Cars piggybacked onto juggernauts
Denis Midgley
My grandfather had a bee in his bonnet. He worked on the railways around the turn of this century and was impressed by the containers of those days. These were small enough to travel by horse and cart or by goods wagon from door to door.
He wanted all goods to be moved in this way. He would lecture me on the advantages and would endlessly deplore the excess of manual labour that went into loading and unloading small packages at docks, goods yards and factory gates.
His dream has come true. And in a most impressive way in terms of the size of our juggernauts and their containers.
Goods traffic has indeed become coordinated, integrated and rationalised.
We should now turn our attention to a similar coordination of passengers.
The penalty for pioneering railways was that tunnels, tracks and stock were all of a near-diminutive Isle-of-Man quaint size. In a similar trap, our modern cars too closely fit the lesser roads. A temporary sacrifice is needed. After all, what is the advantage in sitting beside one's partner on a car journey? Is it akin to a double seat at the cinema?
If we redesign the popular car to be smaller, say by placing its occupants in line astern, we could achieve the following integration:
- For start and end of journey, fan-in and fan-out, using the private small car.
'On the juggernaut, escape into a corridor and enjoy a lounge, video and drink'
- For medium journeys over first-class roads, piggyback the car onto a juggernaut, escape into a corridor on the juggernaut, and enjoy a lounge, video and drink.
- For long journeys, piggyback the car onto a small-scale Chunnel type of drive on/off railcoach and again escape into a corridor to relax.
Features of the system
- Use of existing capital investment in simple road/rail infrastructure.
- Compatibility with old, small and appropriate technologies.
Probably features of the small car
- Wholly or partly electric
- Steerable/spinnable/manoeuvrable to new high standards - the Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE) publications show how front and rear steering and mid-ship idle wheels achieve this.
- Pollution-free hydrogen fuel.
- Comfortable turning without side-slip in the IEE design.
- Easily packable into piggyback hold.
- Variable geometry - insert a midriff to carry four instead of two.
Denis Midgley, 20 Elvaston Avenue, Hornsea, East Yorkshire HU18 1HA (tel 0964 533435).
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