The Grav'y Train by DataPacRat

Dee and the rest of the Bayesian Nakama are financing and building a new colony on the asteroid (442) Eichsfeldia. While said asteroid is 66 km across, its surface gravity is only 0.2% that of Earth's - pretty much freefall. In order to attract long-term settlers, the Nakama had to provide some way for them to avoid the negative biological effects of living for years on end without gravity.

Their solution: they dug a tunnel in a great big circle, about three miles long and a mile in diameter; installed a mag-lev train track on the 'outside' of the circle; and started building train-cars for it, running them around and around at around 200 mph, or taking about a minute to travel the whole route. Due to the magic of centrifugal force, anyone inside such a traincar feels a force equivalent to Earth's gravity.

There's room for about 400 standard 40-foot cars on that track, providing room for about 1600 colonists. There's also additional a second line of track on which run a bunch of half-sized "elevator" commuter cars, a swimming-pool car, a medical car, and similar accessories. Each colonist has as much cavern space as they want, for whatever possessions they have and activities they enjoy which don't require gravity (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). The whole collection of train, tunnels, shipyard, refineries, factories, and so forth, now forms the town of Oakfield.

TankaaKumawani Featured By Owner Dec 21, 2012 Hobbyist Digital Artist

I originally considered flexible pass-throughs, but those made the existing utility connections and couplers look simple. Were it a larger vehicle, it might have been a little easier.

So, I guess that makes the accessory cars Supertrain, then. *laughs*

Ne0spartan Featured By Owner Dec 20, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

hmmmm... interesting concept, have you thought of how maintenance will be carried out for individual cars?

Ne0spartan Featured By Owner Dec 20, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Or how they get from car to car?

DataPacRat Featured By Owner Dec 20, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

That sort of thing is what the commuter cars are for. If any of the residential cars need to be taken off the main track, they can simply take a branch onto the commuter-car line, and from there to a siding for whatever work needs to be done.