10 ms·

New York to London in an hour - by train

161 points by tnhu 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
koenigdavidmj 14y ago
Link to the BBC article instead of the blogspam: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120601-high-speed-pipedreams http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120601-high-speed-pipedrea... Also, easy terrorist target.
- geekam 14y ago
  What makes current train system a more difficult target than these tubes?
  - untog 14y ago
    Not a more difficult target, just less of a damage multiplier, I suspect. Even in the high-speed train crashes of today deaths aren't too high. A train travelling at 2,500mph, however...
    - crazygringo 14y ago
      Really, how is this any different from airplanes? Just use equivalent security measures. Also, I wonder if it would be possible to have more frequent, smaller trains, e.g. airplane-sized. Then it doesn't seem like terrorism should be any "extra" consideration at all.
      - untog 14y ago
        Well, airplanes are a considerable distance up in the sky and incredibly difficult to reach. It's why the vast majority of plane-related "badness" happens shortly after takeoff or shortly before landing. Any land-based rail vacuum tunnel would not be protected in this way. An underwater one would be to an extent- I suppose it depends how deep it goes. But it's still a lot easier to drop something (say, a bomb) into water and let it sink than it is to fire it into the air and hit a plane.
      - Someone 14y ago
        5 times the speed = 25 times the kinetic energy (per kg). And that is for the 'slow' one. At 4000mph, it is more like 64 times. And yes, this only talks of a 6-person capsule, but I think you would need to send quite a few of them through that tube to make it economically feasible. You wouldn't need to bring explosives to destroy the tunnel. Just have enough to have a 10 kg or so part drop from one of those capsules.
  - archangel_one 14y ago
    Strikes me more that the potential for damage is higher here. A pretty small explosive charge would compromise part of the tube, and then what happens to the pods zipping along at 2,500mph inside them when the air comes rushing in? For that matter, if they did have an underwater tube connecting London and NYC, the water would come rushing in and you know that's not going to end well. It sounds pretty cool - it's the kind of sci-fi thing I'd love to see in the real world, but I can't believe it's as easy or as cheap as they're making it sound here.
    - crazygringo 14y ago
      Obviously the tube would have to be incredibly strong, since it will have to withstand the water pressure at whatever depth it's at. I'd be curious to see calculations on that, as well as repair costs. Also costs for land-based vs sea-based.
    - corin_ 14y ago
      We already have underwater tunnels for trains, such as the one between England and France - water would come crashing in regardless of whether there is air or a vacuum in the tunnel. It's not actually Futurama, the tunnel won't be train-sized and made of glass.
      - tedunangst 14y ago
        The chunnel is technically under rock, not under water. It's not exposed to the ocean.
        corin_ 14y ago
        Surely any tunnel built will be surrounded with rock/concrete as its structure, ultimately it will still be a case of people surrounded by solid material surrounded by water.
        archangel_one 14y ago
        They aren't going to dig a tunnel through rock all the way underneath the Atlantic - that's many times further than the Chunnel, and that was a serious undertaking. The article implied it'd be underwater.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    Scale of attack, amount of force required, social and economic impact of the accident. Look over a list of who the victims of the Titanic disaster were -- comparable in that it was the luxury travel alternative of its day. Jay Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Ida Straus (founder of Macy's), just to name a very few. The societal impact of the Titanic's loss was ... titanic. You wouldn't even need an explosive to foil the tube. Simply something to perturb the system slightly would disrupt it in a bad way. Even if only a single small transport were in the vicinity, any others in the tube would also be doomed (granted, at 1 hour/trip, headways would likely limit this to a very few instances). Trains are very robust. Conventional high-speed rail is a bit riskier, but even accidents such as on the German Eschede rail disaster (at 200kph) saw over 60% of the passengers survive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster
- citricsquid 14y ago
  in this case the blogspam serves a purpose, accessing the bbc.com story: "We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee."
  - evoxed 14y ago
    Wait, what now? You're blocked from reading a story, from inside the UK?
    - tomelders 14y ago
      I'm as shocked as you are. As a licence payer, I'll be sending a strongly worded letter to the management.
- jsprinkles 14y ago
  Safe to say that the terrorists have won, if the first eight comments on something as cool as this have to do with possible ways the terrorists can destroy it. What a depressing new era.
- grecy 14y ago
  > Also, easy terrorist target. What a shame this determination is made on so many "advancements" now. (I think it's complete nonsense to even mention)
  - duaneb 14y ago
    Before the terrorists it was the Communists - people are just contrarian.
- mooism2 14y ago
