5 ms·

Hyperloop only works most comfortably in very flat routes. It's something I never realized until I visited Hyperloop's offices in LA when they first started. I

Hyperloop only works most comfortably in very flat routes. It's something I never realized until I visited Hyperloop's offices in LA when they first started. I got to make some early promo photos for them [0] and signed a 10-year NDA in the process. However, what I learned (which is public knowledge) that at high speeds even smallest elevation drops would make the passengers feel the free-fall sensation of being on a rollercoaster. Basically at high speeds the elevation change of the vertical vector components of anything more than several degrees can approach the free fall dropping speeds. I have also taken numerous train rides in Switzerland and driven through large parts of the country and I don't believe the technology can be used there as well as it could have been deployed in other routes in the world that is naturally more flat. So I'm wondering if this mostly an R&D project designed to export an entire tunnel/hyperloop making solution. [0] https://www.instagram.com/p/BMiyAIdhCJn/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BMiyAIdhCJn/ (photo is about 80 frames stacked. Because we only had one welder at the time and I had to reuse him and also to intricately light every parts of this lot)

tdeck 8y ago
I wonder if people would just get used to that sensation if it meant cutting their commute in half.
- mcguire 8y ago
  Or they wouldn't get those jobs.
jcranmer 8y ago
The thing about ultra-high-speed is this: your benefits (travel time) grow linearly with speed, but your problems (energy, capacity, curve radii, etc.) grow quadratically. Actually, it's worse than it sounds. Travel time has a big impact on demand--but only within a small-ish window, about 2-4 hours. Outside of that window, demand does not respond that much to changes in travel time. That means that higher speeds are ultimately about trying to bring more destinations within the acceptable travel time window, but you also have to give up destinations within that window because the stop time penalties are too high. Switzerland has the issue that it's just too small. With conventional 300-350km/h max-speed HSR, going from the eastern to the western edge of the country could be done in about 2 hours (recall that average speed is going to be less than max speed, particularly when stops are included), which is around the point where going faster means getting no practical benefit for people. It could serve international routes, but then Switzerland is bearing the costs without reaping the benefits, which the citizenry tends not to favor very highly.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Even the HSR that operates in Switzerland, the TGV, doesn't get up to speed until it is well within France. Switzerland tracks aren't straight enough for HSR, and it would cost a lot to straighten them out. There also isn't a lot of demand for Geneva to Zurich in an hour.
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    I think the demand would come after it gets built. Even bigger would be demand for Bern/Zurich and Basel/Zurich in 30min, bringing these cities comfortably into commute distance. People do that today but only if they really must. There is an aspect of Swiss economy that makes HSR attractive: high degree of decentralization.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      Those cities already feel close enough together. More to the point, I don’t think Switzerland probably wants the kind of growth that HSR would enable and encourage.
      - snovv_crash 8y ago
        No they really aren't close enough together. For example, I know someone who moved from Zurich to Olten so that their girlfriend's commute to Bern would be reasonable. Now you have 2 people with 50 minute commutes instead of 1 person with 1h45 and another person with 15min. If there was a 30min connection from Bern to Zurich it would be perfectly reasonable to live in one and commute to the other.
        seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        Again, does Switzerland really want to become one big mega city? It is up for the Swiss to decide, but a huge commute draw between Bern and Zurich (or even Bern and Lausanne) would lead to something more like Japan.
jws 8y ago
Regular US railroads generally are 1:100 slopes (0.6°) or less. Grades steeper than 2.2:100 (1.2°) are rare. Clearly there is a way to efficiently connect population centers which is not steep. I think the issue is vertical curvature rather than slope. Traversing a slope at speed is just going to get you a constant vertical component which you will not feel, and not terribly fast, <20kph, about half as fast as a fast elevator. Changing slope is going to get you a vertical acceleration which could fill your tiny capsule with more vomit than one would like. The question is then, can you blend the slopes to keep that under control? Going maximum up grade to maximum down grade at full speed will be something like a 40kph velocity change, at 1G that takes 1.1 seconds, during which time you will drive 360 meters. So, blending over 360 meters gives you full weightless vomit motion or a 2x weight. The blend from full up to full down will probably need to be over a kilometer to keep things clean¹. ␄ ¹ The internet is not being forthcoming about real world elevator accelerations. It is too polluted by imaginary physics problems. So I unilaterally decided 1/3g would be ok.
snovv_crash 8y ago
That sensation is caused by vertical acceleration, ie. curvature, not by vertical speed. Controlling curvature is something that needs to be done anyway in the horizontal, I don't see why the vertical component would be harder to control for.
- tempestn 8y ago
  Because the land has vertical variations that you would have to work with, probably involving a lot of filling, bridging, and tunneling. The horizontal is just about planning the route. (Which of course has some restrictions as well, but not to the same extent.)
  - snovv_crash 8y ago
    I was under the impression that a hyperloop would run mostly on pylons anyway, so just by varying their lengths it is possible to smooth the altitude however you want.
    - tempestn 8y ago
      Agreed that pylons would let you filter out small changes, but in a place like Switzerland the land varies in height by a lot more than the average pylon.
pasta 8y ago
I don't think the Swiss are going to use it in their own country. To me the article sounds like: we think it has potential and are going to see if we can make money out of it. Edit: it can also be very interesting to see if it is cheaper and more confortable than 'low speed' trains. Maybe in the future we use the hyperloops at 80km/h.
sschueller 8y ago
Why would it be above ground? In Switzerland tunnels are a very common thing and Swissmetro was also planned to be underground. The Gotthard Base Tunnel is a almost level line through a thick mountain.
- candiodari 8y ago
  cost
k5hp 8y ago
I don't think Switzerland is going to use this system above ground. It most certainly will be deployed underground - long train tunnels are very common in Switzerland. There was a project called Swissmetro [0] in 2005 which had a very similar concept to Hyperloop. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissmetro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissmetro
antpls 8y ago
Everyone is talking about transporting humans with Hyperloop, but it doesn't make sense to me. With internet, I cant think of a case where there is a need to be urgently, physically, transported from A to B anymore. Maybe weekend leisure trip would be more enjoyable with less travel time. What I can imagine is an Amazon Hyperloop delivering goods and products faster from delivery center to consumers across countries. No problem about human sickness if there is no human transported. Also, maybe fresh foods like vegetables and fishes would benefit from a faster travel time. EDIT : also, maybe it sounds silly but... what about transporting gold bars very fast?
- baddox 8y ago
  What’s the point of transporting gold bars very quickly when we have plenty of financial instruments that can reliably represent gold bars that can be transmitted digitally?
scotty79 8y ago
> (which is public knowledge) that at high speeds even smallest elevation drops would make the passengers feel the free-fall sensation I'm happy to hear that legally, physics is still public knowledge.

