From the Australian Gizmodo website:
A small town in Japan just celebrated the maiden voyage of its first dual-mode vehicle that combines a train and a bus, and comes with little train wheels that hoist its rubber tires into the air so that it can sit onto the tracks and oh, my god this thing is precious! And why, yes, that is a surfing shrimp painted on its side! The Japan Times calls it a dual-mode vehicle (DMV), but we know it’s bustrain or trainbus, depending on how its travelling at any given moment…
This is close to solarpunk, or the antithesis of cyberpunk and its dystopias.
Yes, the dual-mode vehicle has a diesel engine so it wouldn’t slot right into a solarpunk fantasy but the idea behind it does. At the very least, it’s an innovative approach to transportation in a region of Japan that is struggling, per the Japan Times…
But it’s not just innovative; it’s optimistic. It’s a BusTrain.
World’s first bus-train starts running on Christmas Day in Kaiyo, Japan – YouTube