  Which terrorists are you worried about? If al Qaeda blows up a pressurised train tunnel, then yes they can kill lots of people, heap a big cash cost on the tunnel operator... but they don't get any impressive pictures to put on TV. If the IRA/ETA/etc blows up a pressurised train tunnel, they impose a big cash cost on their target, plus cause lots of disruption... but in terms of effort/risk/reward it's probably better for them to blow up conventional rail/road infrastructure in London/Madrid/wherever.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Good luck holding a vacuum under the ocean. I read stuff like this and I think, "Gee, I don't think these people have actually built anything." because if they had they would realize that if it costs $1M a foot too build subways [1] in cities with moderately skilled labor, its going to cost $10 - 25M/ft to build something like this. That's half a quadrillion dollars (448 trillion dollars). What sort or rate of return do you think you would need to make that feasible? I'd love someone to actually do a credible cost analysis of an evacuated tunnel train. Unfortunately I don't think Oster did. [1] http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/01/14/the-costs-of-second-ave-construction/ http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/01/14/the-costs-of-second-...
- jsprinkles 14y ago
  Daryl Oster's company has submitted proposals to Florida, at least, on building and maintaining a system such as this. I think part of the requirement for submitting such a proposal is at least a cursory cost analysis. Wikipedia reads a bit like the company wrote it itself, but: The firm fixed bid for the 96-mile (154 km) Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) system was $253M, this was less than one tenth of the cost of the bid by Global Rail Consortium to build electrified double track High Speed Rail for $2.6B. The bid by et3 contained letters of support by three entities in China to supply IP and key materials for the project. The engineering consultants hired by the authority did not dispute the validity of the et3 bid price or ETT technology, but recommended to eliminate the et3 bid from consideration for other reasons.[1] This comment doesn't pass judgment on whether Daryl Oster is a patent troll or not, but that's also a discussion worth having. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuated_Tube_Transport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuated_Tube_Transport
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    Would love to see how they costed that out. Given that I don't know of a single engineering company that can build straight up light rail track for at $2.5M/mile even if you give them the land for free. Edit: add this update -- Interestingly this link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts claims that the ET3 bid was 1.2B$ which is $12.5M/mile which is a lot more credible (still low though since the surrounding infrastructure to keep the tube evacuated, the mag lev stuff, etc all add cost over regular fused rail electrified service (which California is considering for its fast rail) and that is looking closer to $25M/mile in the current state of the art)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
theallan 14y ago
> In the BBC story, Oster says the train could be ready in less than 10 years. Haha! No chance. We might not even see the new link between London and Birmingham (HS2) before 2035, never mind one to New York!
charliepark 14y ago
A much tastier version: Maciej's "Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel": http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_t...
ctdonath 14y ago
Another megaproject supporting my theory there's a market for promoting - not building, just promoting - projects so large, expensive and outlandish that a small team can make a decent buck thereon. A miniscule percentage of half a quadrillion dollars nets a few million for research, marketing & salaries.
moocow01 14y ago
I never have understood people's fears about getting on an airplane... this though I'd be scared to death of. You have any unfortunate shift in the tectonic plates (which happens daily and unpredictably) and you could be dead in an instant.
- marquis 14y ago
  I gather that the intent is to tether the tunnel. I've seen how cables are run in tectonic-active areas: they are provided a certain elasticity and I imagine it would be similar. Earthquakes don't move much more than a few meters at a time (for a very very large event). How would this be any different than the Chunnel? My own comment on this article: "getting to, from and through airports is very time consuming" I don't see how this would be any less time consuming. Security would be an equal nightmare - the only benefit would be that the citizens can utilize NYC/Londons existing transport infrastructure much like it's easier to get to the Chunnel departure station than it is to get to Gatwick.
  - regularfry 14y ago
    The Chunnel doesn't cross a fault line.
    - marquis 14y ago
      Perhaps nothing considered imminently dangerous but they do exist nearby, and fault lines can spread given the right conditions: http://www.esri.com/news/arcwatch/0210/graphics/investigating1-lg.jpg http://www.esri.com/news/arcwatch/0210/graphics/investigatin...
  - ralfd 14y ago
    Oh, yes, security! Strange this isn't discussed more. While a bomb in an airplane is bad enough imagine what a ripped vacuum tube under the ocean will do! Such a tube will be a high profile target for terrorism and an incident/accident would block/destroy the whole traffic.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
drudru11 14y ago
This is just like Gene Roddenberry's old show Genesis II from 1973. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_II_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_II_(film) I saw it when I was a kid and I thought it was awesome!
- gojomo 14y ago
  Yep, globe-spanning underground maglev/vactrains, which in the future-history of Genesis II (1973) and Planet Earth (1974) had been built in the late 20th-century and survived world war to be still working over a hundred years later. The sci-fi of the past was way too optimistic about giant-scale engineering projects at the same time it was blind to advances and trends in communications and computer-mediated collaboration.
jaysonelliot 14y ago
