Hyperloop- future of rail or wibbling insanity?

[Comstock]

Even assuming this works I can't see this being of much interest to us in the UK. Our train services rarely go much more than 100 miles without stopping.

I can see an ultra-long-term vision of a hyperloop from Paris to Berlin and maybe even on to Moscow, but I don't think it will be in my lifetime (I'm 39).

 

[Rational Plan]

Yes Musk is also known to be anti HSR, and he assumes to beuild viaducts and tunnels at one tenth the cost of conventional rail bridges. These are smaller capsules, but they are not feather light and these viaducts need to support the steel tube as well.

 

[Comstock]

Maybe only having one capsule over at a time reduces the load bearing need and hence the cost. Even so, one tenth the cost sounds ambitious, to say the least.

But at the end of the day, there have been no really major innovations in transport technology for a hundred years now. OK, jets have replaced propellors on aircraft, but even that technology is basically seventy years old.

At some stage, someone is going to take a punt on something new. Will it be Europe, the US or one of the BRIC countries?

 

[eps200]

Even assuming this works I can't see this being of much interest to us in the UK. Our train services rarely go much more than 100 miles without stopping.

I can see an ultra-long-term vision of a hyperloop from Paris to Berlin and maybe even on to Moscow, but I don't think it will be in my lifetime (I'm 39).

Only set up i can see as viable, London> Manchester >Glasgow being fed by various rail services, it would create a lot of odd journeys with that run being really fast.
Even London brum is probably too short a distance. London Bristol might be worth it assuming you scoop up everything west of there via stoppers and semi fasts.
A second channel tunnel with two of these is the only real killer use I can think of a triangle between London Paris and Berlin forming the core of a European network.

Yes Musk is also known to be anti HSR, and he assumes to beuild viaducts and tunnels at one tenth the cost of conventional rail bridges. These are smaller capsules, but they are not feather light and these viaducts need to support the steel tube as well.

Looks like he just copy pasted some numbers from oil pipelines which is the most comparable thing, still rather ambitious though.

 

[Comstock]

Looks like he just copy pasted some numbers from oil pipelines which is the most comparable thing, still rather ambitious though.

Yeah, if he had said 'I can do this for half the cost of HSR' it might have been taken more seriously. I think he has overcooked the goose somewhat with that claim of a tenth.

 

[eastwestdivide]

How do the proposed air bearings (that support the pods) function in the low-pressure environment of the "near-vacuum" tube?

 

[eps200]

The air is moving around 200mph the pod at around 800mph. The pod has a compressor on the front which gathers all the air up, it can't go around the pod even at reduced pressure 600mph is a lot most of it will simply be pumped behind the pod