Electric Railway Solution

[thecollage]

Would it be possible to get a train started and then have it generate its own power by charging the tracks it rides on?

[draqon]

You will have a train accelerated by using some sort of power...and than using Faraday's induction principle the magnets will be causing current flow and electricity generation as the train decelerates. In this situation the energy needed to accelerate the train will be higher than energy gained from the electricity it generated using the magnets attached...added to the fact that energy will be lost due to friction and thermal.

[leopold]

Would it be possible to get a train started and then have it generate its own power by charging the tracks it rides on?

you are talking perpetual motion here.
the first thing to look at is:
friction.
followed closely by:
heat.

in the case of induced current from magnetic fields one other thing needs to be mentioned, and that is the induced current is the opposite polarity of the exciting current. exciting, in this case, is the original current in the rails.

[James R]

Would it be possible to get a train started and then have it generate its own power by charging the tracks it rides on?

Charging them how?

[draqon]

Charging them how?

magnetic induction

[leopold]

magnetic induction

didn't you read my post?
the induced current is the opposite polarity.

[thecollage]

what about an inverter?

[leopold]

what about an inverter?

changes AC to DC.
no help.

[MetaKron]

Collage, the only thing that you will be able to do with an idea like that is first develop it, build a working model, then demonstrate that it works well. I will grant that there is a possibility because I don't know everything and my theories can only work with the information that I have. That's all that I can give you, I am sorry.

If you want to find a way to bend the rules, or a loophole, you have to learn the rules first. This included working with the rules as an engineer, tinkerer, technician, or whatever you want to call it.

[James R]

If you're thinking of a kind of perpetual motion machine that produces energy from nowhere, you ought to be warned that such a thing would violate the second law of thermodynamics (and energy conservation, too!). Attempting to build such a thing will most likely be a waste of time.

[spidergoat]

The best you can do is regenerative braking. I think you are limited to about 10-15% efficiency on that. It certainly isn't enough to run the train perpetually.