As a longtime gamer, this article really struck a chord with me. Dragon magazine used to print playable adventures, and in August 1981 (I just went and looked it up), there was a Gamma World adventure called "Cavern of the Sub-Train." The player characters in their post-apocalyptic world come across a abandoned series of tunnels they can't explain, but which are described for the game master in the notes: The system once spanned the North American continent and was used primarily as a method of high-speed transportation of freight. The sub-train system is something like a 20th-century subway system, in that it consists of a self-propelled train moving through an underground tunnel. Unlike the 20th- century system, however, the “trains” moved through a vacuum while being supported on super-conducting magnetic rails at very high speeds.
- paulsutter 14y ago
  Thanks for your post. Having big dreams of the future is crucial to making that future happen. Many posts below are trying to prove how smart they by focusing on near term impracticalities. Sure it's impractical today. That's already proven by the fact that it is not already under construction. The surest way to be wrong is to say something can never be done. I'm not even advocating this is a good solution. I have no idea if it will ever be possible. But I enjoy seeing that some people are thinking big.
netrus 14y ago
The Concorde made day-trips US/Europe possible, but had to face the fact that there simply is no satisfying market for such high prices. And submarine vacuum trains would be much more expensive than a plane on steroids.
ableal 14y ago
The book title A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! has stuck to my memory. It's a 1972 SF (alternate history branch) novel by Harry Harrison, featuring a vacuum/maglev system. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel, including reference to Goddard patents on the subject.
- cpeterso 14y ago
  Transatlantic Tunnel is a 1932 SF film about a strong-willed engineer determined to complete an underwater train route from London to New York. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027131/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027131/
Jabbles 14y ago
I feel that the headline would be better if phrased as a question.
arjunnarayan 14y ago
Much cheaper to go the suborbital flight route. Anywhere on earth to anywhere on earth in 2 hours. Less infrastructure required. (And today anything requiring massive governmental infrastructure commitments is doomed to fail) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-point_sub-orbital_spaceflight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-point_sub-orbital_spac...
- btilly 14y ago
  Cheaper? You have much greater energy losses from atmospheric drag, firing hot gas out of your back end is far less efficient method of acceleration than electromagnetic propulsion, and you can use regenerative braking. In theory setting this up should be much cheaper than high volumes of suborbital flights. Of course neither is actually feasible.
_delirium 14y ago
This idea's been proposed on and off for some decades, and is definitely intriguing. The crucial problem, though, doesn't seem to be the technology per se (though there are undoubtedly large risks there, too), but the back-of-an-envelope economics being anywhere near sensible enough for someone to dedicate serious money to it. Before anyone is going to build a London-to-NYC line, my guess is that you'd have to first show some kind of much smaller-scale demonstration, like how there were test maglev lines built. In a quick Google Scholar search, I turn up a 1974 article on "Surface-guided transport systems of the future" (http://dx.doi.org/10.1049/piee.1974.0277 http://dx.doi.org/10.1049/piee.1974.0277, unfortunately not open access), where evacuated-tube transport gets a mention, but under this less-than-enthusiastic banner: A brief mention is given of other less likely transport systems, such as travel in an evacuated tube beneath or above the ground.
gouranga 14y ago
When that breaks, it's going to make a mess. 6 humans in, various bits of popped human coming out...
- marshray 14y ago
  At 4000 MPH? There probably wouldn't be anything left. The kinetic energy in a train going that fast would likely have military scale destructive power.
rorrr 14y ago
Considering all the problems BP had plugging one hole during Deepwater Horizon oil spill at the depth of only 1,100 m, I'd say this project is currently science fiction.
kaffeinecoma 14y ago
My first reaction to this was that they'd never be able to engineer a sturdy/safe tube across the ocean. Then I thought about the transatlantic telegraph cable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable)- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable)- it was first built way back in 1858. That blows my mind.
melling 14y ago
I live in NJ, about 4 miles away from my office in Manhattan and I have a 45 commute. Can anyone figure out how to solve that problem? It's a lot of fun to kill the afternoon talking about something that's never gonna happen. In the meantime, millions of people are wasting days a year crawling to and from work.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Get a pushbike. Persuade everyone you know to get a pushbike. Make them persuade everyone they know to get a pushbike. Start a campaign for people to only use their cars if they i) Have to or ii) are travelling over 10 miles. Make workplaces have facilities for cyclists. (Perhaps going as far as treating car-parking spaces as a taxable perk). Make schools have facilities for cyclists. Make shops have facilities for cyclists. Persuade the bad cyclists to stop being idiots. etc.
  - iwejfweoifjweif 14y ago
    There is a river in between. You would need to bike up to the George Washington assuming he lives in Hoboken and commute to Midtown. Either way you go from a 45 minute commute to maybe a 2-3 hour commute if you are lucky. Even worse since now using a bike his commute is ~20 miles instead of the 4 in the first place.
    - mertd 14y ago
      Excuses... I don't even live in NYC and yet it took me 1 minute to find a better option: take the ferry (bikes are allowed). http://goo.gl/maps/ssB0 http://goo.gl/maps/ssB0. I bet on a good day you can cycle this route under 30 minutes including the ferry ride.
