A little bit of solar for existing electrified rail lines? Magnetic propulsion for freight cars? This is a strange collection of gadgetbahn ideas.

This article is confusing : no data, no information, just some narrative to try to make a "new" stance on something quite known (and even mastered).

So what's the news here? Other places have fully electric trains since forever and solar power is part of the energy mix nearly everywhere.

On the show Full House S05E25 the character Michelle was learning to cook. She made tuna flavored ice cream. Uncle Jesse says something to the effect of "It's great that you like tuna and great that you like ice cream. You don't have to combine them."

I try to remember that episode when building tech products. We all like solar. We all like trains. It doesn't mean that we need to have solar panels between the train tracks.

I think that although it could be cool, it seems like train right-of-ways is a particularly harsh environment for solar panels. There's dust, harsh vibrations, heavy cast iron components, and other things right next to a sensitive bit of electronics. It seems like it would be more economical to have a solar farm managed by the train company. This way the panels can be easily cleaned, angled properly, and maintained not in the proximity of giant rolling metal boxes.

Seems very cool, maybe a bit of a game changing paradigm?

- solar over day slowly charges batteries in train cars (easy to add, weight issue is trivial)

- train cars dynamically dispatched during night in response to pretty granular JIT demand for next day

- everything can be slow and maximally efficient, the charging, the trains themselves

Seems like potential to cut costs by a lot and enable new usecases

I have whiplash from slogging through a bunch of trivialities to get to a couple of absolutely wild boil the ocean ideas. This article is literally the rejects from a plausible and informative article.

I can't believe I'm flagging for clickbait a BBC article...

I don't understand this article. This a completely solved problem.

Solar is just another component in the grid. Attach solar to the grid if you want, the trains to the grid too.

Like all the countries with electrified railed do.

Electrifying trains with only solar seems a bit stupid IMO, but who am I compared to tech firms betting on electrification.

Kind of a dumb article. Most UK lines were electrified fifty or so years ago. This seems to be about sticking some solar cells up to help provide some of the power.

One problem with electric cars and distributed generation is that it puts strain in the grid. I wonder if we can somehow make train tracks act as makeshift powerlines, to help cope with demand for transmission.

>>A key benefit of the technology, says Mr Paczek, is that it allows operators to bring freight wagons to a stop very quickly – and, as a consequence, that means they could, in principle, safely put lots of independently moving wagons relatively close together on one stretch of rail, increasing the density of freight transportation in a particular area.

THAT'S CALLED A FUCKING TRAIN.

They could build the solar, then use it for data centers while waiting for the wires to be strung over the rail lines.

Techbros stopped reinventing trains and now will invest in trains directly. Until next funding round when they will be trying to invent a some kind of pod transportation again.

Everybody wants to ~rule the world~ have their Steve Jobs "one more thing" moment on stage.

Sometimes it feels like that all the tech "innovations" lately have all been due to a certain group of people's desire to experience what Steve Jobs had. A generation of impressionable young people who grew up into a world where tech is going to save the world, and watching Jobs on stage are now trying their hardest to make their dreams a reality.