Gas and oil pipelines typically use expansion loops to handle thermal expansion/contraction by flexing the pipe: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/PipelineExpan

Gas and oil pipelines typically use expansion loops to handle thermal expansion/contraction by flexing the pipe: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/PipelineExpansionLoop/ http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/PipelineExpansionLoop/ Because the hyperloop cars are discrete (as opposed to the continuous flow in a pipeline), I'd expect them to cause a lot of stress on the pipeline walls if they had to run around the bends in an expansion loop.