      - melling 14y ago
        That'll cost 3x more than the bus, and it doesn't scale. http://www.nywaterway.com/hoboken14throute.aspx http://www.nywaterway.com/hoboken14throute.aspx There are hundreds of thousands of people who cross the river every day. Thanks for taking 1 minute. Can anyone solve the real problem?
patrickgzill 14y ago
No mention of nuclear-powered "subterrenes"? I am disappointed ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterrene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterrene
StephenFalken 14y ago
I remember seeing a Discovery documentary named "Extreme Engineering: Trans-Atlantic Tunnel" that precisely details this concept. It's available online in five parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frYWTrEfPRs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frYWTrEfPRs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKaVQ5Tt_Zk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKaVQ5Tt_Zk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zci_6AOCAo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zci_6AOCAo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2c6vzcmULU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2c6vzcmULU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoPI2doRkgA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoPI2doRkgA
kleiba 14y ago
What could possibly go wrong?
mukaiji 14y ago
if we can't get our shit together to connect SF to LA with what amounts to 40-years-old-bullet train technology, what makes this people think they can get this crazy stuff done between NY and LA? sounds a lot like my research group meetings. Lots of fascinating stuff. Zero chance of ever making it out of the lab in the near future.
DHowett 14y ago
Wouldn't transporting humans at 2,500 - 4,000 mph kill them? It seems like the body would not react well to beginning or ending transit at such velocities.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  I imagine you accelerate evenly for the first half, turn the chairs around and decelerate evenly for the second half.
- techiferous 14y ago
  Velocity is imperceptible, since it depends on a frame of reference. For example, I'm traveling at about 700mph around the center of the Earth because of the Earth's rotation. Acceleration is perceptible, because it is felt as a force. So it really depends on how quickly people are accelerated to 2500mph. If you accelerate at 22mph per second, this is equivalent to 1G, which could be relatively comfortable. It would take 2 minutes to reach 2500mph.
f0untain 14y ago
"The most ideal implementations would be between cities separated by dry, flat unpopulated terrain that doesn’t freeze, he notes, adding that China and India hold the most promise." It doesn't make sense. terrain between China and India is completely opposite, Not Flat, Populated and Freeze (himalayas)
jboggan 14y ago
gem 'maglev', '2.3.1' gem 'vacuum', '0.2' gem 'unicorn-skittles', '3.1.4'
Schweigi 14y ago
There was already a proposal to do this in Switzerland. A Maglev train driving in vacuum. Unfortunately they are not really progressing because of money and politic reasons. General: http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/home http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/home Technology: http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/content/technology http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/content/technology
WalterBright 14y ago
I wonder how they'd deal with crossing between the continental plates - the movement of the plates, the magma, etc.
mkramlich 14y ago
I've met Daryl Oster, the guy behind ET3, even contributed a few ideas crudely sketched out on a notebook -- stuff I'm sure somebody involved had already considered. Anyway, he seemed nice, smart, legit. I really love the basic idea and goals of ET3. I was a little bit concerned that it wasn't farther along in terms of implementation versus theory. But he did say that he's worked with folks in China and they were generally much more receptive to it there, whereas in the US there's more bureaucracy and legacy inertia. There's right-of-way issues, NIMBY, legal stuff. I think all the edge case scenarios are riskiest -- those need to be addressed in the design, if they can be, things like what happens if a tube is pierced, what happens if a passenger has a crisis and needs to get out of it quickly, etc. But the basic physics of it are pretty attractive because of the efficiencies and economies of scale.
VDegesys 14y ago
I'm absolutely fascinated by the difference in responses I see on HN versus talking to my friends (liberal arts). They were concerned with the future implications for cultural integrity as well as how it would effect labor forces and capitalism as a whole. Any thoughts? I, for one, think this technology is awesome and think it could follow the progression that the train system went through in the US (transcontinental railroad, expanding, webbing out, lightrail, subways, trams, metros, etc) and see this as a possible next step in the evolution of transportation.
- gaius 14y ago
  What is "cultural integrity"?
  - VDegesys 14y ago
    the idea of maintaining your cultural identity, rather than completely assimilating to a dominant culture.
akavel 14y ago
Oh, sweet, a chance to link to xkcd: Researcher Translation again :D http://xkcd.com/678 http://xkcd.com/678
mokkai 14y ago
Oh Dear! Does this mean I can no longer have quality time listening to music, reading, watch birds etc.. during my long distance journeys.
UIZealot 14y ago
Doesn't a gravity train actually seem more appropriate here? It doesn't need to go through the center of the earth in this case, and is shorter distance than a tunnel. The only problem is it probably takes a lot longer to build.
flyinRyan 14y ago
It seems the media blitz in the west has had the intended effect when so many people respond to such an idea with "but turrerists!". Driving cars on the highway is a much higher risk to your safety than terrorists ever were or ever will be. Don't give up on the future because of paranoia and irrational fear.

