Private Traincars

[Guest Plastic]

Metro plans to run trains along freeways out to the suburbs. This works fine in the daytime but after workhours and operating hours there's no transit. I fore mentioned in another thread that this is bad for people whom want to go to clubs.

SO whynot have private trains. Private cars that hold for people really. They've tried this before. Have small train cars that seat upto 4 people siting at the train stations. You'd get in, enter your destination and the car would take you there on the same tracks regular trains run on. The tracks could be interlinked. If not you could transfer cars Downtown or at transit centers.

There was supposed to be an experemental one on the East Coast. The idea was to get people wherre the were goign quicker an more effeciently instead having to wait30 minutes to an hour for another train to get to them.

[DaTrain]

You're thinking of Personal Rapid Transit. No major city has built any of these yet, and 45 yeras of studies on it is too long.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit

[zaphod]

PRT, the transportation option that combines the inefficiency of a car with the high cost of rail infrastructure

leave to the federal government to spend money designing something that takes the WORST out of both worlds

kind of a cool idea. But if instead of small train cars, have a regular sized special train that instead of just taking you to the clubs, the train would BE THE CLUB. It would have no seats and there would be drinks and music

Edited March 20, 2007 by zaphod

[Guest Plastic]

Sounds like a party bus. They might as well do it. Routes like The Westheimer are so crowded they might as well add strobes and drinks since so many rpatrons are standing.

[Mr. Chenevert]

I attended West Virginia University which still operates a PRT system originally built in the late 60's. They claim the reason the PRT did not grow was because of the high cost to heat the track, but I dont see that as a problem in the southern states.

The PRT is very simple and works especially well on a college campus. Each car seats 8 people, but has room for about 15 people to stand as well. You simply press a button to decide which station you want to go to and wait at the platform. Once the next train comes up, a sign lights up and announces where it is headed. You jump aboard when its your turn. It goes directly to that station with no transfers.

Now granted, we only had about 5 stations, but the system worked extremely well. You harldly ever had to wait more than 5 or 10 minutes even during peak usage for the train to arrive. And then no more than 13 minutes to travel up to 8 miles away.

For the college student without a car or the money to pay for parking, it is an absolutely great system.

My biggest complaint with it was that with a heated track, we never cancelled school because of snow.

[gnu]

I attended West Virginia University which still operates a PRT system originally built in the late 60's. They claim the reason the PRT did not grow was because of the high cost to heat the track, but I dont see that as a problem in the southern states.

The PRT is very simple and works especially well on a college campus. Each car seats 8 people, but has room for about 15 people to stand as well. You simply press a button to decide which station you want to go to and wait at the platform. Once the next train comes up, a sign lights up and announces where it is headed. You jump aboard when its your turn. It goes directly to that station with no transfers.

Now granted, we only had about 5 stations, but the system worked extremely well. You harldly ever had to wait more than 5 or 10 minutes even during peak usage for the train to arrive. And then no more than 13 minutes to travel up to 8 miles away.

For the college student without a car or the money to pay for parking, it is an absolutely great system.

My biggest complaint with it was that with a heated track, we never cancelled school because of snow.

cool. sort of sounds like a horizontal elevator...if that makes sense

[Mr. Chenevert]

Here is a closeup of what the cars look like. Slightly larger than an average SUV and run on rubber tires.

Above is how un-evasive the tracks are on the community.