tdeck 8y ago

I wonder if people would just get used to that sensation if it meant cutting their commute in half.

mcguire 8y ago
Or they wouldn't get those jobs.

jcranmer 8y ago

The thing about ultra-high-speed is this: your benefits (travel time) grow linearly with speed, but your problems (energy, capacity, curve radii, etc.) grow quadratically. Actually, it's worse than it sounds. Travel time has a big impact on demand--but only within a small-ish window, about 2-4 hours. Outside of that window, demand does not respond that much to changes in travel time. That means that higher speeds are ultimately about trying to bring more destinations within the acceptable travel time window, but you also have to give up destinations within that window because the stop time penalties are too high. Switzerland has the issue that it's just too small. With conventional 300-350km/h max-speed HSR, going from the eastern to the western edge of the country could be done in about 2 hours (recall that average speed is going to be less than max speed, particularly when stops are included), which is around the point where going faster means getting no practical benefit for people. It could serve international routes, but then Switzerland is bearing the costs without reaping the benefits, which the citizenry tends not to favor very highly.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
Even the HSR that operates in Switzerland, the TGV, doesn't get up to speed until it is well within France. Switzerland tracks aren't straight enough for HSR, and it would cost a lot to straighten them out. There also isn't a lot of demand for Geneva to Zurich in an hour.
- m_mueller 8y ago
  I think the demand would come after it gets built. Even bigger would be demand for Bern/Zurich and Basel/Zurich in 30min, bringing these cities comfortably into commute distance. People do that today but only if they really must. There is an aspect of Swiss economy that makes HSR attractive: high degree of decentralization.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Those cities already feel close enough together. More to the point, I don’t think Switzerland probably wants the kind of growth that HSR would enable and encourage.
    - snovv_crash 8y ago
      No they really aren't close enough together. For example, I know someone who moved from Zurich to Olten so that their girlfriend's commute to Bern would be reasonable. Now you have 2 people with 50 minute commutes instead of 1 person with 1h45 and another person with 15min. If there was a 30min connection from Bern to Zurich it would be perfectly reasonable to live in one and commute to the other.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        Again, does Switzerland really want to become one big mega city? It is up for the Swiss to decide, but a huge commute draw between Bern and Zurich (or even Bern and Lausanne) would lead to something more like Japan.

