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Worldbuilding

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    $\begingroup$ I was actually going to suggest something like this - don't power the train. Power the tracks. Put a 3rd rail down with power supplied by stationary solar panels all along the route. Sure, it might be cloudy on some parts of the track, but it's unlikely to be cloudy everywhere, so you've always got a source of free electricity for every train on the tracks. (And the proposed system is global, so day/night is taken care of.) The train in that video apparently produces power to spare, and feeds it back into the grid. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 10, 2023 at 14:52
  • $\begingroup$ That train shows how hard it would be to make a truck work on solar panels. The train runs on a straight and level track, so it probably consumes no more power than a small truck. There has even been an experiment to add pantograph electricity to the slow lane of a motorway in Gemrmany. I did look at whether I could power a camper van from wind power, so I could tour the UK on found energy. $\endgroup$ Commented Jan 10, 2023 at 20:17