Editor, Times-Union: We have had too many preventable accidents on the rails over the years. Traveling over 100 mph where the safe speed limit is less than half that would have never happened if the equipment that was there to prevent the problem had been activated. A way to stop trains faster would be to divert energy that is generated in diesel electric locomotives from the drive motors to magnetic brakes that would magnetize the wheels to grab the rails. For faster stopping, magnetic bars would drop from the cars to the rails. The bars could remain on the rails to keep the train from moving when the engines are off. A brush system could magnetize the rails to repel the bars to make them easier to retract when the train needs to move. By using a third rail system, power would be sent to brushes to be fed into the rails to magnetize them to repel electromagnetic plates on the bottom of the cars and levitate trains. The trains would be passenger trains made from lighter materials to reduce energy needs. Conventional rails could be used. The self-levitated trains could travel at over 300 mph in straight stretches and sensors in the rails and trains would keep them from traveling too fast on curves. A trip from Fort Wayne to Chicago, even with a few stops in between, might take less than an hour to complete. Further in the future there could be an extensive underground tube system bored out by plasma excavation moles. A trip from Cleveland to St. Louis might take less than half an hour with no need for stops as long as passenger capsules are shot ahead of the tube trains, which will catch up with them. Passenger capsules would be detached from the trains to enter secondary tubes when departing passengers need to reach places like Bloomington or Warsaw. Trains that travel underground will deliver both passengers and cargo to their destinations faster and safer. We’ll still have to wait for trains to pass near Detroit Street here in Warsaw in the future. But maybe the nights will be a little quieter if freight trains that now blast their horns while we try to sleep travel underground. I know I’d visit Chicago often if traveling there was as easy as entering a tube station and a passenger capsule in downtown Warsaw. Rick Badman Warsaw
