Train submarine

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by mistereddb, Oct 26, 2013.

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  1. El_Guero

    El_Guero Previous Member

    mistereddb

    Look at it this way ....

     
  2. mistereddb
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    mistereddb Junior Member

    El_Guero
    Full marks for trying to convince me that a train submarine is impossible but many people thought that nobody could get to the moon. Perhaps America has lost the can do attitude it once had.

    I am aware that a sub has the extra hull for ballast and I see ballast pumped into a tanks between the train and the side of the hull. Remember with a displacement of 28,000t weight of the ballast tanks would not be a problem.

    The train sub cannot be compared in terms of cost to a sophisticated submarine as it is basically just a big pipe with a rail line in it with no weapons or bulkheads because as the control pod would be detachable the crew would always be safe.

    Thanks to where it has been suggested on this forum about the flex problem when pushing it from behind I realize that as it does not have to dock parallel it can have the propellers anywhere along the side.
     
  3. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    Regardless of where you put the engines, how does it dock? Unless your idea is to just have the tail end use station keepers to keep the rest of the thing in line with just the nose up to the beach?

    The problem here is that station keeping technology is incredibly expensive. For something this size it has never been done. But assume a side thruster every 30 meters or so. Plus GPS receivers. Then you have to create a team of software designers to write the code for the thing... You are talking about millions in the software development, millions more in the hardware, tremendous energy demands, massive generators, all for what?

    You can buy a relatively modern ship with three times the capacity of this tube idea for 300-400,000 USD.

    What I can't figure out is what do you think this does better than the ships on the market? It is not likely to be any more fuel efficient than a modern small cargo container, it can't carry that much cargo, it would require incredible engineering and material sciences advances, and at the end of the day it doesn't do anything new, novel, or cheaper than current ships.

    As for your 'longer is cheaper' idea for fuel economy. That is only true to a point. Beyond about 10:1 length to width it stops mattering very much. Past 20:1 the difference is negligible. At the 200:1 you would be proposing the added wetted surface drag would far outweigh the long and thin advantage.
     
  4. bpw
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    bpw Senior Member

    How many places in the world are too small to have a pier but big enough to need or export 600 containers worth of anything?
     
  5. mistereddb
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    mistereddb Junior Member

    Stumble
    As with any new technology there is a fair bit of trial and error so I suggest a couple of electric powered propellers that could be tried in different locations on a few various mounting positions.

    Presuming they would be around a third from the nose they could also turn to steer the sub as you would a car from the front but they would still be far enough away to allow it to nose up to a railhead, flooding the ballast tanks to settle on the prepared gravel bed and opening the nose to allow the train off and on.

    The steel alone would cost up to $500,000 but compare this with a fleet of conventional submarines to protect our sea lanes (we only have 2 weeks of fuel here) and they would enable our friends to participate in world trade.

    Take Fiji for example where they can unload fifteen containers per hour the train submarine could unload and reload a 1km long container train in that time and be on the next trip.

    Thanks for that point about the added wetted surface drag I think you would be right so that is two things I have learned on this forum.


    bpw
    The places I have in mind would be too big for a pier but too small for very expensive container handling equipment.
     
  6. Mr Efficiency
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    This thread makes Walter Mitty look like a realist, imo.
     
  7. Stumble
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    Stumble Senior Member

    I'm going back to the concrete sub thread. I think that has more promise.
     
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  8. mistereddb
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    mistereddb Junior Member

    Just seen the movie Captain Philips and I bet he wishes he had been driving a train sub
     
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2013
  9. kerosene
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    kerosene Senior Member

    Yeah going to the moon, next tell us how everyone told Wright brothers how heavier than air structures couldn't fly and you could continue by Einstein quote of how brilliant minds will face resistance etc.

    But I have news for you. Bad ideas will face resistance too. You are suggesting a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist (ability to port where porting is needed) with overly complex solution that has no benefit besides being different.

    Doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that its quite problematic to keep a 1km long vessel locked and perpendicular to the beach in bad weather during loading. What exactly is the problem you are trying to solve by:

    1) the carco being on a train?
    2) the device being a submarine?

    Submarines are well known and if it was beneficial to move cargo under the surface we would be doing it - trains or not.
     
  10. kerosene
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    kerosene Senior Member

    and just FYI - I get that you are likely to be a troll and I am only participating for my own entertainment.
     
  11. mistereddb
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    mistereddb Junior Member

    kerosene*
    Glad you are entertained however I just wanted some serious discussion from people who would know a bit about boats and it appears that the engineering side would be feasible but the question is why.

    As I said before unlike America we only have two weeks supply of fuel here and if anybody cut our sea lanes we would not even be able to buy food at the shop.

    So we could rely on places like America to escort our ships or spend more than $10b making a few high tech submarines of our own but I am not sure our friends would be willing or able to help us down here and as we are broke they will never build these high tech subs and the ones we have now are not worth two bob.

    Regarding keeping it locked at right angles to the beach firstly as it would only take one hour to unload and reload so you may pick better weather and secondly the trainsub would fill the ballast tanks so it sat on a prepared bed of gravel while the train goes off and on.
     
  12. SamSam
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    SamSam Senior Member

    The problem doesn't exist also because natives out in the hinterlands don't manufacture refrigerators or car wheels, they weave baskets, make clever things out of coconuts or steel drums and woks from old oil barrels.
    Any sort of reasonably complex manufacturing requires an infrastructure of supporting industries, transportation and social institutions like schools, hospitals, police, power plants etc.
    They don't have banana plantations where there is no way to get bananas to market. The train sub is literately putting the cart before the horse. It would have to pull up to the beach and then wait for several years while the natives hacked off the jungle, planted several square miles of banana trees and then waited for them to produce. Bananas require refrigerated shipping, so add that to the logistics.
    I think there are probably a few more reasons why this is a 'sub-par' idea.
     
  13. kerosene
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    kerosene Senior Member

    Yeah and conventional watercraft will do everything better with LESS complex infrastructure needed.

    And mistereddb, nobody suggested that engineering side is feasible.
     
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  14. Vulkyn
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    Vulkyn Senior Member


  15. mistereddb
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    mistereddb Junior Member

    SamSam*
    That is a very interesting point about critical mass to have the services needed and I suppose it would vary on what is being produced.

    Even when I worked in a coal mine at Wollongong with a population of 300,000 there was an occasion when we had to stop the longwall for 4 hours at a cost of $10,000 per hour (20 years ago) and wait for a computer chip to come from Newcastle and then it was the wrong one so we waited another 4 hours, also when the cage got stuck and the mine engineers were not sure if it would go up or down as it was about half full with men they had to fly an expert up from Melbourne to advise them.

    There would be some places in the world that will never have any industry due to isolation but perhaps a place like Eden with a population of 3,000 could have more industry if it did not cost an arm and a leg to get freight in and out.

    The main reason for train sub, as I have pointed out above your last post, is fuel security and a woman I discussed this with the other night said it may be cheaper to just have a strategic reserve like America and she may be right.


    kerosene
    The only engineering doubt suggested here was that it may flex and I suggest that the hull could be made out of even 100mm thick steel costing less than $1m and it would still float with a 2,000t train inside.
     
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