(air swooshes)

[Max] I played with trains when I was a kid.

[Narrator] This 89 year old has been

obsessed with trains all his life.

I had an electric train up in the attic of my house.

[Narrator] So what's a train loving,

retired engineer to do?

Build a giant train set in his

Mendocino California vineyard, of course.

My name is Max Schlienger and this is the Vector System.

(train rumbles)

(air hisses)

(happy folk type music with clapping)

[Narrator] The Vector isn't just a big toy.

It's a working concept that depends on magnets

and is pulled along by pressure in a vacuum tube.

(gasket clinks)

Sound like Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept?

Forget it.

The inspiration for this model train

is a modern spin on a very old railroad idea,

like Victorian England old.

In the early days of the railroad,

engineers like Isambard Kingdom Brunel

thought they had a better idea than slapping a loud,

heavy locomotive on every train.

They called it the Atmospheric Railway.

But it never really worked out as well as they hoped.

The first idea was very, very similar

to what they did in the 1800's.

Had they had the magnets that we have today,

the high strength magnets,

probably would've done the same thing we're doing now.

[Narrator] Here's how it works.

The two parts of the train are inside power tube,

this would be the power tube, and exterior.

We have a thrust carriage and we have a passenger car.

The thrust carriage is coupled to the passenger car

via some permanent magnets.

The thrust carriage is inserted within the thrust tube

and so as the the thrust carriage moves,

so does the passenger carriage.

It's possible to move the passenger carriage

down the track simply by applying pressure behind

or vacuum in front of the thrust carriage, like this.

(wheels roll)

[Narrator] Of course, it takes more

than a huff and a puff to get a

full size version down the track.

This one uses powerful vacuum pumps.

They're electric, which means the train

could be powered by renewable energy.

Using vacuum power instead of an engine

keeps the train light enough to tackle hills

no normal train could ever ascend.

Well the advantage of a system like this is that

we can not only climb steep grades,

we could climb grades in excess of 10% grades.

But we can also go down those grades

and we can use what we call atmospheric breaking.

So, a lot of times it's just as important that you can

down the grade as up the grade in a safe mode.

[Narrator] So if it's such a great idea,

why aren't there Vector systems

whooshing all over the place?

Well I think everyone else is sort of

tied into the standard gauge railroad trains

that we have today.

Even our high speed trains of today are standard

and I think that's sort of a

stagnation point in the way people think.

[Narrator] Spoken like a true disrupter.

Schlienger is approaching his tenth decade

but has no intention of slowing down.

I wanna keep working 'till I can't any more.

I have my drivers license 'till I'm 93.

I'd like to be around then and go for it the next time too.

[Narrator] But bringing Vector to life

will take a serious pile of cash

and years of political wrangling, at a minimum.

Schlienger knows this, but he sees the world

through the eyes of an engineer

and holds faith that the better solution will win out.

(train whooshes by)

Oh I think we'll make it happen.

Maybe not in my lifetime but we'll make it happen.

(train whooshes) (happy music)