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About the Book
Press Release
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2009 - Sweeping
Wind Spirit: A Transportation Plan for the 21st Century
is released by author Randall Schwab
Author Randall Schwab, an industrial designer with 40 years of work experience in mechanical and structural design, offers a transportation concept to resolve commuter congestion in Wind Spirit. Imagine a system that uses 20-passenger cars that can change lanes on an elevated track, traveling at 80 miles per hour. The cars, constructed like the fuselage of small commercial planes, float just above the rail’s surface on permanent magnets. The system could transport up to 70,000 passengers per hour, per line and cost less to build than light rail systems.
The author, who holds patents related to his work with material handling, proposes several original concepts in Wind Spirit that could radically change public transportation throughout the country. The author describes how the cars could be built and how the system could be installed in Minneapolis. Detailed drawings of rail terminals and design schematics for the passenger cars add a compelling visual element to Schwab’s bold and ambitious vision for bringing the country’s transportation system into the 21st century.
For further information contact: Ray Robinson at 317-228-3656, via email at RayR@DogEarPublishing.net, or through the website at: www.dogearpublishing.net.
Wind Spirit: A Transportation Plan for the 21st Century
Randall Schwab
Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN: 1-60844-171-6
80 pages
US
Available at Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders and fine bookstores everywhere
About Dog Ear Publishing: LLC Dog Ear Publishing offers completely customized self-publishing services for independent authors. We provide cost-effective, fast, and highly profitable services to publish and distribute independently published books. Our book publishing and distribution services reach worldwide. Dog Ear authors retain all rights and complete creative control throughout the entire self publishing process. Self publishing services are available globally at www.dogearpublishing.net and from our offices in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Dog Ear Publishing – self publishing that actually makes sense!
The transportation of people first came to my attention in the mid 90’s when there came before the city council of Seattle a transportation plan for several billion dollars to provide “hi speed” transportation for thousands of people. I went to several “transit” meetings and what was proposed didn’t appear as if would do what they said; it was a rail car that went slow and stopped often, very similar to the trolley cars I rode in the 40’s in Portland Oregon. Their proposal didn’t have the capacity to make much of a dent in the congestion problem. It was described as; “will reduce congestion” and “a great asset to our city”. Exaggerating both it’s speed and capacity and with no real explanation of how it will effect congestion; with the number of passengers it would carry the answer is; “not noticeable”.
The ballot measure as a result of these meetings failed but by then there was a smidgeon of an idea brewing in my mind that I kept nursing, adding to and upgrading. No concept of what to do with it came to mind but it was a fun exercise, so for the next few years, I doodled, argued with myself, calculated and researched until there was something useful. This was strictly a spare time exercise. It has been a very enjoyable time. There wasn’t any plan to change anybody’s mind; that was a little premature.
Then 9 years ago I received an invitation to participate in a “Rapid transit” contest. I have no idea why it came to me but it seemed only natural to participate. Now this rapid transit system was basically going to be a fancy bus. I then produced some serious drawings some of which are in the book. In the contest I called it a bus, nobody questioned my definition even though it hung from a rail. Maybe nobody noticed. The description was limited to 3 typed pages. The concept presented included the car and the support system very similar to this proposal. At that time there was a very brief explanation of it that was later modified extensively. All of this effort brought no attention of any kind so the world refused to be enlightened.
There have been a couple of light rail projects that have failed at the ballot since then and a couple more that passed. After hearing of the general craze coming from around the country to the effect: “do something, even if it’s wrong”, came the energy to try a more effective venue and present it in a more convincing fashion. Therefore; this book. There is a plethora of detail here to back up the claim that this can handle the traffic problem. However, there is no intention to explain it in enough detail to actually build it from these drawings and explanations but enough to present adequate visual aids for most people to understand the intimate working of the system and the enormous capabilities that are lacking in any other method of transport. This proposal presents several original concepts that combined will radically change transportation in cities and potentially throughout the country. There is no doubt in my mind of its technical functionality. There obviously needs experimentation in rail design and the rail transfer mechanism that I don’t have the resources to accomplish. There are probably other, possibly simpler, or less expensive ways to make many of the functions work. The purpose of this book is to try and provide a contrast to the 19th century thought process that seems to be generating the “BIG” transportation fiasco in our Country that is wasting billions of dollars without much benefit to the people who need it. I believe, after having conducted my own short, incomplete estimate that this proposal will cost about one fourth the cost of the new light rail in Seattle which is $ 500 million a mile that I call “The Great American Light Rail Robbery”. The system proposed here can easily transport 8 to 10 times more people and save commuters thousands of hours a day. Light rail is no competition either in price or capacity.
I hope enough people will support this system to get it rolling. Oh, that’s right, it doesn’t roll.
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