Future Train

Wouldn't it be cool, not to mention time and fuel saving, if passenger trains didn't have to stop at all the various stations on their routes?

Well, from Taiwan comes a interesting and very energy efficient concept for just such a train.



A train that never stops.

The above video (note: it's in Taiwanese), demonstrates a rather interesting concept by Taiwanese inventor Peng Yu-Lun for a train that never stops. He correctly points out that trains would be far more efficient (and on-time) if they didn't have to go through the trouble of, you know, stopping to pick up passengers, Unfortunately, at present not stopping for passengers would mean, well, no passengers. Yu-Lun's design solves that problem with a kind of "top-mounted boarding shuttle that is scooped up when the train passes one station and automatically deposited when it reaches the next stop." See the video to get a better sense of how it would work.