The best high speed rail needs no rails at all

[txlibdem]

And now... it's... Tubular Rail!

"At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Welsh coal miners would remove the product of their labors by loading the precious coal into wooden wheeled wagons and pulling it through the mud and out of the shaft. Eventually someone placed wooden planks on the ground for the wheels to ride on and the task was made much easier. Soon the planks and wheels were replaced by those made of iron and a mule was added to do the pulling. Many industrial historians credit this development as the origin of the modern railroad.

No matter what type of power used or type of service engaged in, all trains depend on the basic configuration of steel wheel on steel rails. Even magnetic levitation maintains a continuous rail as both guide and support for the force field. One wonders what the modern train would have evolved into had an early mine owner placed rollers on the ground and the rails on the car instead. (Hint: It would have evolved into Tubular Rail!)

One only needs drive to a major city airport during rush hour to see the need for the development of Tubular Rail. In this drive, one is confronted with the dual problems of urban road and airport congestion. Tubular Rail, Inc. seeks to address both these issues: in one form as a mass transit system, and in another as a high speed rail system connecting points less than 5-600 miles apart.

Tubular Rail a solution to this incredible cost problem when building these systems on top of, or within, existing infrastructure. If freight quality track can be laid in flat and dry central Kansas for two million dollars a mile, what is it about high speed and mass transit systems that drive these costs to some 40 to 100 million dollars a mile or more?"

http://www.tubularrail.com/background.htm

That reminds me of Doc Brown in the movie Back to the Future: where we're going we don't need roads. Well, this high speed rail system doesn't need rails.

That may sound impossible. How can you have a high speed train without a track to run it on? The design genius of Tubular Rail is that they take the rail and integrate it into the floor of the train itself. The stanchions carry the weight of the train and also house a wheel that spins via an electric motor as the train passes over it, pushing the train along. The train would be 400 feet long and the stanchions would be 100 feet apart or less; so the train is always in contact with 3 stanchions and is always fully supported.

Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cShtEadkEc&NR=1
http://www.tubularrail.com/video.htm

Tubular Rail is in the early stages of development still:

"The United States lost interest in alternatives as the price of oil declined in the late 70′s. Only Morgantown at the University of West Virginia remains. We are making some progress on building a 2 mile demonstration pilot in West Texas. Of course that depends on funding, probably offshore, but we are making progress. I have a board member in Richmond Va. who might be able to make a presentation to your local government officials if you could stir up some interest with the city council."

http://www.gogoraleigh.com/2009/07/06/tubular-rail-aims-at-changing-transportation-game/