ScootRail to launch pioneering railway service in SE London
Back in April 2022 local entrepreneurs expected to launch their amazing railway innovation. Instead it hit the buffers of endless bureaucratic permissions. But now it’s been greenlit at last. Olof Wald takes up the story
Trains are short compared to the track they run on, meaning that, as with most cycle lanes, the infrastructure sits largely empty most of the time. A team based in Havelock Walk believe they have the solution. With technology borrowed from the e-scooter industry and Tesla-level safety systems, ScootRail plans to deploy rail e-scooters, or ‘Scootas’, in the gaps between commuter trains, offering a traffic-free, fume-free ride into the city. Helmet use is described in the prospectus as “strongly encouraged but spiritually optional.”
“a one-way 15-minute ride from Forest Hill to London Bridge is projected to cost as little as £2”
Whilst I appreciate that the cost is low, I have a Freedom Pass anyway and I’m more interested in it for the exersize and, unlike cycling into central London, I wouldn’t be cheek-by-jowl with pollution emitting lorries and vans.
Do you think they’ll be available with rain covers and sun visors though, just to mitigate against our wetter winters and sunnier summers?
I believe so. Once the rain covers are attached to the sides and cover the top, there could eventually be the option to connect the individual Scoots together into a ‘Scoot Run’ to get more use in the track time available.
Once we can get a reasonable number linked together, it may be easiest to then add occasional entry points at intervals along the Scoot Run structure rather than have each one boarded separately.
In fact, you could eventually then link these Scoot Runs to each other so that only one person needs to be responsible for the boarding, alighting, safety, etc. …
Imagine the progress! We could get rid of trains altogether
I believe the creative team behind this are mostly interested in the design and aesthetics of the Scootas and possibly a design award - as a market challenger they may be rather bypassing the involvement of legacy companies and their outdated concepts of safety in the venture.
I almost fell for it! I had to Google just to check a few things. I was almost there in thinking it could be true and then, I saw “come and have a test before 6am at forest hill station before 6am on April 1st” very good effort. You got me )
