Waverail - PRINCIPLE

The concept at the heart of Waverail™ - the sling-swapping of cars or consist of cars - is not entirely new. Its beginnings are said to be traceable to boat operations on the Mississippi! With this probably rather out of necessity - the idea re-emerged in the early 1990s with the first patent application for it in the rail industry. Since then ingredients of it could be found in several proposals with the majority of it high speed and hi tech versions. In late 2008 SCHILTEC was evaluating new projects and it too saw the cost of the many drivers as a major obstacle. However, within only days of running the slide rule over it, it became quite clear that this in fact was a fallacy; and so the die was cast. After now having checked and documented the whole range of reasonable - and less reasonable - parameters, it can be seen that low profitability is only an issue with low passenger numbers. Contrary to conventional rail however, at moderate to medium passenger numbers, Waverail does not only comfortably absorb all costs but also does become highly profitable.