Well this is certainly an image that is going to stick with you all week: a train locomotive with a trunk-like hose coming out of it. Its purpose? To suck up trash along train tracks in India.

Developed by Indian railway engineers, the train-turned-vacuum was designed as a mobile solution to help pick up debris along the country's commuter tracks. It's already in service, acting as a wheeled trashcan that crawls along as someone walks in front of it, guiding the hose. Hopefully Trash Train 2.0 will have an automated nozzle — even at a snail's crawl, walking in front of a train has to be a little unnerving.

When the locomotive's bin is filled with garbage, workers moving with the train can transfer it to trailing cars. Here's a little diagram that gives you an idea of what's going on inside:

It's not unlike the sucker and sweeper trains deployed in subways in cities such as New York City and elsewhere, though the fact that the train has to pickup trash in an open air environment — not tidily trapped in a subway trench — poses its own challenges, thus the elephant-like hose.

The Recycle Times, via Inhabitat