It's Time to Make Trains Sexy
I Just finished watching three episodes of Rust Valley Restorations and I have to admit, Cars can be damn sexy…
There is something about the mechanics, the amazing paint jobs and the sheer power output from hundreds of moving parts working in sync that makes our little monkey brains go “Damn, I need that”!
This urge to have a car is one of the biggest reason we have sunk trillions of dollars over the past 100 years into making insanely inefficient and dangerous infrastructure on top of cooking our planet with poisonous fumes…
However, I am here to tell you that there is another mode of transport that might be sexier in every single aspect cars appeal to us, trains!
Right of the bat, a locomotive can have more than 18,000 horsepower and and the new train models, like the Japanese L0 Series Maglev train, can reach speeds of over 600km/h! These numbers are unfathomable for any car…
But still, most people see trains as anonymous metal boxes which sole purpose is to take us from point A to point B.
If we want to see an increase in support for trains and train infrastructure, I think we need to change that image:
How to Make Trains Sexy?
Trains are insane pieces of engineering that any many ways have leapfrogged cars.
Below are just the tip of the iceberg where trains are both sexier and better than cars:
Autonomous Vehicles - In fact, autonomous trains have existed since 1981 and the technology is so good that many autonomous train lines operate 24h/365 days a year without any accidents!
Electric Vehicles - This one should be obvious, but its still baffling how we awe at Tesla for managing to create a car with a range of around 50km after a 5+ hour charge while electric trains have existed since 1879!
Top Speed - Did you know that the fastest car we will ever build has likely already been built? This is because the limit the friction and between rubber tires, air resistance and asphalt road creates makes it impossible to go any faster (the top speed is around 500km/h for less than 1 minute by the way). However, the resistance created between metal railroad tracks and metal wheels is so small that trains have been able to sustain a max speed of over 600km/h for hours!
At the end of the day, trains are more than their facts and figures, and to showcase that, I think a train-image speaks more than a 1000 train-words.
So without further ado, here’s why trains are sexy:
