Looking at this crazy flying train design, we couldn’t help but wonder if the 1950s is making a comeback? Dahir Insaat is the company responsible for many well-produced viral videos featuring dubious claims about what our future might look like. However, this is nothing new. The company’s Youtube channel looks like it took some ideas from a 1950s science fiction comic book, and yet it has never failed to capture our attention beyond the decade and push us to overlook the obvious flaws.
Sure, the name has changed from the “Walking Machines” to “Metrobus” to “Flying train.” The medium changed from illustration to 3D animation. The fantasy nature of the genre hasn’t veered far off.
While we happily let go of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, the 50s seems to be the decade constantly lurking around and ready to comes out upon demand.
As a country, the 1950s America made a lot of promises but failed to deliver. Ever since then, as a society, America has been trying to chase the feel-good decade, when it is full of promises for a great future.
The politicians haven’t let people forget the 1950s fantasy either. Ronald Regan channeled it in his “Let’s makes America great again” 1980 campaign, while the 70s were tinted by the Vietnam war, economic recession, and the Watergate.
Donald Trump picked it up again in 2016 after the country went through one of the worst financial crisis. When asked when was America great, Trump confessed his campaign motto is a reference to the 1950s. He said: “Remember that. That’s when we had a country.”
It is a fantasy sales pitch people are willing to jump into without thinking. Dahir Insaat claims the flying train will travel several hundred feet above the ground at 400 miles an hour and support up to 2000 passengers.
It would still need to be anchored to a rail system via an electronic arm.
While it looks amazing, the question is, will it work? and do we need it? In short, probably not.
We already have a much cheaper and safer train that travels at roughly 250 miles per hour. While the flying train design might reduce the friction factor with aerodynamic, the amount of power used to take off will most likely make it less efficient than the traditional train.
Even if we eventually developed the technology to make it works, the flying train would take up a massive amount of space to accommodate two-way travel, and unable to cut through mountains via tunnels.
The environmental impact of the design would be enormous. Like a helicopter, the amount of noise pollution will drive any resident crazy on the path of the flying train. Judging from the way it flys, the train will probably murder countless birds at 400 miles an hour.
The flying train concept, as tempting and entertaining as it is, does not deserve the 2.5 million views on YouTube. It belongs in the same cabinet as L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics, collecting dust since the 1950s.
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