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The typical consumer doesn't take the Northeast Regional or the Acela. People take Airplanes for speed, or cars/buses for cost. The Hyperloop, as proposed, wo

by cbr 13y ago

The typical consumer doesn't take the Northeast Regional or the Acela. People take Airplanes for speed, or cars/buses for cost. The Hyperloop, as proposed, would compete primarily with airplanes because it's so much faster than other ways of getting between those two cities. (Between Boston and NYC, the link I'd most likely take, the Acela is only marginally faster than the Regional. The improvements planned in CT look like they would help, but actually cut similar amounts of time off the two routes.)

dragontamer 13y ago
I call Northeast Regional "much slower" because its top speed is slower than the Acela. But at the end of the day, I think it ends up only being a 30 minute difference, because rarely do the trains actually go at their top speed (especially as they near NYC). IIRC, Northeast Regional is considered to be at capacity around NYC (where it services on the order of 100,000+ daily commutes). Anyway, the reason why this is being compared to railroads, is that the investment here is not measured only in dollars. When you build ground-based transportation of any kind, it necessitates blowing over some people's property... period. That is a real cost in people's livelihood, as the government forces people to move out of their homes to make room for the new road / railroad / hyperloop. So when we're talking about an entire "Hyperloop" system that can only service ~16k / day in theory (and probably much much less in practice), these numbers have to be weighed against the costs. True, both Railroads and Hyperloop suffer from this problem. But I bet you that the proposed California rail system will have significantly higher capacity... especially when the Rail system is going to connect up to the local metro systems. In fact, the High-speed rail system goes directly to Union Station in the heart of LA. Hyperloop doesn't have such plans. ----------------- Airplanes are magic stuff though, because they don't have these costs associated with them, and in practice Rail isn't much more efficient than Airplanes anyway. But the airways are crowding up between the cities, so building alternative means of travel is necessary now.

by cbr 13y ago

dragontamer 13y ago

I call Northeast Regional "much slower" because its top speed is slower than the Acela. But at the end of the day, I think it ends up only being a 30 minute difference, because rarely do the trains actually go at their top speed (especially as they near NYC). IIRC, Northeast Regional is considered to be at capacity around NYC (where it services on the order of 100,000+ daily commutes). Anyway, the reason why this is being compared to railroads, is that the investment here is not measured only in dollars. When you build ground-based transportation of any kind, it necessitates blowing over some people's property... period. That is a real cost in people's livelihood, as the government forces people to move out of their homes to make room for the new road / railroad / hyperloop. So when we're talking about an entire "Hyperloop" system that can only service ~16k / day in theory (and probably much much less in practice), these numbers have to be weighed against the costs. True, both Railroads and Hyperloop suffer from this problem. But I bet you that the proposed California rail system will have significantly higher capacity... especially when the Rail system is going to connect up to the local metro systems. In fact, the High-speed rail system goes directly to Union Station in the heart of LA. Hyperloop doesn't have such plans. ----------------- Airplanes are magic stuff though, because they don't have these costs associated with them, and in practice Rail isn't much more efficient than Airplanes anyway. But the airways are crowding up between the cities, so building alternative means of travel is necessary now.