The IRS consists of a series of 800m-tall flexible fibreglass poles spaced at 400m intervals across the country. On top of each pole is a platform and a small man with a good sense of rhythm and a head for heights.

The small men on every other platform set their poles swinging to and fro. The small men on the intervening platforms set their poles swinging fro and to. Once the oscillations are of the correct amplitude and phase, goods or passengers can be passed from platform to platform as they approach each other on each swing.

Intersections between two lines of poles can be managed by having the junctional pole swing circularly rather than to and fro.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 19 2019

If you set up a line of these devices from one end of the Greenwich Meridian to the other, you could travel from Pole to Pole ...
-- 8th of 7, Jun 19 2019


quick calculation on the Gs experienced? Is this a steady powered swing of some sort, or a springing action?
-- theircompetitor, Jun 19 2019


The G's will be quite modest. The power is provided by the small men, performing a sort of inverted-swing movement. They might need a little assistance to get the swing started.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 19 2019


ok -- so this is like one of those multiple circus swings thing, when they hand the acrobat (or he moves himself) from swing to swing.
-- theircompetitor, Jun 19 2019


Precisely so, except that the pole-top men remain on their platforms, passing parcels to eachother. Passenger transport is possible, but we've had problems getting the insurance for it.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 19 2019


I see nothing wrong with this.
-- sninctown, Jun 19 2019


// we've had problems getting the insurance for it //

... but not half as bad as the problems of getting repeat customers.
-- 8th of 7, Jun 19 2019


Wouldn't the plus-sized passenger, climbing unsteadily up the pole, turn the small man's rhythmic oscillation into an unpredictable three-dimensional wobble?
-- pertinax, Jun 24 2019


We eschew pole-climbing. Instead, an on-ramp is provided; the passenger just waits at the top until the pole comes to them, then steps deftly onto the platform. And the reverse at the other end.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 24 2019


Seasickness will inevitably mean that people living underneath the path of the poles' movement will regularly get spattered with vomit, but this is a small price to pay for what is clearly a superior solution to the nation's transportation requirements.
-- hippo, Jun 24 2019


You could sell this to Amazon once their FedEx contract expires. [+]
-- whatrock, Jun 24 2019


// Seasickness// We've thought of that. The platform managers (they insisted on being called "managers") will all be former trapeze artists, and will stand on their heads. Gravitationally speaking, the platform system is essentially a system of inverted trapezes.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 24 2019


The Arc of the Conveyant.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 25 2019



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