[ianbicking]

Makes a lot of sense for freight... lots of weight, most miles going through lower population areas.

Feels a little silly for relatively light humans being transported through high population areas.

[TylerE]

The humans may be light... the car around them built to survive a 100mph crash certainly isn't.

[ianbicking]

Imagine what airplanes would look like if we wanted to build them to survive a crash...

I'm also a little unclear how humans could survive a 100mph crash even if their container makes it through. If they were wearing a 4-point harness, I guess? Do they build crumple zones into train cars? Or... just rely on utterly demolishing anything they hit so the deceleration is kept under control? (https://www.reddit.com/r/BitchImATrain/)

Some nice analysis of survivable deceleration here (with restraints): https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16545/even-afte... (100mph=44m/s)

[user_7832]

Sure but buses and cars themselves are strong enough and use rubber tyres. Not that I think rubber's a good idea for trains, but still.

[TylerE]

You really don't want to see what a 90mph crash in a bus looks like. It ain't pretty. Those speeds are unreasonable for a bus, but common on commuter rail in many civilized places.

[woodpanel]

> strong enough

no car or bus survives a 150 km/h crash

[singleshot_]

Check out people movers at large airports: they look like trains, run on their own tracks, but have tires.