Why Ultra-Efficient 4,000 mph Vacuum-Tube Trains Aren't Being Built

cylonlover writes "In the 1800s, when pneumatic tubes shot telegrams and small items all around buildings and sometimes small cities, the future of mass transit seemed clear: we'd be firing people around through these sealed tubes at high speeds. And it turns out we've got the technology to do that today – mag-lev rail lines remove all rolling friction from the energy equation for a train, and accelerating them through a vacuum tunnel can eliminate wind resistance to the point where it's theoretically possible to reach blistering speeds over 4,000 mph (6,437 km/h) using a fraction of the energy an airliner uses – and recapturing a lot of that energy upon deceleration. Ultra-fast, high efficiency ground transport is technologically within reach – so why isn't anybody building it? This article looks into some of the problems."

Comments

Ultra-efficient first post

[Anonymous Coward]

I am better that Slashdot than you are.

Re:Ultra-efficient first post

[MRe_nl]

I'm not half as think as you drunk I am.

Re:Ultra-efficient first post

[bdabautcb]

Yea I am drunk, and I still can't read gizmag articles on my linux netbook because their big gay ads wont scroll below the resolution of my screen. From what I gather here, I'm not missing much. Thanks editors!

Re:Ultra-efficient first post

[monkeyhybrid]

I don't see any big adverts on my screen when viewing the article but I do come across design problems like that from time to time. Can't you just zoom out (ctrl -) to get past it or close it though?

Re:Ultra-efficient first post

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, diphthong, that fucking comment is a -1 Flamebait comment. He fucks his dogs. The man is a dog-fucker

Re:Ultra-efficient first post

[Barsteward]

"I'm not half as think as you drunk I am."

Yoda, is that you?

Re:Ultra-efficient first post

[mug funky]

xrandr --output LVDS1 --scale 1.25x1.2

does it for me - turns a 1024x600 screen into a 1280x720, at the cost of a little blurriness.

of course, in the latest linuxes, mouse cursor bounds are set to your original size, so you can't get the mouse cursor into all that extra screen space...

Re:Ultra-efficient first post

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea I am drunk, and I still can't read gizmag articles on my linux netbook because their big gay ads wont scroll below the resolution of my screen. From what I gather here, I'm not missing much. Thanks editors!

Dont you just love targeted advertising?

Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the simple-minded mythology that people create for themselves is just that: feel-good pseudo-engineering that makes no sense whatsoever.

The same goes for the delusional fever-dream '70s space colonization nonsense. Never, ever going to happen. Ever.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, like aeroplanes and submarines...

If you don't reach for the stars you will never get there, if you try, you might.

Re:Simple

[vlm]

Because the simple-minded mythology that people create for themselves is just that: feel-good pseudo-engineering that makes no sense whatsoever.

For an AC that was a brilliant post. However a little brief. As a "real engineer" who can do estimation and think thru technical problems the biggest problem is the vacuum tube is a waste of money and time and land. For a much smaller scale example you could reduce the "indicated air speed" as a pilot would call it of the TGV in France merely by installing gigawatts worth of walmart kitchen fans pointing such that the train gets a nice tailwind. However if you run the numbers it turns out you can get the same performance increase with merely megawatts of extra train power. Similarly, you could invest in terawatts of distributed vacuum pumps, but it turns out you can go just as fast merely by using gigawatts of train power...

Generally speaking in engineering making the immense part more expensive to make the little part cheaper doesn't pay off, for sufficient value of immense. For example, it turns out to be way the heck cheaper to make a long distance transmission line HVDC than to upgrade every tower long the route higher dielectric strength and taller and bigger footings etc etc. To a crude first approximation this is why sea transport is cheaper per ton-mile than train transport. Another example in the US outside hyperurbanized areas its cheaper to buy each user a taxi and taxi driver than to build passenger rail. I like trains and I like riding in trains but even I realize they're an economic disaster.

In fact it turns out to be cheaper to build a self-levitating and self propelling vehicle than to build a really long and terribly complicated track. I think I shall call my new invention the aeroplane.

The other problem is economic. Any 4000 MPH solution is terrifyingly expensive, so even zero interest expense makes it horrendously expensive. If you can get it cheaper than merely hiring someone far away, or booting up a PC running skype... For example, even during the Concorde era it didn't make financial sense to ship a salesman between NYC and London on the Concorde, it turns out to be cheaper to simply open a sales office in both cities and hire staff in each. Somehow this tremendously more expensive solution is supposed to work even better under conditions where cheaper solutions miserably failed?

Re:Simple

[NouberNou]

Trains are an economic disaster in the US, and it is not for any sort of engineering reason (you can look at pretty much any other industrialized modern country in the world and see that trains actually work out pretty damn well).

Re:Simple

[Teun]

I seems you are under the impression a lot of energy is needed to maintain a vacuum in the tubes.
Providing these tubes are not constructed or maintained by an English water board it would suffice to pump them vacuum only once and then enjoy the fun for almost free.

