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That's not a flattering impression of the state you have. Anyway, WV is between NYC and DC, and there was a good site available for them to build their prototy

That's not a flattering impression of the state you have. Anyway, WV is between NYC and DC, and there was a good site available for them to build their prototype.

jcranmer 6y ago
Uh... West Virginia is nowhere near the NYC-DC axis. It is potentially on the route between DC and Chicago, but most crayon maps would rather hook the Midwest into the Northeast Corridor by going via Pittsburgh, the Juniata water gaps, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia instead of picking a more southerly route that hits Baltimore or DC.
- Brendinooo 6y ago
  The site selected is about three hours from DC. But yeah, nowhere near NYC. Interestingly enough, I was reading an article[0] about how Wheeling and Pittsburgh were competing to be the gateway to the west. When the National Road bypassed Pittsburgh, that was a big win for Wheeling. Most of the rail ended up going through Pittsburgh, though, and then the PA Turnpike opened a path through the mountains that further solidified Pittsburgh's advantage. For WV's part, I could see them being very motivated to try and bring a new mode of transportation through their state. [0]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20093288?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20093288?seq=1
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    In the 1820s and the 1830s, after the opening of the Erie Canal, there was serious competition to figure out which Ohio River city would be the western terminus of various eastern seaboard cities. By the 1840s, however, it became clear that the answer to transportation was going to be the railroad, and terminating at the Ohio River made no sense; the real target was the western entrepôts such as Chicago. From the perspective of the major NE railroads, the New York Central traveled through the same Mohawk Gap that the Erie Canal uses, and then travel along the south bank of Lake Erie. The Pennsylvania Railroad followed the route of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal system, that traveled Philadelphia-Pittsburgh via Altoona. The B&O (originating from a state that had no access to the Ohio River) tried playing off Virginia and Pennsylvania against each other, but Pennsylvania stopped playing ball when it committed to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Virginia forced the B&O to pick Wheeling over Parkersburg to make it harder for B&O to bridge the Ohio River and push on to Chicago. (The B&O would eventually reach Parkersburg, cross the Ohio there, and continue to Chicago, but this happened a generation later). The Pennsylvania Turnpike was based on the route of the South Pennsylvania Railroad, which was never built.
    - Brendinooo 6y ago
      Yeah! That South Pennsylvania Railroad was only going to happen because Vanderbilt felt that the Pennsylvania Railroad was stepping on his turf in New York. Interesting stuff.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  You are correct that it's not on the axis, but West Virginia is very much tied to DC. A number of federal agencies have offices there, including the FBI. I believe it's the central fingerprint data facility. There are tens of thousands of people who work in DC, but live in West Virginia because it has fewer taxes than Maryland or Virginia.
- Communitivity 6y ago
  There's another corridor that might make sense as their first one DC<->WV<->NC Research Triangle. At 4h by car, with a marketed Hyperloop speed (emphasis on marketed) of 670mph, you could theoretically cut the time to 30m. Meaning you could live in WV and commit to Durham,NC. WV is also somewhat equidistant to Pittsburgh,PA and Philadelphia,PA as well. If you managed to create a commuting hub that allowed 30 minute (plus time to hub, etc.) commutes to Pittsburgh, Durham, DC, and Philadelphia you would have a major hub with a great deal of value, akin to Chicago in the height of the railway days. That's a pretty big if though, and would take a lot of work, money, and politics. If they did it though they could expand the hub: * Add a station in Richmond, and a line to VA Beach * Expand north with a line from Philadelphia to NYC * Once you are in NYC, expand north line a line to boston * Finally, expand sound to Atlanta and then to Orlando. Lot of ifs in there, and not sure I would be on it happening, but if it did the benefits would likely be amazing in terms of less pollution from cars, less unemployment since your pool of workplaces is much higher, potentially less shipping costs,etc. It's something I'd love to see.
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    West Virginia isn't well placed for that either. The good North-South corridors in the VA/NC area are going to be the Great Appalachian Valley (i.e., the I-81 corridor) or further east as far as the Fall Line (i.e., I-95 corridor). West Virginia doesn't expand that far east, excepting the area around Martinsburg. WV is a really crappy state to build any sort of hub in. Geographically, it's dominated by a desiccated plateau: every watercourse carves a gorge, with the depth of gorge largely determined by how big the watercourse is. The population of WV is really spread out with no concentrated urban areas. The most concentrated regions are along the major river courses of the Ohio, Kanawha, and Monongahela Rivers, along with the population in the small sliver of the Great Appalachian Valley within its borders. > with a marketed Hyperloop speed (emphasis on marketed) of 670mph That is the targeted top speed, AIUI. However, geography hits your butt hard here: it's a simple consequence of physics that higher speeds make your engineering headaches grow more than linearly. Your curve radii grows quadratically with speed, and curve transition length is cubic. Trying to reach max speed in the environment of the Appalachian Plateau will be extremely expensive in terms of viaducts or tunneling, and making up the height difference between the Plateau and the valleys to the east is also going to be challenging.
irrational 6y ago
Well, I do live nearly 3000 miles away from WV, so all I really know about it is the stories that rise to the top of the national news circuit.

