Atmospheric Railway

[SimonWood]

Now I'm not planning to do this myself, but interested to read about this 1:6 scale atmospheric garden railway, in the sense of atmospheric pressure not railway with a nice atmosphere.

I wouldn't mind having a vineyard to build a railway in, though...

[Big Jim]

That is an interesting project and a method of propulsion that harks back to the very early days of railways. Brunel didn't have much luck with it.......

[big-ted]

So? Who's going to be the first to build one in 16mm? "Honey, I'm borrowing the vacuum cleaner...!"

[tom_tom_go]

Contains many incorrectly pronounced words, God bless America!

[IrishPeter]

Interesting enough, though, he has solved the problem that IKB could not sort out, and that was maintaining a seal.

Peter in Va

[daan]

In Brunels system they didn't have neodyum magnets. The system of the 89 year old man is just a tube with a magnet travelling inside, the train as another magnet. So there is no seal and much easier to keep a vacuüm..

But in 2018 even his system is very slow and old. Lineair electromagnetic motors have the same sort of propulsion (the propulsion is in the track. the vehicle follows by magnetic attraction) and can shoot a train straight up if needed.

The biggest problem of the vacuüm part in the pipe is that the piston also gets attracted by the train, so making a lot of friction inside the tube, which you don't have with lineair motors..

Nevertheless an interesting way of looking at things..

[Boustrophedon]

The biggest problem of the vacuüm part in the pipe is that the piston also gets attracted by the train, so making a lot of friction inside the tube, which you don't have with linear motors..

Nevertheless an interesting way of looking at things..

There need not be any net magnetic force on the magnetic piston causing it to rub on the tube, if it is arranged to attract magnets mounted on either side of the tube, rather than just on the top. Besides you know, bearings and rollers and stuff.

[Paulus]

Very interesting indeed! Never heard of it before so I googled some more on this. It is fascinating that the first of those ideas are almost 200 years old, like the Saint-Germain atmospheric railway in France that was published about in 1847 (L'Illustration, Journal Universel, No 216, April 17, 1847).
Thanks for sharing this!