Travel By Rail In Style on a RailRider
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06. 3.08
Readers were in awe of the Trailcart, the four wheeled pedal car that will take over the ATV Market. But there is a lot of rolling resistance on a dirt trail; that is why they invented the railroad. That's where the RailRunner comes in; it is a recumbent pedal-power bike with models that sit up to four, for use on ABANDONED rail lines.
"Now for the Dream...
A vision for future is a completely accessible to everyone Rail-Park. This would be an area of rehabilitated (formerly abandoned) rail leading to a beautiful nature site. This place will be shared by hikers, cyclists and railriders. A park where children, parents, elderly and disabled could share happy days and enjoyable events would be ideal. If your town has abandoned track nearby, think about a Rail-Park for tourism."
This seems to be some form of conversion kit that lets you put a regular bike onto the tracks. Maybe you can find information on it at ::RailRiders, via ::NotCOT
More on TreeHugger:
Here is pedal power on rails: TreeHugger-Style Roller Coaster in Japan: It's Pedal Powered ...
Treehugger, you're posts lately all make me cringe!
"Seats four" - shows image of a 2-seater
Biking on rails? Oh, please! No one wants to be constricted to a rail, without the ability to pass anyone, while inhaling the wonderful aroma of neurotoxins like creosote used on rail beams, on a bike that now weighs 30 pounds extra (my assumption).
When I first read the section about the cart, I wondered how much it weighed, so that when a train came I could pick it up and move within 5 seconds. Thanks for saying abandoned in caps!
That looks like fun. Don't disused railtracks get taken away and recycled?
The TrailCart looks like it could be adapted to this by using a change of flat wheels, depending on the width of the frame.
I think if you enclose this in a shell of some sort, you could go very fast with little wind resistance. I wonder how alignment issues are , like do you get a side to side shimmy with such light weight.
vsk
Why not make the abandoned rails active with trains? If the route doesn't make sense for a train, one could recycle the rails and use the open path for a walking/bike path. This is a gimmicky leisure ride to bring in revenue for a park, not a viable means of transport. Nor very TH
Andy...the post says "...with models that seat up to four..."
But I agree...unless you've got a lot of unused railway lines in your area this is pretty lame. You would have to haul a whole other bike around with you to get to the useful place you planned on going in the first place because you can't take that monster off the tracks...
Cheers,
LA- I added that after his comment....
I just consult my handy dandy Abandoned Rails map ...
Ok, on second thought this is completely impractical. In order to get somewhere on this I would need to:
1) Live close to abandoned railroad tracks
2) Be able to haul this cart to the tracks
3) Be the only one using the tracks
4) Have a destination somewhat near the same track, or need to carry a bike to get to the destination after getting as close as tracks will reach
5) Be able to pick up the cart in order to turn around and get home
Those essentially mean that no one would ever use this unless it is at a park. In that case, they likely drove there, and therefor this cart is not useful because it requires a bunch of gasoline to be able to use it.
This is quite delusional. Teaching people to trespass on RR owned property. What a great idea. NOT>
Rails to Trails - No railroad ties or tracks and it encourages people to go out an enjoy nature.
While I enjoy the spirit of this post, I would not travel along most rail systems.
http://www.railtrails.org/index.html
Having hiked along a few of these by foot and bike, I can say that they are a wonderful way to see remote areas.
I hope they expand closer to my home!
I think a better solution is Rails to Trails. http://www.railtrails.org