Photovoltaics are still running after a year under Swiss trains

manarth

Pilot to place solar panels in the space between train tracks shown to be a success.

dbrgn

A lot of people doubted this could work. After all, railway tracks are a dusty, hot environment with tons of vibrations that could cause microcracks. I was in the doubter team too, but if this really worked out, that's great news. Congrats to the project team! Will be interesting to see if this scales well.

casey2

Could they at least get a well-lit picture of panels that aren't covered in dirt and rocks? This is a lying eyes situation now. Depressing.

JR1427

What are the advantages to putting them between the rails, where you need trains to stop running in order to access them? If it's about using wasted land, why not put them beside the rails, which would make access easier? There is usually a generous margin beside the tracks. This would also allow bigger panels to be used.

cjbenedikt

I often wonder about some of the more critical comments on projects like this. It should be welcomed by everybody that someone even tries. If it doesn't work - well at least we know. If it does - even better. Anyone who has ever started a hardware company like this group would know who challenging this can be no matter what. But to do that in such a highly regulated environment? Methinks it is very impressive that they got that far and hopefully will go further!

WalterGR

Related: "Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland" (euronews.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794704 112 points | 8 days ago | 145 comments