4 ms·

Why do you presume less "lobby time"? I'd think a train twice as fast as a plane would inspire at least as much security theater.

by jjindev 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago
You should try a cruise ship sometime. It's amazing how easy it is to get in and out of different countries. Even getting on the ship is pretty easy. I don't think there'll be much security theatre until a train gets blown up - most of the theatre so far seems to be reactive. "An idiot has explosives in his shoes. He is so incompetent that he tries to light it with a match" and now everyone has to take their shoes off.
duaneb 13y ago
A train doesn't typically have explosive fuel, which renders it a pretty poor weapon.
- ajuc 13y ago
  Don't underestimate kinetic energy of a train going 340 meters per second.
  - dedward 13y ago
    Sure.. but you can't hijack it, redirect it to another location, then crash it into a populated area. You could perhaps... stop it? And if you really want to cause havoc messing with trains, you go for cargo trains filled with hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic chemicals.
    - ajuc 13y ago
      Yeah, I just meant energy is not the reason trains aren't used as weapons.
    - T-hawk 13y ago
      This sort of rational sensibility isn't going to stop the TSA from power-grabbing and mission-creeping their way into any new transportation system. They'll get their tendrils in the pie, sure as the sunrise. So will a million other government bureaucracies.
  - Florin_Andrei 13y ago
    > Don't underestimate kinetic energy of a train going 340 meters per second and then plowing into a strawberry field near Coalinga. Yeah, that's "a lot" of damage.
    - UnFleshedOne 13y ago
      Depending on the train, you could level a downtown of a small city: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-more-bodies-recovered-from-quebec-train-derailment-site-1.1368133 http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-more-bodies-recovered-from-...
  - revelation 13y ago
    Isn't the point that these things do not have much kinetic energy at all? The whole scheme wouldn't make sense if you still had to invest the same amount of power as for a conventional train.
    - SlyShy 13y ago
      Kinetic energy = 1/2 m * v^2. Hyperloop trains wouldn't have "much" less energy, because the scaling factor on velocity is so high that your savings on train weight don't mean much. You are right that it would take less power.
    - ajuc 13y ago
      Savings would be on the air friction, and the power you need to overcome it along the way.
  - marssaxman 13y ago
    ...which can't be aimed at anything but the train station...
    - a-priori 13y ago
      You'd be surprised. Just a week and a half ago ago a large section of Lac-Mégantic, a town east of Montreal, Quebec, was levelled by an unattended train that started rolling in the middle of the night. It was carrying a large load of oil, which ignited when the train derailed in the middle of the town. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_derailment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_derailment
jjindev 13y ago
It sounds like many of us here would streamline aircraft boarding. We might even have tech ideas for that. ... so we'll do it with trains because no one will stop us? (faulty social analysis)
alexhawdon 13y ago
That's a fair point - I think most of us are just currently hoping that it won't. I'd like to think that if Elon were running it (doesn't look like he wants to though), it wouldn't be a problem. He's a brilliant engineer who designs systems to overcome difficult problems. The 'security theatre' is just a consequence of an extremely poorly-designed system. I'm pretty sure someone like Elon could exploit modern sensing equipment and AI/ML techniques to build a system that is demonstrably better than, say, the TSA, and doesn't require anyone's personal space to be invaded. Who knows - maybe we'll get lucky and 'secure, 90 second check-in' be an integral feature of his design?!
georgemcbay 13y ago
Even if it did, the amount of "lobby time" would still be drastically lessened just based on frequency of departures and decoupling of passengers and elimination (presumably) of the checked baggage situation. TSA security checkpoints suck, but IME they "only" represent about 15 or so minutes of the extra time required for airport lobby time (on average; sometimes more sometimes less. Which is at least 14 minutes too many, but hardly the whole 1-4 hour overhead often cited). Most of the overhead of plane travel in terms of airport and tarmac waiting time is due to deadlocking problems that occur in coordinating all the passengers into a single vehicle that is as full as possible (to maximize the airline's profit per trip), so you get a very uneven/lumpy demand curve based on when flights are scheduled, all sorts of complexity due to the system of having to check bags into a separate physical compartment, etc. A continually operating system where you could just show up whenever, your bags stay with you for the ride, etc could easily smooth that out. Solve the deadlocking issue (and most of the hyperloop guesses I've seen do) and even if the security checkpoint stuff stays mostly the same you'll still have a far more efficient embark/disembark system.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  True. In Europe we don't have TSA and yet one still would be wise to arrive at least an hour before departure (if one has checked baggage; half an hour otherwise) to an airport which is usually located 30+ minutes from the center of the city. Times always add up like this - 0.5h to get to the airport, 1.5h on the airport, X h of flight and then up to 0.5h to leave the airport and another 0.5h to get to the city.

