• scarabic@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Well now we need to design the train with all seats facing forward and restraints to keep people in place, and we need to have staff abord to do do a safety check that everyone is seated and strapped in before we can get those 2 seconds of theoretically-survivable acceleration.

    Come on. This is cool from an engineering perspective but will never be used on an actual passenger train.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      That test sled doesn’t have the mass of a train car, let alone a full consist. It may very well be used on real trains, just not with such impressive results.

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        It’s completely not practical.

        7Gs is, granted, not categorically lethal hut average people will start to pass out around 4Gs if the acceleration is vertical, and 9 is about the upper limit that trained, fit Air Force pilots can experience without losing consciousness.

        So 7 is nothing to sneeze at even under ideal conditions.

        • kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 days ago

          Okay, again, I agree this is not in the slightest practical, but also, again, a train accelerating is not vertical g, horizontal g tolerance is much, much higher than vertical g tolerance, especially “eyeballs in” and it increases greatly the less time it is for. Some early experiments showed untrained people could handle around 20g for less than 10 seconds. Also blunt force risks could be mediated almost completely by ramping the acceleration slowly, first reminding people to brace, then gently forcing them back in their seats. Again, ludicrous, nothing designed for comfort of human passengers is ever going to be designed to accelerate anywhere near that quickly and it’s completely unnecessary anyways.