Swiss startup Sun-ways is planning to build a 18 kW pilot PV system between the racks of a 100-m linear section of a railway line in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel.
If a chain, cable, or wire comes loose on a car then the panels are the least of anyone's worries. Also expect emergency brakes to kick in automatically. This is a train, not a bicycle.
But still, what is the point of this? What problem does this solve? It's not like solar power deployment is bottlenecked by a lack of space to put the panels.
This just makes it more expensive and more difficult to maintain for no reason.
Lamps were "total disasters" until they weren't. Crosswalks even. Toilets in Seattle.
There are lots of things that were "total disasters" at one point but were developed into safe reliable things. That's not a reason to abandon an endeavor entirely, but a great reason to redirect or refine it.
Also, headlines are not news, and most non-electrical engineers, let alone journalists, know jack fucking shit about electrical engineering. EEVBlog did a great few videos about solar roadways and their flaws.