This 'invisible' ghost train will hit the tracks in Tokyo around 2018
The Japanese are about to give a whole new meaning to the "ghost train" concept.
Kazuyo Sejima, one of Japan's leading architects, designed a super-reflective train as a part of Japanese railway company Seibu Holdings' 100th anniversary celebration. The seemingly invisible train is intended for public rollout sometime in 2018.
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The train, as you might be able to tell from the image above, isn't actually invisible. It's just made from materials that allow it to “blend into the landscape.”
Now, as an American, a virtually invisible train immediately raises safety concerns. I don't know about the Japanese, but Americans have enough trouble not hitting fully visible trains. I can't imagine the disaster rate of an chameleonic train rolling through the countryside. Hopefully it'll be an elevated train.
Now, some are mistakenly comparing this super-reflective train to the invisible hood concept from Land Rover or the see-through semi trucks from Samsung.
Where the Samsung truck uses a big screen and the Land Rover concept uses augmented reality, the Seibu train is just reflective, which is, arguably, way less techie than the other two.
Regardless, this train reaffirms out modern society's dubious obsession with invisible modes of transport. So, to that, I say, "Shine on, you crazy commuters."
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