DSK wrote:
I'm trying to picture how a train is going to tack upwind.

I was thinking if the wind is exactly 0 degrees you get the day off
from work or a hotel coupon. hehe

Walt wrote:
Easy. You just lay track 45 degrees to the direction of the next
station, and then put in a 90 degree turn halfway there. The train will
have to tack. Add in a direct line without a turn, plus another right
angle track on the other side, and the train should be able to sail to
the next station regardless of the wind direction. That is, as long as
your switchman can read the wind.

And the best part about it is: NO LEEWAY.

A solid sail as wind turbine could also work but probably much slower
as z shaped rails. The extra distance is nice as it generates more
energy.

The spring-flywheel should be able to store enough of the collected
energy. The train should have many of them. The build-up momentum
should be stored at the train-station (some how).

http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/spring-flywheel

I expect the wind to be either much to strong or to weak.

Should it try to keep the schedule or aim for peak performance?

What kind of sails would give the best overall performance in an open
area?

wrote:
A solid sail as wind turbine could also work but probably much slower
as z shaped rails. The extra distance is nice as it generates more
energy.


Slower in speed along the Z-rails, perhaps, but not made
good from station to station.


The spring-flywheel should be able to store enough of the collected
energy. The train should have many of them. The build-up momentum
should be stored at the train-station (some how).

http://gabydewilde.googlepages.com/spring-flywheel

I expect the wind to be either much to strong or to weak.


Sure. When is it otherwise?

Should it try to keep the schedule or aim for peak performance?

What kind of sails would give the best overall performance in an open
area?


Why not use the sails as a wind turbine to drive a staionary
generator, that way the vehicle can be lighter & more
streamlined, and powered by electricity which can be
efficiently transmitted over long distances. No z-shaped
rail routes.

DSK

Spring steel energy storage? Heavy. Hard to move heavy rolling stock
with windpower alone. If you had an electreic booster motor running
off of a wire you could feed excess energy back to the rail
electrification system, hopefully not underfoot. Electric generator
brakes feeding an overhead or trackside wire might provide some power
for trains going dead upwind or uphill, but I doubt it could be
practicable. Better a cable drive, with counterbalanced opposing
direction cars, boostable with water ballast.

Rainwater is one way to bleed energy from wind, with a fog farm on a
hilltop.

One type of analysis could consider hydrogen as a battery electrolyte,
or cold liquid nitrogen as a sink for energy, permitting a cold engine
system, would utilise the atmosphere as rhetorical electrolyte storing
heat from liquifier pumps to be returned to the cold air hog "unsteam"
engine as energy to expand while heating the liquid and gaseous
nitrogen. Bonus: free air conditioning in the vehicle.

Timing the N2 condensation, or storage phase, and expansion, or use
phase, in combination with efficient insulation could increase the
apparrant energy density of the system if the N2 was stored after being
condensed in the cold of winter, warming the ambient, providing excess
heat for use in the winter, then if the N2 were "burned off" in the
summer, it could seem quite poweful and efficient, harvesting the
seasonal temperature variations.

It's a solar energy cycle thing, isn't it?

A sail snail rail train will never cut it. An air conditioned moped
with balloon weather shelter, a liquid N2 cold air hog might.

Why do we not use air conditioners as heaters in cool weather, saving
heating power, since a heat pump is the most efficient heater there is
(150%). All we need do is turn the air conditioner around in the spring
and fall, or not use it to cool in the summer, leaving it reversed all
the time, with only the plug in the wall as an off on switch.
Provision would also need be made to reroute condenser drippage.

Terry K

Count me out for the sail train but how about the sooooouuuul train?

my comment disapeard

thanks for the repys,

So far I think it's a good idea to use the trains we already have to
transport the passengers.

I was thinking to make sails the same width and half the height of the
train.

Put them in sets of 4 on their own set of wheels.

Then attach a row of such carts to the front and rear end of the train.

The amount of carts you take with you depends on how brutal the wind is
that day.

If there is non you bring non. :-)

I have no idea how often it would be useful.

But now that I've imaginated a size with the sail of the imaginary
apparatus maybe you could tell me how much carts we need to create an
interesting "wingspan" for our earth rotating windmill of sailnovation.
:-)

wrote in message
oups.com..
..
thanks for the repys,


I have no idea how often it would be useful.


never

hello scotty,

with "never", do you mean each individual sail is to small to pull the
cart

or would it require to much carts to be useful?

hello Scotty,

With "never" do you mean each individual sail is much to small

or would the row of carts get to big.