Conceptual image of a completed Eco-Ride urban transportation system Credit: COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO’S INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE AND SENYO KOGYO CO.

Eco-Ride urban transportation system Credit: TOKYO’S INSTITUTE OF INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE AND SENYO KOGYO CO.

Japan is a country of fast trains. Last year, Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) revealed its prototype, which after further development could enter service carrying passengers at speeds of 500 kph on the Chuo Shinkansen Line. Train is called Maglev and it use magnetic repellence to lift the train above the track, eliminating friction, reports The Asahi Shimbun.

But Japanese are not developing only fast speed expensive trains, but also innovative green trains.  Tokyo University‘s Institute of Industrial Science (IIS) and company Senyo Kogyo developed train named Eco-Ride, which functions in the same way as a theme park roller coaster. By turning potential energy into kinetic energy, it coasts along its tubular tracks without an engine. The train’s speed is controlled by aerodynamics and by “vertical curves”, sections of track that form the transition between two sloping segments. The Eco-Ride is set in motion and slowed at stations via rotating wheels between the rails that catch a fin underneath the train Read more about Eco-Ride train here: New Scientist

 

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