Autonomous battery-powered rail cars could steal shipments from truckers

Two Parallel Systems rail vehicles transport a container down a test track.

For the last 200 years, freight trains have not changed much. Rail fans could argue that a lot has changed, but from a distance, trains are the same as they were in the 1800s.

If three former engineers place their bets correctly, that may change. Parallel Systems emerged from stealth mode with a prototype vehicle that promises to bring advances in autonomy and battery technology to the freight railroads. They hope to bring freight rail service to places that don't have it today.

Their bet will depend on whether freight railroads and their customers will buy into a new way of operating. Parallel Systems isn't just taking an existing freight train and replacing it with a battery version. The traction motors are being distributed to every car on the train. It's how many electric passenger trains operate, but it's a system that has been slow to migrate to the freight world.

Parallel Systems is going further. Each of the rail vehicles has a battery pack, electric motor, four wheels, and a package of sensors. Parallel Systems is using the containers themselves to complete the car since a large portion of the world's freight is shipped via 20-foot containers.

Two vehicles position themselves far apart to support a container which is lowered by a crane. The vehicles use their cameras to navigate the rails. The rail vehicle doesn't have to be part of a long train because it has everything it needs. One container supported by two Parallel Systems vehicles could move from origin to destination on its own. They will likely end up traveling in platoons. The individual cars aren't coupled, soParallel Systems doesn't call them trains.

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Parallel Systems envisions a series of "microterminals" that would transfer containers to trucks for last-mile delivery.

Matt Soule, CEO of Parallel Systems, told Ars that their platoon sizes are between ten and 50 cars. The benefits of that kind of asymptote are around ten cars. In terms of serving the volumes that might be there, we think moving in platoons of up to 50 is the max.

A 50-car train is not very long. In the past few years, training has gotten longer because you get good unit economics when you do that. The problem is that you have a train. Where are you going to park that train? Not that many places is the answer.

His hope is that once trains become smaller, railroads will be able to move cargo that would otherwise be handled by trucking companies. When the terminal becomes smaller, you have more options to put the rail closer to your customers.

Parallel Systems' rail vehicles can travel up to 500 miles on a charge, and a two-vehicle team can carry a single or double stack of containers. The company's camera-based vision system helps it watch for other trains and obstacles, and Soule thinks the company's sensor suit will be enough to handle the relatively simple environment. He said that remote human operators could help cars decide how to deal with edge cases. A prototype of the startup's product is currently on a test track in Southern California. By the third version, Soule hopes to be ready for production.