Boxettes?

Crazy idea time. There are cases where people have shipped themselves via standard container (with a few necessities) - sometimes even by sea - and arrived. Question: given today's "just in time" container shipment by rail, would it be possible to set up a personal rail transportation service using luxury 40-foot roomettes which have necessary facilities, instant-prepare meals, air conditioning/heating and - oh, yeah - windows and legal permission to operate? Might want to give up a little inside room for sliding shock absorbers between the lockup points and the roomette proper, and arrange for emergency exits.

But what an opportunity to railfan, practically at eye level!

PWeiser said:

Crazy idea time. There are cases where people have shipped themselves via standard container (with a few necessities) - sometimes even by sea - and arrived. Question: given today's "just in time" container shipment by rail, would it be possible to set up a personal rail transportation service using luxury 40-foot roomettes which have necessary facilities, instant-prepare meals, air conditioning/heating and - oh, yeah - windows and legal permission to operate? Might want to give up a little inside room for sliding shock absorbers between the lockup points and the roomette proper, and arrange for emergency exits.

But what an opportunity to railfan, practically at eye level!

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YOU'RE CRAZY!!

Seriously,though, a company I used to work for had a 48' refrigerated trailer that they used as a field office. It was a normal refrigerated trailer, the refrigeration unit was removed and a wall style air conditioner unit was installed (not a dinky little window unit!!) The trailer was finished inside with ceilings, partitions and drywall (ductwork for the AC), and had retractable stairs and standard doors in the side of it. It used shore power on site, but probably could have easily been equipped with an under-frame generator if needed. I thought after seeing this that the same idea could be used to make one heck of a large RV/Travel trailer, or a 28' pup trailer could be used to make a smaller one with a second 28' pup (since they can legally be pulled anywhere here in the states as doubles) could be used as a "garage" to carry a car, boat & trailer, 4-wheelers, whatever.

Following my twisted logic and your idea, a 40' "luxury" or a 20' "efficiency" could be built out of intermodal containers..... I've seen architectural use of them, and heard that it is frequently cost-prohibitive to send them back to China to be reloaded, so they tend to pile up on this end to wait for disposal of some sorts. By their very nature, they could be carried by trailer, rail, or ship. Pretty clever idea, if you ask me!!

I actually like this idea. I don't know if there are regulations that would prohibit it, but I'm fairly certain there are. What a great idea though; start a company to arrange for shipment of these containers across the nation, make a profit and create a new industry at the same time.

Euphod said:

I actually like this idea. I don't know if there are regulations that would prohibit it, but I'm fairly certain there are. What a great idea though; start a company to arrange for shipment of these containers across the nation, make a profit and create a new industry at the same time.

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Regulations, schmegulations!! :hehe:

What is a bus, really? It is a truck that is highly modified for passenger service. A container on a cargo chassis is really no different from an RV travel trailer. Of course, (at least in Florida and most of the nation) it is illegal to ride in a trailer but there is no reason why a truck chassis couldn't be built to haul one of these like an RV. Amtrak hauls passengers.... no reason why a specialized container car couldn't be built to haul these on approved passenger lines. Of course, like a truck that hauls people (a/k/a bus), a lot more safety devices would be needed. It would take a lot more than a simple spine car to be safe! The industry would need to agree on a standardized system (first hurdle right there... remember HD-DVD? Or BetaMax?) for handling the boxettes and providing the necessary support (plumbing, power, etc.), they would have to throw enough money at buying laws (oops...did I say that? I meant lobbying for legislation), and so forth. Amtrak already has provisions for hauling private cars- although there are quite a few hurdles involved in doing it. If an industry were to get organized around something like this...remember, it costs quite a bit for a private rail car, this isn't something that would be cheap....it seems like something that has potential.

Especially something built around a standard shipping container, there are a lot of possibilities. Parks/campgrounds set up to handle them, you can haul them easily by road/rail/sea to anywhere in the world. They can be assembled into larger units for metropolitan environments for housing.... Imagine a mid- to high- rise building with these things in them (slid into a support frame, for example), where they could be slid out of their frame (imagine the building like a dresser, and the boxettes like a drawer) and moved if you are relocated at work, taken out for vacation (you can leave home without leaving your home!), and easily be put back in or placed somewhere else.

That's a real vision for the future Scott, like something out of "Popular Science" magazine. It seems feasible to me.

BTW: My magazine "Unpopular Science" failed miserably!

Euphod said:

That's a real vision for the future Scott, like something out of "Popular Science" magazine. It seems feasible to me.

BTW: My magazine "Unpopular Science" failed miserably!

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Remember, you heard it here first! In 30 years when they are everywhere, you can buy me a cup of coffee. I'll be the penniless old man living in a box with my dog and begging for handouts on the corner.

Boxettes, Pods, Etc.

Interesting ideas on expanding the concept. Might actually go over better in nations/cultures where personal space is less expansive - a salaryman who's used to pod hotels would perceive his boxette as a palace.

And (OT) it would be easy to model in Trainz. Further OT, we already have a.passit and a.passtand... but also sleeper cars and dormitory cars (as well as unfolded roomettes), though seldom fully furnished. Is a.pasprone supported? Or do we just use a.passtand, rotated 90 degrees on the X axis?

:hehe: lol, this idea sounds a lot like the seemingly-run down boxcar that was the Palace on Wheels for Clive Cussler's Butcher Bandit in The Chase