Railways

Saudi Arabia has inaugurated an ambitious new driverless transit system, which is hailed as the longest in the world. Measuring 109 miles in length, it includes an eye-catching station by Zaha Hadid Architects.

The first of 35 driverless trains set for Taiwan's 100% autonomous Light Green Line has been delivered. When complete, the 22.8-km (14-mile) line will shave 30 minutes off the current commute time end to end, from New Taipei City to Taipei.

RIBA has named London's Elizabeth Line rail transport network as the winner of the 2024 Stirling Prize, the UK's most prestigious architecture award. The judges lauded its remarkable engineering achievement and passenger-focused design.

Even on busy rail networks, the gap between lines can spend much of its time doing little but face skyward, so why not put that space to good use? Swiss startup Sun-Ways is looking to do just that by installing solar panels in between railway tracks.

The company that broke a Guinness World Record this year with its all-hydrogen train has just announced another world first. Stadler Rail has developed a fleet of train cars that can run on either hydrogen or battery power for branch rail services.

The steering wheel-less Klv-20 VW Microbus doesn't hail from an autonomous future, but from the railroad past. It is all original T1 bus up high, all train car down low – a very different way to take a Volkswagen van trip.

Country folk tend to like the independence offered by their cars, so how do you get them to use public transit? The Monocab system may be the answer, as it utilizes individual on-demand pods that travel on existing abandoned railways.

In preparation for a permanent human colony on the Moon, DARPA has awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman to develop a highly ambitious lunar railway concept. It's part of the agency's 10-year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study.

Hired to create a home office, Olson Kundig joked that it should be put on railroad tracks. After talking it through, the idea became a solid plan for a train-like studio that rolls down the rails to keep work and home life separate.

If you want to maximize the number of trains that can operate on one line simultaneously, it's crucial that you know the exact location of each train at all times. A new system is designed to help, by analyzing the magnetic properties of the rails.

The West Japan Rail Company has released video of its new humanoid heavy equipment robot. Mounted on the end of a crane, this gundam-style robot torso mimics the arm and head motions of a human pilot, who sees through the robot's eyes via VR goggles.

Work is underway on three new Zaha Hadid Architects-designed metro stations in Ukraine. The project will showcase the firm's futuristic curving style, and will acknowledge the area's history with a series of recycled steel entrance pavilions.