this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
116 points (96.8% liked)

World News

39339 readers
3012 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] FlyingSquid 31 points 1 month ago (3 children)

That's an interesting idea, but what is the advantage of not using rails?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My guess is it must be at capacity and there's no space to build a parallel lane next to the tracks. This is conveyor belt so it is constantly moving in both directions with pellets being dropped back and forth. Of course rail industry has been trying to get to the "conveyor belt" idea for sometime but to have one that's constantly moving both directions isn't executable.

[–] FlyingSquid 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It says it can fit three cargo pods abreast, so I don’t think that’s the issue.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is one of those things that reminds me that someone out there is probably doing something cool with that tube shipping system they built in NY forever ago and was forgotten for the most part. (It was like the bank tubes if people aren't familiar). But traversed miles and miles of tubes! The internet one might say haha

[–] FlyingSquid 2 points 1 month ago

They're called pneumatic tubes, just FYI.

And, believe it or not, that tube system was inspired by a test tunnel for a planned pneumatic tube-based subway system that never happened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The existing rail network is already pretty jammed on a lot of lines. Cargo does run at night (mostly) on other rail lines, but night is when maintenance is also done (we don't really have any 24-hour trains here except on special occasions and I think none of those even since corona). The safety record here does come with a cost in that sense; the checks, maintenance, and construction all occur at night with freight running around that.

If they are adding this in the middle of the expressways, the land is already acquired. It probably takes less infrastructure to do this than putting in rails would involved. I also doubt it would be to code for rails since there needs to be room to get passengers off in the case of emergency, etc. Zooming in on 35.698190871019335, 139.75230458261458 in Tokyo does show there isn't even really any room between lanes, though, and it's not different up where I live a few hundred KM north so I'm not exactly sure what the play is. All expressways are paid today and the tolls were supposed to go away eventually, but they never will if the construction never ends (and it never ends).

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 1 month ago

All of that makes sense. Thanks for explaining!

[–] Agent641 3 points 1 month ago

Can't figure out how to make chain signals work