Earth, moon, cable, train... Take a guess

[Spart]

How about we just cover the Earth's equator with a friggen long railway track, plant a train on it, attached on an indestructible cable which is hooked up on the moon?

 

Do I need to go any further than this?

 

 

Basically the moon's momentum will pull the train around the planet generating power. It may sound insanely stupid but why the hell not?

 

[pwagen]

That's not really doable with today's technology. The train would slow down the Moon so much that it would fall down to Earth. Since it would most likely hit the ocean, it would create a tidal wave which would knock over the rainbow and mean the end to the unicorns.

 

Seriously though, it might work in theory, but where would you get a cable that long?

 

Also, I don't think the moon is actually orbiting the equator, but is rather in the same plane as the planets. And since Earth is tilting, the track of the train would have to move. Don't quote me on that though.

[Spart]

If that's the case then the Earth's rotation would also slow down and the tilt would slowly be straightened up. However, you should think about the energy which is associated in the Earth's tidal force. I'd imagine it being quite large and I'm surprised that the Moon is drifting away from Earth. I would be more worried about how the cable would be brought up to the moon since it's orbiting around Earth at an average of 1,022km/s.

[pwagen]

I wasn't fully serious. After all, there are no unicorns in any high risk places for a rainbow collapse.

 

Here's a picture explaining the difference between the Moon's orbit compared to the orbital plane and Earth's equator:

http://scijinks.nasa.gov/_media/en/site/tidal-curiosities/moon_orbit_tilt.jpg

As you can imagine, with Earth's rotation and the Moon's orbit, fitting such a track wouldn't be possible even if we had the technological means to do it.

 

Unfortunately, harnessing the tidal power isn't that wide-spread yet, though there are ways to do it. While most of those ways are much smaller in scale than your train, they're also mostly affordable and practically possible. Personally, I think the idea of an never ending energy source is quite tempting.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power

[Spart]

Maybe I should have used the concept of a zip-line than a rail track where the moon and the cable don't have to be perpendicular or directly above the train. It's stupid nonetheless but at least it's great for a sci-fi novel.