←back to thread

156 points ant6n | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.827s | source

Hi HN, I'm Anton, founder of Luna Rail.

I've always thought night trains are a fantastic, sustainable alternative to short-haul flights, but they're often held back by a lack of privacy, comfort, and poor economics due to low passenger capacity.

I became overly fascinated with this puzzle. I view it as a kind of night train Tetris (my wife less charitably calls it "sardinology"). I spent way too much time learning about and sketching various layouts, trying to figure out how to fit the maximum number of private cabins into a standard railcar, while making them attractive for both day and night travel.

This eventually led to a physical workshop (in Berlin) and a hands-on rapid prototyping process. We've built a series of full-scale mockups, starting with wood and cardboard and progressing to high-fidelity versions with 3D-printed and CNC-milled parts, with various functional elements.

Hundreds of people have come in to test our various iterations, because you can't test ergonomics or comfort by looking at renderings (although we did create a bunch of nice ones).

The link goes to our home page showing our approach and some of the thinking behind them. It’s been a lot of fun working on this puzzle, and we're excited to share what we've come up with. We hope you think it's cool too and would love to hear your thoughts.

Show context
econ ◴[] No.44343728[source]
I've long joked that modules should be made easy to swap with a forklift. Trains are usually full of small defects that aren't serious enough to take them out of service.

If they are comfortable you could rent out the cabins when not in use either fitted on the train or not. You could also retire the units there.

You could make a platform only and make it easy for others to design modules in a broad price range. Maybe most modules should be in storage until booked.

You could park the "hotel" module on the destination and put it back on the train for the return trip.

replies(2): >>44344055 #>>44351611 #
1. ant6n ◴[] No.44344055[source]
I sometimes her proposals like that, and it sounds kind of attractive - you get into your pod and forget everything until you arrive.

But in a sense, night trains are already like that. Since they can stop at multiple places, you can depart and arrive downtown. In the meantime you’re in your cabin and forget everything.

Entering the train „with“ the pod instead of just yourself is gonna make boarding and alighting take forever, and the logistics of storing and moving the pods are a nightmare. It’s going to reduce capacity by a lot because you cannot optimize the layout and every pod needs to be „insertable“ as a whole. (3x reduction in capacity means 3x increase in ticket cost).

Homologation is going to be a nightmare - in Europe, realistically, it’s gonna take more than 10 years or develop something like that. You need a new infrastructure because right now stations are for people - that’ll probably take 20 years (in Europe).

replies(1): >>44344820 #
2. Freak_NL ◴[] No.44344820[source]
Besides, sleeper trains really are modular already, using existing standard rail infrastructure. Wagons are the natural unit of a train consist.

Ideally, we end up with a big enough network of sleeper lines that it makes sense for ÖBB, European Sleeper, or whichever operator to have the luxury of taking some wagons out for maintenance and standby, and even scale up and down depending on the season.

replies(1): >>44345889 #
3. ant6n ◴[] No.44345889[source]
Yes exactly!
replies(1): >>44365520 #
4. econ ◴[] No.44365520{3}[source]
Then have modules on modules and the boarding issue it's there anymore. Parking on rails is expensive. Unused modules can be trucked away.