Yuri Kogen Railway has a real B-Train Shorty (kinda)

[miyakoji]

The EVOLTA was apparently developed by Kawagoe Technical High School down in Saitama, but the Yuri Kogen is up in Akita.  As for the vehicle itself, I'll leave that up to you:

 

The EVOLTA

 

It's like a parade

[katoftw]

Good on the kids.  They are having fun, and that is the most important thing.

 

Guessing Panasonic paid for it all.  Good PR stunt.

[Sacto1985]

Here's another video of the unusual test train--powered by 600 dry-cell batteries!--that set a new world record for the longest railway run on dry-cell battery power:

 

[kvp]

Image of one of the bogies taken from the linked video:

Looks like it's meant to be a bolsterless bogie, with rubber/air secondary suspension, flexicoil primary suspension, roller bearings with some kind of encoder for speed/slip measurements, and what looks like a nose mounted traction motor. The independent axle suspension with the two flexible stabilising bars are something i've never seen in this form. It's quite complex considering it was made by high schoolers.

[katoftw]

doesn't look like air suspension to me.  just looks like 2 tyres fitted sideways.

[cteno4]

That is a form of air suspension, the tires are just inflated to the level of suspension needed. Air bags like this are good ways to distribute the weight over a larger area.

 

Jeff

[Sacto1985]

That little train had to be amazingly light in structural weight just to get it traveling 20 km (12.4 miles) on 600 dry-cell batteries, even if it was traveling (on average) around 8 km/h (5 mph) most of the way.