Justin Sutton’s original impetus for inventing the Interstate Traveler was to cure America’s rail transportation crisis. As a college professor and mechanical engineer, Justin examined ALL existing rail technologies. Deeming them ALL flawed to one extent or another, he sought to cull the best and discard the rest. The Interstate Traveler is the manifestation of that vision. It is superior to all other products for the following reasons:

1) Because it manufacturers its own energy with solar (and/or wind as needed) and stores the energy in the form of hydrogen, it can be constructed and operated with NO NEED for new power generating facilities.

2) Its operation is fully green not just because of its use of renewable energy but because of its ability to clean polluted bodies of water through its normal operation (the water needed to produce hydrogen can be drawn from most any terrestrial source, including Superfund sites, because of its Magnagas purification technology).

3) The aerodynamics of each Traveler vehicle are based on an airplane wing. In motion, each car becomes a levitation body, thus providing upward lift through simple operation. One of the greatest challenges with conventional magnetic levitation trains is that as they travel faster, the downward force drives the engine into the rail. The Interstate Traveler solves this problem through the design of the fuselage.

and

4) Conventional trains often derail due to mechanical failure, human error or metal fatigue along the rail corridor. The Interstate Traveler does not suffer from these problems because the system is fully automated and self-aware, because the rail is tubular, because the rail is made of AL206 stainless steel and because the magnets virtually grasp the rail at the end the nacelles, as opposed to simply riding on top of them as convention trains do.

In closing, the dozens of inventions and novel integrations of technologies inside the Interstate Traveler are the reason that the American Computer Science Association bestowed the prestigious Sir Isaac Newton Award on Justin Sutton for the Interstate Traveler. Likewise, they are the reason that the government of the United States is in active negotiations with Justin (through several cabinet-level departments) to catalyze installation of the Interstate Traveler throughout the United States and every continent.

I encourage you to telephone me with any questions you may have. It would be my pleasure to speak with you: +1-407-855-8574.

Just spent about 45 minutes trying to find some information of Detroit’s official website. After considerable nosing around, I finally stumbled acorss a link to “Detroit People Mover,” but saw nothing there. Shortly after, I stumbled across another link to the Detroit Department of Transportation, and on that page, saw a link to a study of what to do. Clicked that; no joy. The link was to a video which never opened, even after numerous tries.

I also read the news article another contributor provided, but it seemed rather short on specifics. (Many thanks for providing the link, however.)

I will say that as great an idea as this might be, the economics of such a system seem to require considerable participation by a national government — *especially* in the very cradle of our automobile industry.

Look at the world’s first operational maglev system: the one linking Shanghai’s business district with the [relatively] new airport in the Putong area outside the city. While it has become immensely popular (and successful), it’s doubtful, at best, it every would have gotten off the drawing board without massive central government backing, backing on all fronts.

But these things can be done. Here in Bangkok we have a Skytrain and subway system, each independent but intersecting at two points. Both will be extended in years to come, and in fact, parts of the Skytrain are already nearing completion or under construction in the expansion phase. While these use more conventional technologies, they have visibly contributed to easing Bangkok’s notorious traffic. (Living in central Bangkok, I’m WAY too familiar with our traffic jams!)

I’d like to throw out another thought for consideration. Japan, for instance, has a major automobile industry (though not oil, of course), yet in a field leader in both urban and long-distance mass transit, often employing cutting edge technology. Perhaps it’s a bit off to blame GM et al for the resistance to expanding transport choices beyond cars.

Maybe Big Oil & Co. deserves even more “credit” than they already get for that. (Ditto our aversion to publicly funding in some way expansion of alternative energy sources, most recently exemplified in the recent failure in the Senate of a bill the House had passed that would have extended benefits for alternative energy providers. Sigh. Bush had vowed to veto it anyway.)

BTW, in a number of forums I’ve read comments that if it weren’t for our spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq (especially) and Afghanistan, we’d have the money to fund alternative energy development. In terms of the raw number of dollars that would still be in the national coffers, that’s true, of course. (I don’t want to touch upon the debate over whether those wars are merited, run properly, etc. etc. etc. here — those are entirely separate issues.)

But *having* the money on hand is a far cry from being assured it would have automatically been directed towards alternative energy sources, reducing greenhouse emissions in other ways, and so on. For all we know, some of it might have been used to further sweeten the pot for Big Oil and other heavy hitters across the business spectrum (including outside energy and automobiles).

Mahesh, a closing personal comment to you: I appreciate your story, and in no way am I criticizing or attacking you. I might have written it a bit differently, but that’s not important. Thanks for the article — and keep it up.

wished we had that railsystem here in Oslo.

Its not that the readers oppose this idea, James, its just that this particular project seems to be fishy (for a number of reasons), if not an outright scam. I could not get past their cheesy website- its not even professionally done. And these are the guys getting millions of dollars to implement cutting edge technologies?

The solar panels should not be in the shade. No matter how “new” the solar technology is, PV’s work more efficiently when they are not facing north, away from the sun in MI, and when they are not in the shade of rails.

I can’t seem to find a good explanation of your version of “maglev technology”? Maybe I just missed it because the website is juvenile. Are the tiny pods that ride on the rails little induction motors? The German maglev trains seem to need much bigger induction technology than that. Also, they generate their own power as they pass over magnets in the track. Can a “pod” that is 4 feet off the track do that? Furthermore, maglev eliminates the need for 2 tracks.

Running separate cars on a single line is inefficient. I realize the tcp/ip stuff might make it possible but why? What is wrong with attaching cars together so that a minimum amount of propulsion can move the whole string? Trains are by far the most elegant and efficient way to move people and freight. That’s why they were successful 150 years ago when we couldn’t produce much power. Isn’t reduce the first of the three Rs?

Putting an automobile in a bigger car seems to be the most ridiculous part of this. It’s especially poignant that it’s an SUV in the rendering. That speaks of an over-consumption enabling system. A state funded car chauffeur service for those who can afford it. Once again, trains can carry hundreds of cars and Amtrak already does this, but only over long distances. A commuter line next to an INTERSTATE does not need to carry cars!

This whole thing panders to the auto industry in an effort to gain acceptance in Michigan. A better approach would be to continue to convince politicians that trains are not fundamentally at odds with cars. We obviously need both. Efficient cars are good for random short distances but suck for commuting. Trains are perfect for commuting but can’t go everywhere. We now have all our eggs in one basket and that is obviously dangerous. Commuter lines will reduce the number of cars on the overloaded interstates but GM can rest assured that most people will still buy cars.

Finally, this whole plan reminds me of something my classmates and I would have come up with in our 2nd year of Industrial Design school. We would be embarrassed to advertise the project at this phase of development as “being built next year”. I would not be so publicly critical of this whole thing if it were presented as a concept and not a reality.