Frankly, i would not bother with cars or trucks.
Use a train!
Any large diesel engine, or several combined, with a snow plow up front.
As a bonus, you can add waggons for any goods you may want to carry (such as extreme amounts of ammunition and fuel for your flamethrowers), and most of all...
This is a good idea, but you'll need to build the snow plow, I doubt there are any spare ones around in Chennai. Maybe an industrial strength cow catcher (pilot) built onto the first engine. I would weld shut all windows, doors etc. just in case. It is a bit of a hail mary, as you can't be sure all points (switches) are set correctly. Remember to disable all ATC and other safeguards, you don't want to stop just because one zombie fell into some electronics and short circuited everything so that all signals are red.
@BentNielsen the plow does not need to be beautiful or anything, so just welding together some 20mm sheet metal (or something alike) should do the trick. If you can weld shut any windows, the plow should not be a problem. And yes, it will look like something from Mad Max(TM). Which can't be bad!
@ChrisJ then you are in deep trouble. But since you are in certain trouble from the beginning, potential trouble is still very much preferrable. You might get lucky, and the problem is far enough away, so that you can simply stop the train, and continue on foot in a much safer environment. Or you die. Which, in a way, also solves your problems. At least for you.
@Burki true, but I also don't know how to drive a train.. or how to change tracks, or even more importantly, how to close the electronic doors! If you have a working knowledge of trains I'd risk it, if not I'd steer well clear
I'd break into a train museum and take one of the old diesels, even a shunting engine, less electronics or safeguards. Bring extra diesel if it is a long trip. An old wagon is sturdier than the new aluminium. Even modern switches can be moved with a handle, only 50 or so turns. Don't take a steam engine. It takes hours to heat it up to not crack the boiler.
Yeah, trains are great for infrastructure, but when you divorce them from the infrastructure they run into problems, for the reasons @ChrisJ listed. Unless you could somehow transport your backup on the train (which wouldn't be impossible), a train would be shooting yourself in the foot.
Trains are loud. You would attract more and more zombies. Even with the speed and mass of the train, constant bombardment of body parts can render a train immobile or slow it down significantly. (I think)
This answer ignores the vulnerabilities of rail travel, as some of the comments above have pointed out: 1) sound 2) infrastructure required (a stopped train would be a zombie magnet) 3) stability (a train could be toppled by a horde) 4) inertia (if slowed, the train will be quite slow to accelerate, giving the zombies more time to accumulate and slow the train.) I think a good analogy for zombies is wet concrete. A horde of zombies can eventually amass to act like a solid. Oh, 5) mechanical knowledge required and 6) fuel
In real life there are rules which say that in situations when "ground control" is unavailable, you should never go faster than 20-30km/h. This is the speed that gives you enough time to stop when you notice another train was left occupying your way.
@BentNielsen Old diesels have manual controls for everything, eg fuel/air mix ratio so they are absurdly difficult to keep running even for people who have the knowledge. You need years of experience to drive them. You'd have much better luck with new ones, once you get your hands on a manual, you're golden.
@DanielM 3) train has more lateral stability than any other vehicle short of a tank. Train could not be toppled by a horde unless it can coordinate and rock it, but a horde that smart would defeat pretty much any passive defence. 4) Only loaded cargo trains are slow to accelerate due to poor power/mass ratio. A passenger train is quite fast, and you can set up pretty much more locomotives than cars if you really want acceleration. 5) not more than with car 6) train can take weeks worth of fuel in form of tank cars (albeit not without power/mass penalty)
@Agent_L ok, it is not simple but trying to remove the electronics that brakes the engine, when passing a red light and still be able to run a modern engine is hard as all controls runs through the computer, a guide to an old ALCO/GE FA-2/FPA-2 is 'only' 60 pages rr-fallenflags.org/manual/FA2-OM.pdf. I'm going to stock up on local versions of those guides for my zombie apocalypse survival kit.
@BentNielsen All railway systems default to "stop" and most failures end in "stop", so computer always presents an option to override in order to keep the traffic flowing in manual mode. At worst, it'll limit the speed to the safe 30km/h, but as I said going faster will get you killed on the next obstacle anyway.
Once you get a train moving it's really not going to stop. There are really only two problems with a train: if the tracks stop or if there's a train stopped on the tracks (or something that will cause the train to jump the tracks). Zombies (as defined) will not be able to do either of these things. As a matter of fact, probably the best thing to do is find a place with two sections of tracks and simply drive trains blaring rock music back and forth between two fortified locations. They'll attract zombies and smoosh them all.
Discussion on answer by Burki: What k…
Discussion on answer by Burki: What k…