THE GREAT TRAIN ADVENTURE PART II

When a NON STOP is really a NON STOP

Here’s a sequel to an article that appeared in this shameless blog of self interest and promotion a few weeks ago. On Friday, April 16, 2001 Skwoosh posted the “THE GREAT TRAIN ADVENTURE - SKWOOSH READIES FOR MASSIVE TRAVEL GEL CUSHION BUSINESS. We all thought this was a very interesting piece of information about China’s new and proposed high speed train system. and one in which we could shamelessly promote the Skwoosh gel Travel Cushion, the EZ Swivel and the Skwoosh Office gel cushion. Well the blog was interesting and the promotion of Skwoosh gel cushions fit very well, so off went the post. A few days after our posting an article appeared on the internet asking a very good question. If a high speed train travels at 200 miles per hour between Beijing and Guangzhou, a route that could have as many as 30 stations, doesn’t stopping and accelerating at each station waste a lot of energy and time. If you dug deep into your academic pas and dust off your arithmetic skills you would calculate that a 5 minute stop per station results in a loss of ( 5 minutes X 30 stations) 2.5 hours. Just think what would happen to this 2.5 hours as the Chinese population ages and these elderly folks need more time ( and hopefully more Skwoosh EZ Swivels gel cushions, wheelchair gel pads and the great new Gel Therapy cushion). Fear not, for while sitting comfortably on their Skwoosh office gel cushions Chinese engineers came up with a simple performance solution to the high speed train problem – DON’T STOP. You got it. Send the train from point A to point B without stopping to disembark or take on passengers. That’s exactly what the Chinese engineers did. They developed a train that never has to stop at a station.
You read it correctly- get on and off the high speed train without the train stopping. No time is wasted. The train is moving all the time. Here’s how it works:
1. For those who are boarding the train: The passengers at a station embark onto to a connector cabin (a pod type vehicle suspended over the high speed train tracks) before the train even arrives at the station. When the train reaches the station it will not stop. It just slows down, the connector pod attaches itself to the roof at the front of the train (it piggy backs or hitches a ride on the roof of the fast moving train). As the train is moving out of the station the newly boarded passengers find their way down into the main cabin, take out their compact Skwoosh travel gel cushions and sit in heavenly comfort as the train speeds on to the next station. Once all the passengers who just boarded are comfortably seated the empty connector cabin or pod is moved from the front of the train’s roof to the rear of the train.
2. For those who are getting off: Those passengers who wish to get off the train at the next station are advised to move to the rear of the train and to seat themselves in the connector cabin which is now affixed to the roof at the rear of the train. When the train arrives at the next station, it will simply pick up another full passenger pod and drop off the pod containing the passengers (without stopping of course) who wish to get off at that station. Simple and ingenious. Pick up in the front, get off in the rear and it all happens at the same time with no need for the train to stop and wait for passengers to get on or off. Do you think Skwoosh should build a special travel gel cushion for high speed comfort specifically designed and engineered for use in the “connector cabin” or “pod”?