All aboard the GPU: tiny train circles graphics card
A Reddit user called Beautiful-Turnip-353 has built a working model railway on top of their graphics card. A small train runs in a loop along the back of the GPU, right in front of the case window, so each gaming session looks like rush hour on PCI Express.
If you are not into model trains, T-gauge is one of the smallest scales you can buy. Yes, I had to look this up, because I didn’t know such models even exist. The track is only about 3 mm wide, and the trains are roughly 1:450 scale. That size is small enough to fit a full loop on a modern GPU without hitting the side panel, and the tight curves make it easy to snake the track around the shroud.
The train is powered by an Arduino on a USB port, which sends a 5V PWM signal to the rails. By changing the duty cycle, the creator controls the speed, though they admit the train does not like moving very slowly. Commenters suggested running it from a 5V PWM fan header and syncing the speed with GPU temperature, so the hotter the card runs, the faster the train goes. The modder confirmed ‘this is happening’, so we expect an update on that.
Redditor says they want to build a more train-themed PC in the future, with better layout and scenery. For now, it is a small loop on a graphics card and a neat sight in a glass case. It will not help with AI model training, but it does show one way to put a train on a GPU that no data scientist was asking for.
Source: Reddit