161 points by tnhu 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Link to the BBC article instead of the blogspam: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120601-high-speed-pipedreams http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120601-high-speed-pipedrea... Also, easy terrorist target.

geekam 14y ago
What makes current train system a more difficult target than these tubes?
- untog 14y ago
  Not a more difficult target, just less of a damage multiplier, I suspect. Even in the high-speed train crashes of today deaths aren't too high. A train travelling at 2,500mph, however...
  - crazygringo 14y ago
    Really, how is this any different from airplanes? Just use equivalent security measures. Also, I wonder if it would be possible to have more frequent, smaller trains, e.g. airplane-sized. Then it doesn't seem like terrorism should be any "extra" consideration at all.
    - untog 14y ago
      Well, airplanes are a considerable distance up in the sky and incredibly difficult to reach. It's why the vast majority of plane-related "badness" happens shortly after takeoff or shortly before landing. Any land-based rail vacuum tunnel would not be protected in this way. An underwater one would be to an extent- I suppose it depends how deep it goes. But it's still a lot easier to drop something (say, a bomb) into water and let it sink than it is to fire it into the air and hit a plane.
    - Someone 14y ago
      5 times the speed = 25 times the kinetic energy (per kg). And that is for the 'slow' one. At 4000mph, it is more like 64 times. And yes, this only talks of a 6-person capsule, but I think you would need to send quite a few of them through that tube to make it economically feasible. You wouldn't need to bring explosives to destroy the tunnel. Just have enough to have a 10 kg or so part drop from one of those capsules.
- archangel_one 14y ago
  Strikes me more that the potential for damage is higher here. A pretty small explosive charge would compromise part of the tube, and then what happens to the pods zipping along at 2,500mph inside them when the air comes rushing in? For that matter, if they did have an underwater tube connecting London and NYC, the water would come rushing in and you know that's not going to end well. It sounds pretty cool - it's the kind of sci-fi thing I'd love to see in the real world, but I can't believe it's as easy or as cheap as they're making it sound here.
  - crazygringo 14y ago
    Obviously the tube would have to be incredibly strong, since it will have to withstand the water pressure at whatever depth it's at. I'd be curious to see calculations on that, as well as repair costs. Also costs for land-based vs sea-based.
  - corin_ 14y ago
    We already have underwater tunnels for trains, such as the one between England and France - water would come crashing in regardless of whether there is air or a vacuum in the tunnel. It's not actually Futurama, the tunnel won't be train-sized and made of glass.
    - tedunangst 14y ago
      The chunnel is technically under rock, not under water. It's not exposed to the ocean.
      - corin_ 14y ago
        Surely any tunnel built will be surrounded with rock/concrete as its structure, ultimately it will still be a case of people surrounded by solid material surrounded by water.
        archangel_one 14y ago
        They aren't going to dig a tunnel through rock all the way underneath the Atlantic - that's many times further than the Chunnel, and that was a serious undertaking. The article implied it'd be underwater.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  Scale of attack, amount of force required, social and economic impact of the accident. Look over a list of who the victims of the Titanic disaster were -- comparable in that it was the luxury travel alternative of its day. Jay Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim, Ida Straus (founder of Macy's), just to name a very few. The societal impact of the Titanic's loss was ... titanic. You wouldn't even need an explosive to foil the tube. Simply something to perturb the system slightly would disrupt it in a bad way. Even if only a single small transport were in the vicinity, any others in the tube would also be doomed (granted, at 1 hour/trip, headways would likely limit this to a very few instances). Trains are very robust. Conventional high-speed rail is a bit riskier, but even accidents such as on the German Eschede rail disaster (at 200kph) saw over 60% of the passengers survive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschede_train_disaster
citricsquid 14y ago
in this case the blogspam serves a purpose, accessing the bbc.com story: "We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee."
- evoxed 14y ago
  Wait, what now? You're blocked from reading a story, from inside the UK?
  - tomelders 14y ago
    I'm as shocked as you are. As a licence payer, I'll be sending a strongly worded letter to the management.
jsprinkles 14y ago
Safe to say that the terrorists have won, if the first eight comments on something as cool as this have to do with possible ways the terrorists can destroy it. What a depressing new era.
grecy 14y ago
> Also, easy terrorist target. What a shame this determination is made on so many "advancements" now. (I think it's complete nonsense to even mention)
- duaneb 14y ago
  Before the terrorists it was the Communists - people are just contrarian.
mooism2 14y ago
Which terrorists are you worried about? If al Qaeda blows up a pressurised train tunnel, then yes they can kill lots of people, heap a big cash cost on the tunnel operator... but they don't get any impressive pictures to put on TV. If the IRA/ETA/etc blows up a pressurised train tunnel, they impose a big cash cost on their target, plus cause lots of disruption... but in terms of effort/risk/reward it's probably better for them to blow up conventional rail/road infrastructure in London/Madrid/wherever.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Good luck holding a vacuum under the ocean. I read stuff like this and I think, "Gee, I don't think these people have actually built anything." because if they had they would realize that if it costs $1M a foot too build subways [1] in cities with moderately skilled labor, its going to cost $10 - 25M/ft to build something like this. That's half a quadrillion dollars (448 trillion dollars). What sort or rate of return do you think you would need to make that feasible? I'd love someone to actually do a credible cost analysis of an evacuated tunnel train. Unfortunately I don't think Oster did. [1] http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/01/14/the-costs-of-second-ave-construction/ http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/01/14/the-costs-of-second-...

