New Technology for SEPTA?

Slashdot had a story recently about a road/rail dualmode vehicle that can change modes on the fly. While it looks like they're pushing the project, called BladeRunner, for long range passenger and freight, I wonder if it might work well for Septa's bus service, using it in rail mode for increased efficency and reduced maintenance (but requiring the installation of rails on city streets) and allowing for road operation to dodge traffic or temporarily change routes as necessary. Capacity as it currently stands is far larger than SEPTA needs for bus routes (105) and provides much greater speeds (100 mph), but perhaps a smaller, lower speed version might be appealing.

There's a project webpage here.

I'm not convinced this'll work (at all, let alone for SEPTA), but it's worth a look. Anyone else intrigued by this?

New technology, you say...? :D

Been there, done that. The FRA would hate it. So would passengers.

The FRA and railroads would especially despise the Hy-Rail tractor-trailer as depicted on that web site, too...

The Red Arrow tried one too.

Boy, wouldn't the folks in Bryn Athyn love that one??? Unless Pitcairn could become a dealer for them, that is.

Matthew Mitchell wrote:The Red Arrow tried one too.

Yep, a little wierd looking-



But, it opens up interesting options for rush-hour congestion mitigation.

A) Time share the Arsenal bridge to get bus transit to and from University City to South Philly during the South Street Bridge rebuilding.

B) Runs on the Port Richmond Branch section parallel to Route 1 during rushhour.

C) Avoid the 30th Street congestion and take a Highline route to the back end of the 30th Street Station platforms.

Hal

Matthew Mitchell wrote:The Red Arrow tried one too.

There's an interesting story about that Red Arrow railbus. Red Arrow President Merrit H. Taylor, Jr. took the bus to DC for a trial run over a 20 mile section of the B&O . He invited a number of Congressmen and other government officials to witness the demonstration. Unfortunately, there was a last minute snow storm, and the rubber tired rear wheels on the bus simply spun and snow and ice clogged the sanders. Taylor was so upset that he canceled an order for ten of the vehicles which would have been used on the Media & Sharon Hill Lines. Red Arrow later solved the problem that had plagued the DC experiment, but the impending take over of the Red Arrow by Septa ended any further experimentation with this type of vehicle.

walt wrote:

Matthew Mitchell wrote:The Red Arrow tried one too.

There's an interesting story about that Red Arrow railbus.
...
there was a last minute snow storm, and the rubber tired rear wheels on the bus simply spun and snow and ice clogged the sanders.
...
the impending take over of the Red Arrow by Septa ended any further experimentation with this type of vehicle.

And as a codicile to that, I belive it's ironic that SEPTA wanted to get rid of equipment and sold their Route 100 snowplow unit to a trolley museum.

Unfortunately nobody told SEPTA that selling the routes' only snowplow doens't prevent snow storms. So last year or the year before, heavy snows shutdown the high speed line for several days.

Hal

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that the snowplow that SEPTA sold would not have really helped all that much with the 100 shutdown b/c the problem was that snow packed in between the 3rd rail and the "cover" that has recently been installed (recently as in, the last decade) and interrupted current draw between the vehicle and the source.

Their replacement is some gihugic jet engine that melts all the snow away including that on the 3rd rail.

Of course, this was never a problem before SEPTA installed that 3rd rail cover, but with the "sue everybody" environment that SEPTA must live in, it probably isn't realistic to suggest that SEPTA doesn't need to protect people from themselves and that they should just remove the cover and let the snow blow away naturally as it did for decades without causing problems for anyone...