Article By: John Jeffay, Israel 21c
Originally Published: September 22, 2024
By applying knowledge of mid-flight refueling in airplanes to trains, two entrepreneurs have found a way to double the number of trains running on a network, and make them faster.
Trains are safe, reliable, cost effective and energy efficient. They’re a great mode of transport in almost every way, except for one thing. The gaps between them.
You need a big, long gap between trains to be safe. You can’t slam on the brakes and expect hundreds of tons of rolling stock to come to a shuddering halt.
You must have at least 1.5km (nearly a mile) between train A and train B, which means you’re limited to around 14 trains an hour on any given stretch of line.
And so, the rail network capacity is fixed. Or at least it was until two Israel Air Force veterans devised a way that effectively doubles it.
Alberto Mandler and Moti Topf, CEO and CTO of DirecTrainSystems, respectively, applied what they knew about the mid-flight refueling of airplanes in the sky to trains on the ground.
Together they came up with what they call “dynamic coupling” (not be confused with the Paltrow-Pitt notion of conscious uncoupling): It means separate railway cars can attach (and also detach) while moving at any speed.
A passenger service to one destination can be coupled for part of its journey with a freight service to another, counting as one train and freeing up more capacity for additional trains.
Rail operators have always been able to couple trains together while they’re stationary. The game-changing element here is the ability to do so without the trains stopping or even slowing.
Saving time and energy
Picture two branch lines converging into one. Each branch line can accommodate a maximum of 14 trains an hour. The joint line also has a certain capacity.
But it can’t manage 14 plus 14 from both branch lines. It would be overcrowded and unsafe. Dynamic coupling enables the 14 trains on each branch line to pair up – now seven on each line instead of 14.
Dynamic coupling also offers huge savings in terms of both time and energy. One train uses as much electricity pulling out of the station as an average household uses in a year.
That’s why the patented system that Mandler and Topf have developed is set to revolutionize train travel.
Piggybacking services squeezes the maximum from expensive rail infrastructures that have never achieved their full potential in the two centuries since George Stephenson gave the world his locomotive engine.
Train services could become far more frequent (and far quicker) because the network capacity would effectively be doubled.
Mandler says the technology could slash journey times between Haifa and Tel Aviv from 55 minutes to just 35 minutes.
DirecTrainSystems Co-founder and CEO Alberto Mandler is a Technion alumnus.
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