jsprinkles 14y ago
Daryl Oster's company has submitted proposals to Florida, at least, on building and maintaining a system such as this. I think part of the requirement for submitting such a proposal is at least a cursory cost analysis. Wikipedia reads a bit like the company wrote it itself, but: The firm fixed bid for the 96-mile (154 km) Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) system was $253M, this was less than one tenth of the cost of the bid by Global Rail Consortium to build electrified double track High Speed Rail for $2.6B. The bid by et3 contained letters of support by three entities in China to supply IP and key materials for the project. The engineering consultants hired by the authority did not dispute the validity of the et3 bid price or ETT technology, but recommended to eliminate the et3 bid from consideration for other reasons.[1] This comment doesn't pass judgment on whether Daryl Oster is a patent troll or not, but that's also a discussion worth having. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuated_Tube_Transport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuated_Tube_Transport
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Would love to see how they costed that out. Given that I don't know of a single engineering company that can build straight up light rail track for at $2.5M/mile even if you give them the land for free. Edit: add this update -- Interestingly this link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts claims that the ET3 bid was 1.2B$ which is $12.5M/mile which is a lot more credible (still low though since the surrounding infrastructure to keep the tube evacuated, the mag lev stuff, etc all add cost over regular fused rail electrified service (which California is considering for its fast rail) and that is looking closer to $25M/mile in the current state of the art)

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theallan 14y ago

> In the BBC story, Oster says the train could be ready in less than 10 years. Haha! No chance. We might not even see the new link between London and Birmingham (HS2) before 2035, never mind one to New York!

charliepark 14y ago

A much tastier version: Maciej's "Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel": http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_t...

ctdonath 14y ago

Another megaproject supporting my theory there's a market for promoting - not building, just promoting - projects so large, expensive and outlandish that a small team can make a decent buck thereon. A miniscule percentage of half a quadrillion dollars nets a few million for research, marketing & salaries.

moocow01 14y ago

I never have understood people's fears about getting on an airplane... this though I'd be scared to death of. You have any unfortunate shift in the tectonic plates (which happens daily and unpredictably) and you could be dead in an instant.

marquis 14y ago
I gather that the intent is to tether the tunnel. I've seen how cables are run in tectonic-active areas: they are provided a certain elasticity and I imagine it would be similar. Earthquakes don't move much more than a few meters at a time (for a very very large event). How would this be any different than the Chunnel? My own comment on this article: "getting to, from and through airports is very time consuming" I don't see how this would be any less time consuming. Security would be an equal nightmare - the only benefit would be that the citizens can utilize NYC/Londons existing transport infrastructure much like it's easier to get to the Chunnel departure station than it is to get to Gatwick.
- regularfry 14y ago
  The Chunnel doesn't cross a fault line.
  - marquis 14y ago
    Perhaps nothing considered imminently dangerous but they do exist nearby, and fault lines can spread given the right conditions: http://www.esri.com/news/arcwatch/0210/graphics/investigating1-lg.jpg http://www.esri.com/news/arcwatch/0210/graphics/investigatin...
- ralfd 14y ago
  Oh, yes, security! Strange this isn't discussed more. While a bomb in an airplane is bad enough imagine what a ripped vacuum tube under the ocean will do! Such a tube will be a high profile target for terrorism and an incident/accident would block/destroy the whole traffic.
pavel_lishin 14y ago

drudru11 14y ago

This is just like Gene Roddenberry's old show Genesis II from 1973. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_II_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_II_(film) I saw it when I was a kid and I thought it was awesome!

gojomo 14y ago
Yep, globe-spanning underground maglev/vactrains, which in the future-history of Genesis II (1973) and Planet Earth (1974) had been built in the late 20th-century and survived world war to be still working over a hundred years later. The sci-fi of the past was way too optimistic about giant-scale engineering projects at the same time it was blind to advances and trends in communications and computer-mediated collaboration.

jaysonelliot 14y ago

As a longtime gamer, this article really struck a chord with me. Dragon magazine used to print playable adventures, and in August 1981 (I just went and looked it up), there was a Gamma World adventure called "Cavern of the Sub-Train." The player characters in their post-apocalyptic world come across a abandoned series of tunnels they can't explain, but which are described for the game master in the notes: The system once spanned the North American continent and was used primarily as a method of high-speed transportation of freight. The sub-train system is something like a 20th-century subway system, in that it consists of a self-propelled train moving through an underground tunnel. Unlike the 20th- century system, however, the “trains” moved through a vacuum while being supported on super-conducting magnetic rails at very high speeds.

