"Michael Bell" wrote in message
...

The never-stop railway consists of cabins for 6-8 passengers
which are moved along the track by a continuous spiral laid between
the tracks. The pitch of the spiral is fine at stations, so at the
stations the gaps between the cabins close up and the cabins move
slowly and the passengers can get in and out. As the cabins reach the
end of the station the doors close and when they leave the station the
pitch of the spiral coarsens so the gap between the cabins widens and
they pick up speed. The cabins can be slowed down to go round sharp
corners. The front and back wheels of the cabins run on different
rails so the cabins can go up and down steep slopes without tilting
them, in the way that steps on an escalator do. To be able to go round
sharp corners and go up and down steep slopes are important advantages
in fitting such a system into a town. The system was successfully
demonstrated at an exhibition in Wembley in the 1920s.

Similar to ski lifts then?

It seems a natural for linking close-together point sources of
traffic, such as the pairs of stations you often get in London which
are just too far apart for convenient walking, but it could be used in
all sorts of circumstances. In some cases the speeds could be quite
high. The drawbacks include the height necessary for the ability to go
up and down steep slopes and the huge number of bearings to be
maintained.

Like Travelators at airports?

never-stop. We can all walk at 4 mph (= 1M/sec), so I think 4 mph steps
would be acceptable, so 3 belts would get us up to 12 mph and 4 belts
would get us up to 16 mph. This is much faster than town buses and
after allowing for the time taken walking to the station and waiting
for the train, competitive with Metros.

No. You and I can. Old people and wheelchairs cant. Besides, would you like
to ride on a skateboard at 16mph?

Raising our eyes from the technical details, we see that the
reasons why such project might or might not go ahead are political and
economic. Belts would create a wholly new townscape.

Never happen, discriminatory against a whole range of people