A closer look
Turning a 200-ton locomotive around usually requires a colossal, expensive piece of track known as a turntable, which takes up half a rail yard. Yelivandl Venugopal Rao decided this was an inefficient waste of real estate. He developed brilliant, miniaturized turntable systems that could slot into impossibly tight spaces, particularly in India's cramped railway networks. He practically revolutionized rail-yard Tetris, proving that the most important innovations in transport aren't always faster trains, but figuring out how to park them.
