail would be a problem that would absolutely require a solution or the concept fails. Keeping the thing above possible flood stages would be a requirement. If not possible, then that section of track would have to be closely monitored and shut down when water got that high.
The common method of delivering large power supplies via cables strung between very tall and very sturdy towers would serve this purpose as well as it serves getting power to big cities now. The high lines are seldom affected by even big storms - its the smaller wires on shorter, fragile wooden poles that get knocked down by trees, mostly. I don't see a problem carrying the power to a railroad using big wires on tall towers.
The reason that anything to do with trains and esp. pbuttenger rail exists in high population densities is that it takes a lot of people that want to go the same direction at about the same time in order to make the rail line profitable. This system is different in that it doesn't take a lot of people wanting to go the same direction at the same time - it only takes people that want to go in whatever direction the rail happens to be built, at any time of the day or night, because this system doesn't run on a schedule. This system runs whenever you get to the station - a railcar would be waiting for you to drive your car pickup truck van big-rig into, whereupon it would leave as soon as you told it where you want to go.
By combining the jobs that rail can do, moving both cargo and pbuttengers, the demand for the service can be made to increase to the point where it is profitable to build more rails in more directions. Keep it up long enough, and you effectively end up with the entire country being networked with rail service. Overnight? No. Over decades, yes.
I figure 150 mph individual rail service that transports pbuttengers with and-or inside their vehicles would beat airline travel up to 600 miles, and that's not including getting to the airport 2 hrs before the plane leaves like they want you to now. I'm going to Denver, Co. this weekend. I have to get up at 2:30 to get on the road by 3:00 AM to get to the airport by 4:00 AM to ride a plane that leaves at 6:00 AM and arrives in Denver at 7:44 Mountain time, or 9:44 Eastern time. Its 1746 miles, or just under 12 hrs at 150 mph by (high-speed rail) road. I could get on the rail system under discussion at 6:00 PM after work Friday, travel all night, and be to Denver by 4:00 AM Mountain time, since my trip would start as soon as I got to the rail station, with no waiting for a scheduled departure. I thought of leaving Friday night on the airplane, too, but that just didn't work out without me taking off work. This would work without my having to take off work, if it only existed now.
I think this method of moving railcars individually under computer control would enable a lot wider useage of them than is possible profitable when locomotives are used to haul connected cars around on a schedule.
Dave Head
