Students Cruz the Sol-Train
January 24, 2008
In the 60’s it was a call to ride on the Peace Train, but today University of California Santa Cruz Students, together with partners from Cabrillo College, have been working on a solar-powered train ever since the 90’s. Now, with a working prototype, these students are calling on local residents to ride on the Sol-Train that can send up to 20 passengers per car, down an ordinary railway track.Dubbing themselves as the ” lowest cost per seat of any self-propelled commuter rail system”, this team of students hopes to get funding to take this prototype out of the concept stage and into usable production. With photoelectric panels installed on the roofs of each car and at each station, the train has ample power to currently carry passengers at 20 miles per hour. The students hope to get the train up to speeds of 50 miles per hour in the near future.A solar-powered train, with the additional surface area of a train, plus the possibilities of using each station as a place to quick-charge the train, could develop into a very inexpensive way of transporting Givers to and fro from the Giver Communities.The R&D put into this project could also benefit the development of a solar cable-car which, through being suspended, would be even less of an environmental impact and would be guaranteed sunlight being out of the tree-tops.There are a ton of ideas out there. All that is needed is for a single group/nation/culture to start adopting them.