paulsutter 14y ago
Thanks for your post. Having big dreams of the future is crucial to making that future happen. Many posts below are trying to prove how smart they by focusing on near term impracticalities. Sure it's impractical today. That's already proven by the fact that it is not already under construction. The surest way to be wrong is to say something can never be done. I'm not even advocating this is a good solution. I have no idea if it will ever be possible. But I enjoy seeing that some people are thinking big.

netrus 14y ago

The Concorde made day-trips US/Europe possible, but had to face the fact that there simply is no satisfying market for such high prices. And submarine vacuum trains would be much more expensive than a plane on steroids.

ableal 14y ago

The book title A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah! has stuck to my memory. It's a 1972 SF (alternate history branch) novel by Harry Harrison, featuring a vacuum/maglev system. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_tunnel, including reference to Goddard patents on the subject.

cpeterso 14y ago
Transatlantic Tunnel is a 1932 SF film about a strong-willed engineer determined to complete an underwater train route from London to New York. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027131/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027131/

Jabbles 14y ago

I feel that the headline would be better if phrased as a question.

arjunnarayan 14y ago

Much cheaper to go the suborbital flight route. Anywhere on earth to anywhere on earth in 2 hours. Less infrastructure required. (And today anything requiring massive governmental infrastructure commitments is doomed to fail) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-point_sub-orbital_spaceflight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-point_sub-orbital_spac...

btilly 14y ago
Cheaper? You have much greater energy losses from atmospheric drag, firing hot gas out of your back end is far less efficient method of acceleration than electromagnetic propulsion, and you can use regenerative braking. In theory setting this up should be much cheaper than high volumes of suborbital flights. Of course neither is actually feasible.

_delirium 14y ago

This idea's been proposed on and off for some decades, and is definitely intriguing. The crucial problem, though, doesn't seem to be the technology per se (though there are undoubtedly large risks there, too), but the back-of-an-envelope economics being anywhere near sensible enough for someone to dedicate serious money to it. Before anyone is going to build a London-to-NYC line, my guess is that you'd have to first show some kind of much smaller-scale demonstration, like how there were test maglev lines built. In a quick Google Scholar search, I turn up a 1974 article on "Surface-guided transport systems of the future" (http://dx.doi.org/10.1049/piee.1974.0277 http://dx.doi.org/10.1049/piee.1974.0277, unfortunately not open access), where evacuated-tube transport gets a mention, but under this less-than-enthusiastic banner: A brief mention is given of other less likely transport systems, such as travel in an evacuated tube beneath or above the ground.

gouranga 14y ago

When that breaks, it's going to make a mess. 6 humans in, various bits of popped human coming out...

marshray 14y ago
At 4000 MPH? There probably wouldn't be anything left. The kinetic energy in a train going that fast would likely have military scale destructive power.

rorrr 14y ago

Considering all the problems BP had plugging one hole during Deepwater Horizon oil spill at the depth of only 1,100 m, I'd say this project is currently science fiction.

kaffeinecoma 14y ago

My first reaction to this was that they'd never be able to engineer a sturdy/safe tube across the ocean. Then I thought about the transatlantic telegraph cable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable)- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable)- it was first built way back in 1858. That blows my mind.

melling 14y ago

I live in NJ, about 4 miles away from my office in Manhattan and I have a 45 commute. Can anyone figure out how to solve that problem? It's a lot of fun to kill the afternoon talking about something that's never gonna happen. In the meantime, millions of people are wasting days a year crawling to and from work.

DanBC 14y ago
Get a pushbike. Persuade everyone you know to get a pushbike. Make them persuade everyone they know to get a pushbike. Start a campaign for people to only use their cars if they i) Have to or ii) are travelling over 10 miles. Make workplaces have facilities for cyclists. (Perhaps going as far as treating car-parking spaces as a taxable perk). Make schools have facilities for cyclists. Make shops have facilities for cyclists. Persuade the bad cyclists to stop being idiots. etc.
- iwejfweoifjweif 14y ago
  There is a river in between. You would need to bike up to the George Washington assuming he lives in Hoboken and commute to Midtown. Either way you go from a 45 minute commute to maybe a 2-3 hour commute if you are lucky. Even worse since now using a bike his commute is ~20 miles instead of the 4 in the first place.
  - mertd 14y ago
    Excuses... I don't even live in NYC and yet it took me 1 minute to find a better option: take the ferry (bikes are allowed). http://goo.gl/maps/ssB0 http://goo.gl/maps/ssB0. I bet on a good day you can cycle this route under 30 minutes including the ferry ride.
    - melling 14y ago
      That'll cost 3x more than the bus, and it doesn't scale. http://www.nywaterway.com/hoboken14throute.aspx http://www.nywaterway.com/hoboken14throute.aspx There are hundreds of thousands of people who cross the river every day. Thanks for taking 1 minute. Can anyone solve the real problem?

