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Trains May Soon Come Equipped With Debris-Zapping Lasers
Molly McHugh writes: Holland's chief transportation service is testing a unique new way to clear the rails of fallen leaves and other small debris: by mounting lasers on the fronts of locomotives. The lasers will cause the leaves, which produce a condition commonly referred to as "slippery rail" in the fall and winter months, to vanish in a puff of smoke.
I would think that it'd take one heck of a laser to fry wet leaves on a train track. The whole thing sounds like a boondoggle to me.
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I'm guessing anything that directly touches the track is going to wear down fairly quickly, and anything that doesn't directly touch the track is going to miss wet leaves that are plastered to it.
I read the internet for the articles.
Wait.. "puff of smoke" ? If the lasers are powerful enough to do that, what's keeping it from setting things on fire?
Exercise for the reader: Try sweeping the leaves off of your driveway or sidewalk when they are wet and stuck to the pavement. Now imaging accomplishing that in a single high-speed sweep.
IANATE but I believe many trains already have such a brush but even if they don't they are not effective.
Freaking laser beams have a bunch of other issues but are WAY cooler ;-)
gee I hope the third rail contacts on the electrical train I road to work don't hear you
Seems like it would take some careful calibration to make a laser that would burn off wet leaves plastered to the rail and yet not soften the hardened steel of the rail that's going to have a multi-ton train passing over it in seconds.
I think the concern isn't dry leaves so much as wet ones that are plastered to the rail like decals on a middle school girl's notebook.
I read the internet for the articles.
"Trains May Soon Come Equipped With Debris-Zapping Lasers"
The lovely word "may" is such an abused word. There are MANY things that MAY come, on the other hand it MIGHT not as well. My money is on that it won't be here anytime soon. There are so many technical and impractical issues that arise, that this is nothing more than a "wow...lasers, we're so 1337" 21 century etc. Sure, it makes for a good read, and even better...the house-geek will have his say over the dinner table...say...did you know honey, they're putting lasers in front of the trains now to clear the tracks. OOOOh honey, that's just up your Dart Vader alley!
Guess what? I've been working with technology and prototyping for years, and it's a riot every time this actually surfaces as an article once in a blue moon, you can't just put high power lasers in front of trains, you'll have reflection issues, IR-radiation, people claiming blindness, and the kind of power you need to "zap" it clean is extreme, this isn't your average laser pointer that can be used to write your name into a cellphone or pop balloons, heck...even hefty industrial lasers used to cut metal are so focused and concentrated that if you wanted to use it to blast away debris...you'd need a HECK of a lot more space for it to be actually practical, not to mention the need for cooling.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
What forces does the train put on them, exactly? Draw me a diagram.
If we followed your dumbass thinking we wouldn't have street sweepers, tires, or shoes.