Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Land Ferries

I was Victoria, British Columbia recently visiting my brother. One thing about going to Victoria, you quickly get introduced to the BC Ferry system.

What I find most amazing is how quickly the ships can load up a shipful of cars, trucks, busses, and pedestrians and sail off to the other shore. Onboard, drivers and passengers can dine, sight see, lounge, read, etc.

I started thinking, why can't we have that on land? A ferry between major cities on land. Similar to the Auto-train, a land ferry would be rail based. It should be completely loadable in 5 to 10 minutes. If it were double decked, you could load both decks at once. Drivers could get out of their cars, and walk to lounge or dining cars located at strategic points on the trains. With existing technology, point to point land ferries should be able to achieve comparable times to driving the same distance.

Longer term solutions could achieve higher speeds, provide charging stations for electric cars, and improved enroute amenities. Through trains could take travelers coast to coast, with the advantage of having personal transportation available at your destination. A variation of the ferry could provide a rolling campground, for travel trailers, motor homes, and boats.

The key to making such a proposal a success may be the technology and infrastructure to allow rapid loading and unloading. A robotic automatic loader could load an entire train simultaneously, two levels at a time. Other alternatives might just let you drive aboard like you would on the sea-going ferries mentioned earlier.

Feasible? Yes. Practical? Maybe. Marketable? Yes, at the right price point.

1 comment:

Cinnamon said...

That is actually a pretty cool idea.