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Keith W Henline

Organizum (one person organization), Sea Shepard

TEDCRED 20+

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Run a single locomotive in front of high speed trains. Why?

Run the stripped down efficient locomotive far enough in front of a high speed train so that if it crashes the following train can stop in time. In the old days they called that a "scout" (someone who would go ahead to make sure the trail was safe). At the very least you could send a drone which would send back information to the engineer.
This just popped into my head, I don't know why.... OR we could just wait and see what happens when the next 200+ MPH train runs into a car, animal or tree.

Topics: common sense; train safety
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Closing Statement from Keith W Henline

As my first experiment in TED conversations it served it's purpose.

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    Keith W Henline 20+

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    Mar 20 2013: Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
    Plato
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    Keith W Henline 20+

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    Mar 20 2013: Since Warren Buffet owns a railroad and invests in others I submitted my idea to him. If just one railway accident was averted he could save himself billions in law suites. If the scout locomotive traveling say fifty miles in front of the loaded train crashed for whatever reason it should give the rest of the train time to stop and avert a full blow catastrophe. It is a lot easier to replace a single automated engine than a hundred railroad cars full of people and goods. Traveling at 200-300 mph the devastation would be total and catastrophic. Thanks for your comments folks.
    I'll let you know what Warren tells me.

  • Charles Curt

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    Mar 19 2013: i'm talking about how this is a bad idea
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    Lawren Jones 10+

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    Mar 19 2013: I believe what Charles is trying to say without benefit of punctuation or capitalization is that it only takes a moment for a car to drive out onto the tracks, and a train takes several minutes (and miles) to stop, so your idea wouldn't work.

  • Charles Curt

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    Mar 19 2013: oh and another thing is that this big steel cable would cause many problems just being there if any animal would touch it they would be sliced and diced leaving their body to be hit by the train causing possible derailing (although i doubt it would) but if it was going around a turn it would be cutting trees and buildings down as well haha and if it was a rock mountain you were turning around it would damage the cord and cause massive inefficiencies in the train

  • Charles Curt

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    Mar 19 2013: trains take miles and miles to stop and the problem with this is that it doesn't help anything we can already do the only thing it would really help out is if the track was broken and operators didn't already know about it and even then that means the locomotive will still crash another problem is that this would double to triple the length of the train and it still would never help against cars and animals because those factors are always changing and moving what keeps a cow from not stepping in front of the engine and just stepping in front of the cars?

  • george lockwood 20+

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    Mar 19 2013: Drone I like the idea. Scout - Why would it have to be a full sized engine?

    • ZX Style 10+

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      Mar 19 2013: The idea of a drone is indeed very promising.
      That is if the railroad companies also find their rails unsafe.
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      Keith W Henline 20+

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      Mar 19 2013: "stripped down efficient locomotive" A drone could tell you lots of information however a full size engine could tell you if the rail would support the train. If the rail was sabotaged or weakened in any way a full scale engine would be the real test plus they already have them and they could be doing this tomorrow. In the future a scout locomotive could be specifically designed for the job. I believe both could be used. TY for comments. By the way if any of you like the idea and have connections with Warren Buffet or a railroad feel free to submit this idea as your own. Ideas always get better reception coming from someone you know. My ideas are always free and open source!
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