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The problem with hyperloop is that is does not solve the main problem of bullet trains: infrastructure costs. Nobody complains about the TGV/Shinkansen/ICE bein

The problem with hyperloop is that is does not solve the main problem of bullet trains: infrastructure costs. Nobody complains about the TGV/Shinkansen/ICE being slow. Building a new train line cost millions of €/$ per km/mi because you need to expropriate properties, build tunnels and bridges, fine tune the tracks (any small distortion in the tracks will cause significant annoyance for the travelers). Hyperloop will have all these issues, but worse, as the speed is higher, and as the hyperloop trains will not be able to run on existing tracks.

postingpals 6y ago
It's actually more like billions of $ per mile. How anyone looks at a figure like '1 billion per single mile of tunnel' and thinks it's feasible to run utopian pie in the sky experiments like hyperloop across hundreds of miles is beyond me.
- timthorn 6y ago
  HS2, under construction in the UK, is 155 miles long, with a total budget of £55bn but currently expected to cost well over £80bn - some estimates have it as north of £100bn. $1bn per mile is in the same ballpark.
  - renw0rp 6y ago
    In the UK everything costs twice as much as originally estimated and takes twice as much time. I hope I will live to experience the 330km/h (operating speed of UK's HS2)
j-pb 6y ago
German here. ICE sucks majorly. ICE is engineered way over the limitations of the underlying technology. They break down easily and are constantly late. I'd take a hyperloop over an ICE any time. We had good tech, that that didn't get held back by the physical constraints of rail travel: Transrapid A maglev train developed in the 70s which operated flawlessly for 40 years. Sadly there was no political willpower for it's realisation due to a very strong car lobby. I see the hyperloop as a modern spin on the Transrapid, and I'd pour all of our subsidies for Deutsche Bahn into it in a heartbeat.
- himinlomax 6y ago
  TGV runs very well, except for the weekly labor dispute that's completely orthogonal to the fact that it's not running in a vacuum. How you people believe the risk of explosive decompression will solve whatever problems a minority of high speed train systems have is beyond me.
  - j-pb 6y ago
    1 bar is acutally not that bad. Hyoerloop pods are smaller, so less lives are at risk. And most importantly of all. It's not gonna be explosive, unless you rip the thing open with a bomb and you're right next to it. Even if you rip the tube in half, the air is going to take some time to fill it up. A few miles from the hole there will be a much more harmless pressure gradient already. Sure it might shake your capsule, but you're not gonna get shredded.
    - jankotek 6y ago
      Pressure wave moves at speed of sound. Lightweigh capsule gets destroyed just by derailing at 500mph. Any bad event will put down ALL trains on track. And rescuing people trapped in 100 miles long steel pipe... Hyperloop is a nightmare!
      - j-pb 6y ago
        See my above reply. Speed of sound doesn't mean much if there is a constantly softening gradient. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagen%E2%80%93Poiseuille_equation#Poiseuille's_equation_for_an_ideal_isothermal_gas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagen%E2%80%93Poiseuille_equ... Edit: To give a good analogy: Electricity also travels at the speed of light through a cable, however due to resistance you will get different current reading depending on where you measure.
    - tjpnz 6y ago
      >And most importantly of all. It's not gonna be explosive, unless you rip the thing open with a bomb and you're right next to it. And that's precisely what makes it unworkable with regards to safety. Burying the tubes is an option but by that point you would be looking at rail instead.
rkangel 6y ago
According to the original hyperloop paper (https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperl...) it is meant to be able to help with infrastructure costs. The main difference is that it is all much lighter than conventional rail. This means that you can build it on pylons over the ground, and continuously extrude carbon fibre to build the tunnel. In theory both land costs and construction costs should be much lower. That was the original paper though, I don't know how much of that is considered realistic now.
- j-pb 6y ago
  This! Pylons for the win!
- rwmj 6y ago
  The Shinkansen is built on pylons in many places especially where it goes over low-lying farmland and through cities, so I'm not sure this is a good reason.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  But the bulk of the infrastructure cost difference of the original hyperloop paper vs. the CAHSR project it was offered against wasn't due to use of pylons, it was due to the fact that the proposed hyperloop didn't serve communities between the termini at all, and didn't come anywhere near the urban centers at either terminus. This, of course, also made it useless for literally any purpose.

