During 1804, the first ever working railway system was revealed in United Kingdom (South Wales) using the tramway of Penydarren Ironworks. Ever since the first rail system, we have tried to improve the railway transportation using high speed trains for mass transportation. Over the years, the high speed trains have been updated with main focus on speed.
Currently, high speed trains are being used for international and regional with popular purpose of mass transportation. Given the popularity of the railway systems, the global industry is projected to have a $1 Trillion in value. Most of the high speed railways have been developed using the magnetic levitation technology, which was first developed in Germany. However, high maintenance costs and some accidents have created roadblocks for mass adoption of Maglev trains worldwide.
However, air and car travel costs have also gone up due to the increasing fuel prices, which has forced many governments to go ahead with high speed railway systems. There have been many concepts presented to improve the current state of the railway systems. One of those concepts is a flying multistory train, which was created by a Russian inventor Semenov Dahir Kurmanbievich.
The concept of the flying multistory train involves a hybrid technology that combines the benefits of a plate and a train in one package. The design involves a constant attachment to a current collector in a steel trestle that runs along a rail system while passengers are seated in a plate like cabin that flies at lower height in the air. The advantage of such systems include plenty of power to allow high-torque maneuvers for acceleration purposes. On the other hand, aviation now requires high capacity electric motors that are heavier. With the flying train, the electric motor is on a rail system so there is no burden as it is beneath the passenger aircraft. The aircraft’s flaying ability is impacted by the weight parameter as the maximum speed, acceleration, and climbing speed are all impacted by gravity. The hybrid setup allows unlimited amount of energy, which enables very high passenger capacity. The estimates are around 2000 passengers, which are almost 4x higher than the high speed trains being used today. The flying train system can have an operating speed of 500 km/h during the entire flight from station to station. Check out the video below for the concept of the flying train with a focus on “Flying low and Riding high”.
See table below for comparison of the other high speed railway systems. The top 5 high-speed trains are currently used in China, Japan, France, Spain, and Germany. The Shanghai Maglev, most well-known train system, in China uses maglev train that has a maximum operating speed of 350 km/h with passenger capacity of 574. Compared to the top five high speed trains, the flying train can carry 4x the passengers with a higher operating speed of 500 km/h.
| Country - Train | Max Operating Speed | Passenger Capacity |
|---|---|---|
| China - Shanghai Maglev | 350 | 574 |
| Japan - SCMaglev | 320 | ~500 |
| France - TGV | 320 | 508 |
| Spain - AVE | 320 | 404 |
| Germany - ICE | 320 | 441 |
When comparing the total passenger capacity of train and an aircraft, a railway train with total capacity of 1100 passenger would be equivalent to the total capacity of 9 Airplanes. If we look at the boarding times, a train with a capacity of 1100 passengers would takes around 5-10minutes to load, whereas total of 9 Airplanes would require 60 minutes to load.
In terms of total number of passengers, a rail system can transport as many passengers as a 10 lane highway plus 2 airports. If we think about flying train’s capacity of 2000 passengers, you can imagine the impact this would have on international and regional transportation. The railway system has capacity to carry more number of passengers compared to other means of transportation available today. The flying train concept is very unique and original as it provides more passenger capacity at higher speeds, which will surely improve the transportation system in the future.
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