Students develop new ways to think about passenger rail service

By Virginia Tech

Although passenger train travel tends to be more popular in Europe or Asia than in the United States, there have been recent efforts to provide more passenger rail options in the commonwealth.

To renew interest in the possibilities of passenger rail travel, Ron Kemnitzer, chair of the industrial design program, and Bill Green, associate professor of industrial design, in Virginia Tech’s School of Architecture + Design, College of Architecture and Urban Studies, assigned four senior industrial design lab teams to develop a high-speed train concept. The designs had to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, use a locomotive design based on an operational engine, accommodate 250 to 350 passengers, and be used as a signature vehicle for the proposed Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor from Richmond, Va., to Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta.

The Nomad train features double-level passenger and lounge cars.

Kemnitzer and Green’s students were invited to present their high-speed passenger train designs to the American Public Transportation Association’s annual meeting in Chicago in June 2009. Download a PDF their presentation.

The four student teams were led by then-fourth-year industrial design students Jeremy Connell of Richmond, Va.; Chris Padilla of Shelton, Conn.; Phil Padilla of Shelton, Conn.; and Nathaniel Ball of Independence, Va. The resulting train designs are listed below. Browse through a gallery of the four designs.

The locomotive and rear car of the Aura train design have a similar look.