Why do you presume less "lobby time"? I'd think a train twice as fast as a plane would inspire at least as much security theater.

by jjindev 13y ago

Why do you presume less "lobby time"? I'd think a train twice as fast as a plane would inspire at least as much security theater.

DanBC 13y ago

You should try a cruise ship sometime. It's amazing how easy it is to get in and out of different countries. Even getting on the ship is pretty easy. I don't think there'll be much security theatre until a train gets blown up - most of the theatre so far seems to be reactive. "An idiot has explosives in his shoes. He is so incompetent that he tries to light it with a match" and now everyone has to take their shoes off.

duaneb 13y ago

A train doesn't typically have explosive fuel, which renders it a pretty poor weapon.

ajuc 13y ago
Don't underestimate kinetic energy of a train going 340 meters per second.
- dedward 13y ago
  Sure.. but you can't hijack it, redirect it to another location, then crash it into a populated area. You could perhaps... stop it? And if you really want to cause havoc messing with trains, you go for cargo trains filled with hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic chemicals.
  - ajuc 13y ago
    Yeah, I just meant energy is not the reason trains aren't used as weapons.
  - T-hawk 13y ago
    This sort of rational sensibility isn't going to stop the TSA from power-grabbing and mission-creeping their way into any new transportation system. They'll get their tendrils in the pie, sure as the sunrise. So will a million other government bureaucracies.
- Florin_Andrei 13y ago
  > Don't underestimate kinetic energy of a train going 340 meters per second and then plowing into a strawberry field near Coalinga. Yeah, that's "a lot" of damage.
  - UnFleshedOne 13y ago
    Depending on the train, you could level a downtown of a small city: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-more-bodies-recovered-from-quebec-train-derailment-site-1.1368133 http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/two-more-bodies-recovered-from-...
- revelation 13y ago
  Isn't the point that these things do not have much kinetic energy at all? The whole scheme wouldn't make sense if you still had to invest the same amount of power as for a conventional train.
  - SlyShy 13y ago
    Kinetic energy = 1/2 m * v^2. Hyperloop trains wouldn't have "much" less energy, because the scaling factor on velocity is so high that your savings on train weight don't mean much. You are right that it would take less power.
  - ajuc 13y ago
    Savings would be on the air friction, and the power you need to overcome it along the way.
- marssaxman 13y ago
  ...which can't be aimed at anything but the train station...
  - a-priori 13y ago
    You'd be surprised. Just a week and a half ago ago a large section of Lac-Mégantic, a town east of Montreal, Quebec, was levelled by an unattended train that started rolling in the middle of the night. It was carrying a large load of oil, which ignited when the train derailed in the middle of the town. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_derailment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_derailment

jjindev 13y ago

It sounds like many of us here would streamline aircraft boarding. We might even have tech ideas for that. ... so we'll do it with trains because no one will stop us? (faulty social analysis)

alexhawdon 13y ago

That's a fair point - I think most of us are just currently hoping that it won't. I'd like to think that if Elon were running it (doesn't look like he wants to though), it wouldn't be a problem. He's a brilliant engineer who designs systems to overcome difficult problems. The 'security theatre' is just a consequence of an extremely poorly-designed system. I'm pretty sure someone like Elon could exploit modern sensing equipment and AI/ML techniques to build a system that is demonstrably better than, say, the TSA, and doesn't require anyone's personal space to be invaded. Who knows - maybe we'll get lucky and 'secure, 90 second check-in' be an integral feature of his design?!

georgemcbay 13y ago

Even if it did, the amount of "lobby time" would still be drastically lessened just based on frequency of departures and decoupling of passengers and elimination (presumably) of the checked baggage situation. TSA security checkpoints suck, but IME they "only" represent about 15 or so minutes of the extra time required for airport lobby time (on average; sometimes more sometimes less. Which is at least 14 minutes too many, but hardly the whole 1-4 hour overhead often cited). Most of the overhead of plane travel in terms of airport and tarmac waiting time is due to deadlocking problems that occur in coordinating all the passengers into a single vehicle that is as full as possible (to maximize the airline's profit per trip), so you get a very uneven/lumpy demand curve based on when flights are scheduled, all sorts of complexity due to the system of having to check bags into a separate physical compartment, etc. A continually operating system where you could just show up whenever, your bags stay with you for the ride, etc could easily smooth that out. Solve the deadlocking issue (and most of the hyperloop guesses I've seen do) and even if the security checkpoint stuff stays mostly the same you'll still have a far more efficient embark/disembark system.

TeMPOraL 13y ago
True. In Europe we don't have TSA and yet one still would be wise to arrive at least an hour before departure (if one has checked baggage; half an hour otherwise) to an airport which is usually located 30+ minutes from the center of the city. Times always add up like this - 0.5h to get to the airport, 1.5h on the airport, X h of flight and then up to 0.5h to leave the airport and another 0.5h to get to the city.