That's not a flattering impression of the state you have. Anyway, WV is between NYC and DC, and there was a good site available for them to build their prototype.

jcranmer 6y ago

Uh... West Virginia is nowhere near the NYC-DC axis. It is potentially on the route between DC and Chicago, but most crayon maps would rather hook the Midwest into the Northeast Corridor by going via Pittsburgh, the Juniata water gaps, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia instead of picking a more southerly route that hits Baltimore or DC.

Brendinooo 6y ago
The site selected is about three hours from DC. But yeah, nowhere near NYC. Interestingly enough, I was reading an article[0] about how Wheeling and Pittsburgh were competing to be the gateway to the west. When the National Road bypassed Pittsburgh, that was a big win for Wheeling. Most of the rail ended up going through Pittsburgh, though, and then the PA Turnpike opened a path through the mountains that further solidified Pittsburgh's advantage. For WV's part, I could see them being very motivated to try and bring a new mode of transportation through their state. [0]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20093288?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/20093288?seq=1
- jcranmer 6y ago
  In the 1820s and the 1830s, after the opening of the Erie Canal, there was serious competition to figure out which Ohio River city would be the western terminus of various eastern seaboard cities. By the 1840s, however, it became clear that the answer to transportation was going to be the railroad, and terminating at the Ohio River made no sense; the real target was the western entrepôts such as Chicago. From the perspective of the major NE railroads, the New York Central traveled through the same Mohawk Gap that the Erie Canal uses, and then travel along the south bank of Lake Erie. The Pennsylvania Railroad followed the route of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal system, that traveled Philadelphia-Pittsburgh via Altoona. The B&O (originating from a state that had no access to the Ohio River) tried playing off Virginia and Pennsylvania against each other, but Pennsylvania stopped playing ball when it committed to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Virginia forced the B&O to pick Wheeling over Parkersburg to make it harder for B&O to bridge the Ohio River and push on to Chicago. (The B&O would eventually reach Parkersburg, cross the Ohio there, and continue to Chicago, but this happened a generation later). The Pennsylvania Turnpike was based on the route of the South Pennsylvania Railroad, which was never built.
  - Brendinooo 6y ago
    Yeah! That South Pennsylvania Railroad was only going to happen because Vanderbilt felt that the Pennsylvania Railroad was stepping on his turf in New York. Interesting stuff.
reaperducer 6y ago
You are correct that it's not on the axis, but West Virginia is very much tied to DC. A number of federal agencies have offices there, including the FBI. I believe it's the central fingerprint data facility. There are tens of thousands of people who work in DC, but live in West Virginia because it has fewer taxes than Maryland or Virginia.
Communitivity 6y ago
There's another corridor that might make sense as their first one DC<->WV<->NC Research Triangle. At 4h by car, with a marketed Hyperloop speed (emphasis on marketed) of 670mph, you could theoretically cut the time to 30m. Meaning you could live in WV and commit to Durham,NC. WV is also somewhat equidistant to Pittsburgh,PA and Philadelphia,PA as well. If you managed to create a commuting hub that allowed 30 minute (plus time to hub, etc.) commutes to Pittsburgh, Durham, DC, and Philadelphia you would have a major hub with a great deal of value, akin to Chicago in the height of the railway days. That's a pretty big if though, and would take a lot of work, money, and politics. If they did it though they could expand the hub: * Add a station in Richmond, and a line to VA Beach * Expand north with a line from Philadelphia to NYC * Once you are in NYC, expand north line a line to boston * Finally, expand sound to Atlanta and then to Orlando. Lot of ifs in there, and not sure I would be on it happening, but if it did the benefits would likely be amazing in terms of less pollution from cars, less unemployment since your pool of workplaces is much higher, potentially less shipping costs,etc. It's something I'd love to see.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  West Virginia isn't well placed for that either. The good North-South corridors in the VA/NC area are going to be the Great Appalachian Valley (i.e., the I-81 corridor) or further east as far as the Fall Line (i.e., I-95 corridor). West Virginia doesn't expand that far east, excepting the area around Martinsburg. WV is a really crappy state to build any sort of hub in. Geographically, it's dominated by a desiccated plateau: every watercourse carves a gorge, with the depth of gorge largely determined by how big the watercourse is. The population of WV is really spread out with no concentrated urban areas. The most concentrated regions are along the major river courses of the Ohio, Kanawha, and Monongahela Rivers, along with the population in the small sliver of the Great Appalachian Valley within its borders. > with a marketed Hyperloop speed (emphasis on marketed) of 670mph That is the targeted top speed, AIUI. However, geography hits your butt hard here: it's a simple consequence of physics that higher speeds make your engineering headaches grow more than linearly. Your curve radii grows quadratically with speed, and curve transition length is cubic. Trying to reach max speed in the environment of the Appalachian Plateau will be extremely expensive in terms of viaducts or tunneling, and making up the height difference between the Plateau and the valleys to the east is also going to be challenging.

irrational 6y ago

Well, I do live nearly 3000 miles away from WV, so all I really know about it is the stories that rise to the top of the national news circuit.