#fra is being asked to classify this as “not a train”

[eltristan]

FRA slates public hearing on G&W proposal to test Parallel Systems autonomous freight cars - Trains

Parallel Systems is looking more and more like a possibly successful end-run around the FRA (the regulatory agency that is responsible for making it impossible for us to have nice things in the US, compared to say Japan or Switzerland)

On a scale of scam to Hyperl♾️p, PS appears to be trending towards actually engineering something, and should they win a regulatory blank check there's plenty of off-the-shelf pre-engineered components from other countries, so they don't particularly even need deep engineering expertise... Makes me ..hopeful?

But as others point out and I concur, the PS current "as advertised" is impractical vaporware at best.

Edit to add "runaway railcar" gif which is what they are obv copying