patrickgzill 14y ago

No mention of nuclear-powered "subterrenes"? I am disappointed ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterrene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subterrene

StephenFalken 14y ago

I remember seeing a Discovery documentary named "Extreme Engineering: Trans-Atlantic Tunnel" that precisely details this concept. It's available online in five parts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frYWTrEfPRs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frYWTrEfPRs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKaVQ5Tt_Zk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKaVQ5Tt_Zk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zci_6AOCAo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zci_6AOCAo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2c6vzcmULU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2c6vzcmULU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoPI2doRkgA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoPI2doRkgA

kleiba 14y ago

What could possibly go wrong?

mukaiji 14y ago

if we can't get our shit together to connect SF to LA with what amounts to 40-years-old-bullet train technology, what makes this people think they can get this crazy stuff done between NY and LA? sounds a lot like my research group meetings. Lots of fascinating stuff. Zero chance of ever making it out of the lab in the near future.

DHowett 14y ago

Wouldn't transporting humans at 2,500 - 4,000 mph kill them? It seems like the body would not react well to beginning or ending transit at such velocities.

jacques_chester 14y ago
I imagine you accelerate evenly for the first half, turn the chairs around and decelerate evenly for the second half.
techiferous 14y ago
Velocity is imperceptible, since it depends on a frame of reference. For example, I'm traveling at about 700mph around the center of the Earth because of the Earth's rotation. Acceleration is perceptible, because it is felt as a force. So it really depends on how quickly people are accelerated to 2500mph. If you accelerate at 22mph per second, this is equivalent to 1G, which could be relatively comfortable. It would take 2 minutes to reach 2500mph.

f0untain 14y ago

"The most ideal implementations would be between cities separated by dry, flat unpopulated terrain that doesn’t freeze, he notes, adding that China and India hold the most promise." It doesn't make sense. terrain between China and India is completely opposite, Not Flat, Populated and Freeze (himalayas)

jboggan 14y ago

gem 'maglev', '2.3.1' gem 'vacuum', '0.2' gem 'unicorn-skittles', '3.1.4'

Schweigi 14y ago

There was already a proposal to do this in Switzerland. A Maglev train driving in vacuum. Unfortunately they are not really progressing because of money and politic reasons. General: http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/home http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/home Technology: http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/content/technology http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/content/technology

WalterBright 14y ago

I wonder how they'd deal with crossing between the continental plates - the movement of the plates, the magma, etc.

mkramlich 14y ago

I've met Daryl Oster, the guy behind ET3, even contributed a few ideas crudely sketched out on a notebook -- stuff I'm sure somebody involved had already considered. Anyway, he seemed nice, smart, legit. I really love the basic idea and goals of ET3. I was a little bit concerned that it wasn't farther along in terms of implementation versus theory. But he did say that he's worked with folks in China and they were generally much more receptive to it there, whereas in the US there's more bureaucracy and legacy inertia. There's right-of-way issues, NIMBY, legal stuff. I think all the edge case scenarios are riskiest -- those need to be addressed in the design, if they can be, things like what happens if a tube is pierced, what happens if a passenger has a crisis and needs to get out of it quickly, etc. But the basic physics of it are pretty attractive because of the efficiencies and economies of scale.

VDegesys 14y ago

I'm absolutely fascinated by the difference in responses I see on HN versus talking to my friends (liberal arts). They were concerned with the future implications for cultural integrity as well as how it would effect labor forces and capitalism as a whole. Any thoughts? I, for one, think this technology is awesome and think it could follow the progression that the train system went through in the US (transcontinental railroad, expanding, webbing out, lightrail, subways, trams, metros, etc) and see this as a possible next step in the evolution of transportation.

gaius 14y ago
What is "cultural integrity"?
- VDegesys 14y ago
  the idea of maintaining your cultural identity, rather than completely assimilating to a dominant culture.

akavel 14y ago

Oh, sweet, a chance to link to xkcd: Researcher Translation again :D http://xkcd.com/678 http://xkcd.com/678

mokkai 14y ago

Oh Dear! Does this mean I can no longer have quality time listening to music, reading, watch birds etc.. during my long distance journeys.

UIZealot 14y ago

Doesn't a gravity train actually seem more appropriate here? It doesn't need to go through the center of the earth in this case, and is shorter distance than a tunnel. The only problem is it probably takes a lot longer to build.

flyinRyan 14y ago

It seems the media blitz in the west has had the intended effect when so many people respond to such an idea with "but turrerists!". Driving cars on the highway is a much higher risk to your safety than terrorists ever were or ever will be. Don't give up on the future because of paranoia and irrational fear.