Timothy Dennison

For years I have dreamed of developing a firefighting system using ash to smother fires at their base. I feel water alone is inadequate, its heavy and sloshes during transport. It freezes, and evaporates. If the fire is hot enough, water boils away before it accomplishes anything. I suppose you would need to mix ash with water in order to pump and spray it. Initially would use volcanic ash or similar, till enough was accumulated and stored from cleaning up after fire events. About a week after the event, a vacuum truck would suck up all the material, recycling, using it again on subsequent f

I started building the machine last year, haven't had time, and the weather has been uncooperative. I should have a demonstration by fall to prove the concept

DRD, yes you are absolutely correct as always. I didn't bother mentioning why I am interested in the subject. Because I noticed walking machines such as the Chebyshev's plantigrade could be easily adapted to running on tracks. The machine can be made very lightweight, so in turn the rails can be made from wood, plastic, concrete, aluminum, whatever is available, and raised 8 feet on trestles to eliminate hitting pedestrians, animals, flooding, washouts, potholes. When I see current efforts at autonomous vehicles designed to operate on asphalt roadways, I see a machine that should be on rail

Railroad switching mechanism operated from the locomotive. The design of the fork would be passive but the guide wheels on the train move. I can only imagine the guide wheel has to be raised and placed on the exiting tracks but there has to be a better way using flanged wheels

I saw a few machines that convert rotary to reciprocating movement here, the ones that look promising are also difficult to manufacture, as they require rack and pinion gears http://507movements.com/mm_123.html