jws 8y ago

Regular US railroads generally are 1:100 slopes (0.6°) or less. Grades steeper than 2.2:100 (1.2°) are rare. Clearly there is a way to efficiently connect population centers which is not steep. I think the issue is vertical curvature rather than slope. Traversing a slope at speed is just going to get you a constant vertical component which you will not feel, and not terribly fast, <20kph, about half as fast as a fast elevator. Changing slope is going to get you a vertical acceleration which could fill your tiny capsule with more vomit than one would like. The question is then, can you blend the slopes to keep that under control? Going maximum up grade to maximum down grade at full speed will be something like a 40kph velocity change, at 1G that takes 1.1 seconds, during which time you will drive 360 meters. So, blending over 360 meters gives you full weightless vomit motion or a 2x weight. The blend from full up to full down will probably need to be over a kilometer to keep things clean¹. ␄ ¹ The internet is not being forthcoming about real world elevator accelerations. It is too polluted by imaginary physics problems. So I unilaterally decided 1/3g would be ok.

snovv_crash 8y ago

That sensation is caused by vertical acceleration, ie. curvature, not by vertical speed. Controlling curvature is something that needs to be done anyway in the horizontal, I don't see why the vertical component would be harder to control for.

tempestn 8y ago
Because the land has vertical variations that you would have to work with, probably involving a lot of filling, bridging, and tunneling. The horizontal is just about planning the route. (Which of course has some restrictions as well, but not to the same extent.)
- snovv_crash 8y ago
  I was under the impression that a hyperloop would run mostly on pylons anyway, so just by varying their lengths it is possible to smooth the altitude however you want.
  - tempestn 8y ago
    Agreed that pylons would let you filter out small changes, but in a place like Switzerland the land varies in height by a lot more than the average pylon.

pasta 8y ago

I don't think the Swiss are going to use it in their own country. To me the article sounds like: we think it has potential and are going to see if we can make money out of it. Edit: it can also be very interesting to see if it is cheaper and more confortable than 'low speed' trains. Maybe in the future we use the hyperloops at 80km/h.

sschueller 8y ago

Why would it be above ground? In Switzerland tunnels are a very common thing and Swissmetro was also planned to be underground. The Gotthard Base Tunnel is a almost level line through a thick mountain.

candiodari 8y ago
cost

k5hp 8y ago

I don't think Switzerland is going to use this system above ground. It most certainly will be deployed underground - long train tunnels are very common in Switzerland. There was a project called Swissmetro [0] in 2005 which had a very similar concept to Hyperloop. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissmetro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissmetro

antpls 8y ago

Everyone is talking about transporting humans with Hyperloop, but it doesn't make sense to me. With internet, I cant think of a case where there is a need to be urgently, physically, transported from A to B anymore. Maybe weekend leisure trip would be more enjoyable with less travel time. What I can imagine is an Amazon Hyperloop delivering goods and products faster from delivery center to consumers across countries. No problem about human sickness if there is no human transported. Also, maybe fresh foods like vegetables and fishes would benefit from a faster travel time. EDIT : also, maybe it sounds silly but... what about transporting gold bars very fast?

baddox 8y ago
What’s the point of transporting gold bars very quickly when we have plenty of financial instruments that can reliably represent gold bars that can be transmitted digitally?

scotty79 8y ago

> (which is public knowledge) that at high speeds even smallest elevation drops would make the passengers feel the free-fall sensation I'm happy to hear that legally, physics is still public knowledge.