Will this solution to the gas crisis work?

Question

Instead researching for more efficient engines, how about reducing the resistance so that vehicles travel farther?

The idea I came up with is a magnetic train in a vacuum tunnel. That way there is zero resistance and the train will use fuel only to get its speed going, but once the train is moving, it will no longer use fuel because of inertia (things tend to do what they're doing) and zero resistance. Electromagnets would be used to slow down and stop the train as it approaches the destination.

Advantages:

- Can travel anywhere in the world only using fuel once to get started.

- Faster than air travel because of no resistance.

- Uses far less fuel because it relies on inertia to continuing moving.

So will this idea work well?

Answer 1

It's been proposed before (back in the 1910's by Robert Goddard) and probably would work very well (though it would require the trains to have spacecraft like life-support systems).  It would also use electricity so any clean source of electricity could be used to power it and have it be carbon-neutral (although all electric trains have that advantage).

The only problem is that digging long evacuated tunnels is going to be very expensive (oh and the technology isn't exactly well proven but it's something that's pretty near-term and really just a new combination of what we already have).

Answer 2

To make that work you would also need to develop anti-gravity.  Gravity would work to slow that train down also.  So no it wouldn't work.

Answer 3

nature hates vacuums, It takes huge amount of energy to get a vacuum and maintain it.

Answer 4

I assume you mean maglev trains or the whole thing is busted already.

How does the train get from a station, where people have to survive, into this proposed vacuum? You can't without losing the vacuum, then you have to remove all of the air gain, impossible to do with all of the trains entering and leaving the system.

Lets say you devise a way to keep the entire system in a vacuum (an impossible engineering feat on it's own), and create a gangway type system that goes from an external terminal and docks to the doors of the train to load/unload people with a perfect seal. Now what happens when maintenance is needed in the tunnel, or a train breaks down? Send men in wearing space suits to fix the problem?

What a nightmare.

Answer 5

nice idea, but the idea wont work like you think. yes a maglev train can travel at great speeds, but to get a vacuum in a tunnel requires some serious energy consumption. there is an idea of building an undersea tunnel from new york city to london. the tunnel would "float" about 1000ft below sea level and be anchored to the ocean floor. this would allow for the tunnel to flex a bit, and it wouldnt require drilling under the ocean floor, and it wouldnt force the tunnel to handle excessive water pressure. the train in the tunnel would have a top speed of 5000 miles per hour(yes you read that right), and the train would travel in a vacuum to maximum performance. it would enter through an airlock that would maintain the vacuum in the tunnel as a whole, so the pumps would only have to vacuum out the airlock as needed.

now comes the issue. to create the vacuum in the tunnel in the first place would require several hundred jet engines working at full power for something like three years to vacuum all the air out of the tunnel. that is a lot of fuel, and would negate any fuel savings that running the train in a vacuum would give for a long time to come.

Answer 6

gravity's not the problem.

creating and maintaining a vacuum in the tunnel is.

while magnets can be used to make things "float", i'm not sure they'd work in this case  -- that is, not without using quite a lot of energy.

however, if you could solve those 2 problems, slowing down could recover energy, so, if the system were perfect, once you got it going, you'd never have to add any more energy.

on the other hand, i'm not at all sure i'd like to be riding your train up and down calif in an earth quake, thank you.  :-(