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I have an old Tyco Chattanooga 2-8-0 without the tender drive. It has an ordinary Mantua Long Haul Tender and is therefore just an unpowered dummy. In an effort to make it a powered locomotive, I decided to think outside the box and devise a power and control system with the following criteria: 1) The locomotive should be independent of track power. 2) Control should be simple and intuitive and also independent of electrical pickup. Neither DC nor DCC control met these criteria. While our railroads exist in three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension, locomotive control only involves motion forward or backward. As these motions are possible on a theoretical line, control is one dimensional (not counting time). This one dimensional control in a universe that we experience as three dimensional smacks of the seemingly variable dimensionality in the emerging physics of String Theory. String Theory proposes up to ten spatial dimensions and one temporal one, though we only directly experience three of the spatial dimensions. Physicists are now using it in an attempt to understand the seemingly two-dimensional release of energy from three dimensional objects falling into black holes. Currently, all of this exists in mathematical theory while not yet having been experimentally proven. Since my power and control criteria are bold and ambitious, I decided to make the equally audacious move of applying string theory to them in a technology I have dubbed String Theory Control and Power System (STCPS): As is the case with any emerging technology, there are still technical difficulties to overcome. For example, STCPS has an unresolved issue involving tunnels: Hi Bob. Originally posted by scsshaggy - December 22 2013 :  1:43:47 PM Now, yer talkin the language, Shaggy!

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As is the case with any emerging technology, there are still technical difficulties to overcome. For example, STCPS has an unresolved issue involving tunnels:

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I think you need what is called a "Tachyon string"...those are the ones that appear to move faster than light, they disappear, then reappear "down the line". THAT could get you through the tunnels. You can only go so far with "regular" string. Jerry Originally posted by AMC_Gremlin_GT - December 22 2013 :  7:21:51 PM

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This will allow the string to pass between the molecules of the scenery. Originally posted by JRG1951 - December 22 2013 :  9:59:21 PM

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I'd say just cut a long vertical groove in the entire mountain, bisecting the tunnel (and mountain, which would give the tunnel "natural lighting" . That way, you can pull the train through the tunnel. Or, have a chain feed through the tunnel on the roof, you could attach the string to it, let it pull it through the mountain, then the string drops out the other side, so you can continue manual operation. Jerry Originally posted by AMC_Gremlin_GT - December 23 2013 :  09:57:18 AM