Solar-Powered Rail System for Commercial Distribution… “The IP Train”

This is a proposal and design for an entirely new rail system that you might describe as halfway between truck transit and industrial rail freight. It would serve commercial distribution of finished consumer goods (and at least one other interesting option) at a fraction of the environmental impact of truck transit. Because it also reduces distribution costs, you could also say that it represents the “Amazon-ing of distribution costs,” something that Amazon has yet to successfully impact.

What Nature of Shipping Would It Serve?

The system would provide freight transit between the four main types of sites that facilitate the distribution of consumer and business goods: 1) ports, 2) manufacturers, 3) distribution warehouses, and 4) major retail hubs, as shown in the following schematic.

It would replace a large portion of what is currently very inefficient truck transit, with energy-efficient, and sustainable rail transportation system for that portion of the goods that does not need the fastest delivery but could be successful with delivery times of perhaps 1–2 weeks, cross-country or 1–2 days within a region.

1. It would not replace industrial rail transportation, such as railroad transport raw mining and chemical manufacturing materials.
2. It would not replace truck transportation for perishable goods, or small-quantity commerce that relies on newness, or near-daily updating and replenishing.
3. It could distribute large appliances, automobiles, paper goods, pantry food, furnishings, large electronics, clothing, construction materials, fuel, and more.
4. It could create a new opportunity… for large-scale, national recycling. If a low-energy means were available to send all refuse to regional recycling centers, then economy-of-scale could be achieved to justify the most advanced robotics and other advanced technology to process waste.

How Would It Save Energy?

The system would have driverless, solar-powered train cars on rails similar to amusement-park roller coasters.

1. SUPER-LOW FRICTION Roller-coaster ‘trains’ have incredibly low friction compared to trucks with huge, air-inflated rubber wheels.
2. REGENERATIVE BRAKING could maximize the solar power, with the raised tracks allowing minimization of hills. Yes, cars and apparently trains are doing this but only to some degree.
3. DIRECT-ON-WHEEL MOTORS Even the best electric cars today still have motors that are separate from the car’s wheels, and use a rotating shaft to transfer the energy, with some loss in friction. But because the IP train will have no bumps in its ‘road,’ the motors can be directly on the wheels, with the least possible energy loss (short of perhaps maglev vehicles or Musk’s atmosphere-devoid hyperloop).
4. DOWNTIME Trucks stop for sleeping, traffic jams, traffic lights, intersections, toll-taking, refueling of truck and driver, illness, poor visibility, maintenance and more. There’s a chance that this new system would consume a mere fraction of the energy of trucks.

If you have some engineering skill, try to picture what percentage improvement each of those factors might have if they were hypothetically applied to today’s trucks. I’ll take a wild stab at it:

1. Friction: I’d imagine that on a level surface, I could personally push the equivalent weight of tractor-trailer if it were on nylon wheels and six-inch steel tube rails. I’ll bet the friction savings alone are 75% savings on the raw energy cost.
2. Regenerative braking: Picture if the energy of every downhill driven by every truck were captured instead of converted to heat. A quick Google search seems to show that this is known to save 15–20% of energy.
3. Direct motors: negligible.
4. Downtime: again, imagine if every truck hardly ever stopped. (If you owned any trucking operation, you’d instantly be immensely wealthy.) Do you doubt the savings from this factor might be at least 25%?

These factors are hard to combine mentally but doesn’t it become clear that the overall cost in dollars and energy might be a mere fraction?

How Could Solar Possibly Provide Enough Power?

It is the ideal application of solar because…

1. Wholesale shipment time is not urgent for most of the volume of goods distributed around the country.
2. Because the cars would be on tracks raised out of the reach of the public, the entire tops and sides of the cars could be solar panels with little exposure to vandalism and collision damage. And they’d have the utmost exposure to the sun.
3. Helper ‘locomotives’ with either help from fixed solar arrays (under the tracks where there are hills?) or hybrid fossil fuel engines could find stalled trains that have run short on solar power and push them along.
4. Because this is a heavy-weight, ground based system on efficient tracks, it could even be a great use for older, less efficient batteries that are recycled out of other systems. In this system, which will have a lot of level-surface travel and will re-capture energy on downhills, extra weight is not terrible detriment. Notice that conventional rail trains bear the absolute heaviest loads such as mining ores, but they don’t recapture any energy during breaking or downhills.

What Other Engineering Does It Involve?

1. SIZE The cars or cargo units would be about half or one third the size of freight trains, perhaps large enough for a car or small truck to fit inside. Imagine 75% of the trucks currently hauling cars from ports to distribution centers not spewing fossil fuels any more.
2. MODULARITY The cargo containers would be completely independent of the train for instant unload/reload.
3. RAISED ABOVE CONVENTIONAL RAIL RIGHT-OF-WAYS The rails could be placed above existing railroads.
4. DRIVERLESS IP-LIKE ROUTING Similar to how the internet sends data around in packages that continuously find the best route, the IP train would route cars.
5. MODULAR TRESTLES Trestles could be built so that they could quickly be ‘stuck’ in the ground without quite the same structural demands of either a human transit system, or heavy rail. In other words a lighter weight system could be designed that has lower cost and is faster to install with automated equipment. Piers or abutments in the ground might still require concrete but adjustable trestle connections could minimize the precision challenges of more demanding installations.