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Comment by sitkack | Hacker News Reader

The article completely omits trains. That is glaring.

I had this steampunk like plan when I was in college to have huge hydrogen cargo airships pulled by trains to haul large bulk items (fully assembled houses, building parts, large trees, fully assembled combines, etc). A literal skytrain.

Some new lines would have to be created a way to handle going through tunnels etc. I think now I would have a drone be able to connect and unconnect the tether and the airship would be able to be autonomous for period of time and reconnect. Or a small track could be run just to connect the small tug needed to pull the airship.

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this is kind of like the old idea of a tow-path. those work by floating the cargo on the river and pulling it with horses next to the river. I really like the idea of pulling cargo floating in air with trains, since trains already exist, and its also visually entertaining. im curious what the numbers would look like, since trains are very efficient for each marginal mile i think? also im not sure what you would do about a wind storm haha.

This is a neat idea, but I think the main problem is, that those trains would have to go slower than an ordinary train (and much slower, than an high speed train), thus blocking the rails for normal trains.

But it might make sense for some routes.

I wonder if you could make the tug small enough that it could get off the track, Like a really big big-dog (also with train wheels) or you might have to insert small sections where a train could bypass the tug.

Or! The airship unhooks from the tug, the tug proceeds on with the train and train drops a tug off the end and the airship reconnects.

Freight trains only travel 40-50 Mph (lightly or unloaded) the average speed is just under 30 Mph [1].

I think most of the problems are solvable with some wit once you have the right pieces in place. Going slow will be key, you will have to, the thing will be massive.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/547745/average-train-spe...

Trains can’t cross oceans or cover long distances or dynamically change routes

Trains can't cover long distances? Surely that's a typo -- trains can cover incredible distances...

And they can change routes within their network. So yes, there's some cost to get train stations and tracks built, but afterwards they can visit anywhere within the network and carry a whole lot more than airships.

Fair point on the oceans thing though.

Trains in tunnels can cross water, and trans-oceanic tunnels are ... within the realm of possibility.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submerged_floating_tunnel>

A fully-automated, cargo-only submerged floating tunnel might be an acceptable pilot / risk model.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32967216>

(From a previous airships discussion, as it happens.)

Good luck with bridges and power lines.

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