postingpals 6y ago

It's actually more like billions of $ per mile. How anyone looks at a figure like '1 billion per single mile of tunnel' and thinks it's feasible to run utopian pie in the sky experiments like hyperloop across hundreds of miles is beyond me.

timthorn 6y ago
HS2, under construction in the UK, is 155 miles long, with a total budget of £55bn but currently expected to cost well over £80bn - some estimates have it as north of £100bn. $1bn per mile is in the same ballpark.
- renw0rp 6y ago
  In the UK everything costs twice as much as originally estimated and takes twice as much time. I hope I will live to experience the 330km/h (operating speed of UK's HS2)

j-pb 6y ago

German here. ICE sucks majorly. ICE is engineered way over the limitations of the underlying technology. They break down easily and are constantly late. I'd take a hyperloop over an ICE any time. We had good tech, that that didn't get held back by the physical constraints of rail travel: Transrapid A maglev train developed in the 70s which operated flawlessly for 40 years. Sadly there was no political willpower for it's realisation due to a very strong car lobby. I see the hyperloop as a modern spin on the Transrapid, and I'd pour all of our subsidies for Deutsche Bahn into it in a heartbeat.

himinlomax 6y ago
TGV runs very well, except for the weekly labor dispute that's completely orthogonal to the fact that it's not running in a vacuum. How you people believe the risk of explosive decompression will solve whatever problems a minority of high speed train systems have is beyond me.
- j-pb 6y ago
  1 bar is acutally not that bad. Hyoerloop pods are smaller, so less lives are at risk. And most importantly of all. It's not gonna be explosive, unless you rip the thing open with a bomb and you're right next to it. Even if you rip the tube in half, the air is going to take some time to fill it up. A few miles from the hole there will be a much more harmless pressure gradient already. Sure it might shake your capsule, but you're not gonna get shredded.
  - jankotek 6y ago
    Pressure wave moves at speed of sound. Lightweigh capsule gets destroyed just by derailing at 500mph. Any bad event will put down ALL trains on track. And rescuing people trapped in 100 miles long steel pipe... Hyperloop is a nightmare!
    - j-pb 6y ago
      See my above reply. Speed of sound doesn't mean much if there is a constantly softening gradient. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagen%E2%80%93Poiseuille_equation#Poiseuille's_equation_for_an_ideal_isothermal_gas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagen%E2%80%93Poiseuille_equ... Edit: To give a good analogy: Electricity also travels at the speed of light through a cable, however due to resistance you will get different current reading depending on where you measure.
  - tjpnz 6y ago
    >And most importantly of all. It's not gonna be explosive, unless you rip the thing open with a bomb and you're right next to it. And that's precisely what makes it unworkable with regards to safety. Burying the tubes is an option but by that point you would be looking at rail instead.

rkangel 6y ago

According to the original hyperloop paper (https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperl...) it is meant to be able to help with infrastructure costs. The main difference is that it is all much lighter than conventional rail. This means that you can build it on pylons over the ground, and continuously extrude carbon fibre to build the tunnel. In theory both land costs and construction costs should be much lower. That was the original paper though, I don't know how much of that is considered realistic now.

j-pb 6y ago
This! Pylons for the win!
rwmj 6y ago
The Shinkansen is built on pylons in many places especially where it goes over low-lying farmland and through cities, so I'm not sure this is a good reason.
dragonwriter 6y ago
But the bulk of the infrastructure cost difference of the original hyperloop paper vs. the CAHSR project it was offered against wasn't due to use of pylons, it was due to the fact that the proposed hyperloop didn't serve communities between the termini at all, and didn't come anywhere near the urban centers at either terminus. This, of course, also made it useless for literally any purpose.