It will save live and reduce the lost of fingers or hands that takes place with current NA couplers today.
A smart-train that can integrate braking, coupling/uncoupling, and add new forms of equipment monitoring will certainly be much safer and cheaper to operate.
I don’t see length as the big obstacle - the components will handle the drawbar forces. What will be interesting is how to energise and motorise all the railcar-mounted devices that are operated by hand to day as trains are built and disassembled. And how to digitise some of the things that are done by eye today, such as aligning couplers, confirming pins are up/down, confirming good joints and separations, opening/closing angle cocks, and setting/releasing handbrakes. These are not low-energy mechanical operations! And how to make these components reliable and maintenance free. (Perhaps the savings would offset a much more demanding approach to maintenance and state of good repair, which the railways don’t even attempt today).
An integrated solution is mandatory…. no point in automating the coupling if the air brake system isn’t automated at the same time. But, the Westinghouse brake, while incredibly clever, sorely needs to be replaced with a better system that gives more protection against runaways, spurious emergency stops (which can cause derailments), and mitigates slack action better. So a huge opportunity.
There is a huge logistical issue too, in that there has to be enough equipment equipped to be operable…. or a huge backwards compatibility design effort is needed. Equipping the fleet gradually with a goal of reaching 100% capability is a 40-year proposition, and until the new tech can function, there is no ROI. (A lot like having one burned out bulb on a string of Christmas lights…. all it takes is one gap….)
- Paul