The containers with cargo and passengers would move along at very low energetic expense.

Oh and because the system would no doubt be underground you don't have to worry about any land use.

Re:Simple

[Grave]

For moving people around, this is a useless concept. But why not use it for cargo? That significantly reduces the risk and complexity of the "train" itself. If you could move a few thousand freight containers from a Pacific port to an Atlantic port in a couple of hours, that would surely provide significant economic returns, and potentially open up much cheaper and faster ChinaEurope shipping lanes.

Hard to say if any of that would be enough to make the upfront costs worth it, mainly since I don't see an estimate of what those actual costs would be. I wouldn't be surprised if it were well more than $1 trillion though.

Re:Simple

[TheRaven64]

Providing these tubes are not constructed or maintained by an English water board it would suffice to pump them vacuum only once and then enjoy the fun for almost free.

Unless, of course, you want people to be able to get in and out of the trains.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Trains are an economic bonanza in the US. Freight trains are still trains.

Limit your comments to passenger trains, and you might think it is true. Then you realize they're competition g with heavily subsidized highways.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Those things were built because they were able to build them... See? But continuing to subscribe to weird techno-religious ideas for decades even though not a single bolt or nut was built, that's where I have the problem. The Space Nutters and their doom and gloom "the species must get off this rock or we'll go extinct" religion with all its pseudo-engineering solutions disguised as feasible reality. Our species will go extinct anyways one way or another, evolution hasn't miraculously stopped, you know. There were no humans around a million years ago, and there won't be any a million years from now, rockets or no rockets.

You guys always point to reality (planes and submarines) as a defense for your delirious mental illness about space. Doesn't work that way.

Re:Simple

[Digicrat]

Airlocks? Docking a train in a near-vacuum tunnel to a station has to be considerably easier than docking two spacecraft in a vacuum.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

For moving people around, this is a useless concept. But why not use it for cargo? That significantly reduces the risk and complexity of the "train" itself.

If you have to choose between an expensive train and a cheap track, or a really expensive track and a cheap train, which is better? I guess it depends on their relative expense. But, I expect that these days, the cost of the trains themselves is almost negligible compared to the expense of running the tracks.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is things like planes weren't possible until gasoline engines, very quickly powered flight went from impossible to possible due to one technology and some smart people.

So:
1. Don't stop dreaming
2. Your Religion of Pessimism is just as bad, so STFU

Re:Simple

[Bigby]

Trains work in the US when shipping freight. The work for passengers in the northeast. However, cars are far more convenient everywhere else.

Case study:
Trip to Norfolk, VA from NYC area.

Fly: ~$300 per person round trip. You get one carry-on bag per person. 1.5 hrs each way + 4 hrs of transit/wait time.
Train: ~$250 per person round trip. You can carry more on. 8 hrs each way + 2 hrs of transit/wait time.
Car: ~$75 per car round trip. You can carry even more. 6 hrs each way; no wait time.

Now, if I didn't already have a car with sunken capital costs, then there is an argument. But even then, I would rent a car. Either way, it is cheaper and takes less time to drive than take the train.

In contrast, it would be crazy to drive into NYC when the train station is right next to where I am. Flight is almost always better if time is a factor.

And don't tell me "it's different in Europe". I was in Germany. I can drive from Munich to Berlin faster than the ICE train. And the train ride costs $150+ each way per person.

Outside of heavily subsidized metro area trains, I have not seen a train compete with the cost, let alone the time and convenience of driving alone. When you add a 2nd person, it just gets crazy to take a train.

Re:Simple

[AK Marc]

My favorite thing about slashdot is all the people that assume that if they can't solve a problem by the time they post a comment, the problem is unsolvable.

Have you ever heard of airlocks?

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously have zero experience with any kind of vacuum equipment.

Re:Simple

[Archangel Michael]

Trains only work when government subsidizes them. FOR the cost of the new California High Speed Rail, that won't actually be useful until just before it is completed (i.e. nobody could ride it anywhere useful), you could give every man, woman and child a whole bunch of passes on Airlines from more places in the state than the CA HSR would actually go. And it would take less time to travel to said places. And cheaper.

The way I explain it, we already have HSR, they are called Airplanes. HSR was designed for one thing only, to curry favor with the Unions that will build and run them. It is a Union Make Work Program .

Here's the math ...

Cost of the HSR system (current est) 65,400,000,000 (this is nearly 50% more than the ballot said it would be) It will be much higher when all is said and done.

Actual Population of California 38,000,000

Short versions of the numbers 65,400 / 38 = $1721 per man/woman/child
Cost of a plane ticket $68-$250 one way. That is SEVEN free (high cost) tickets per man woman and child in CA. THIS does not count the actual cost of the ticket to ride the train. And all the projections, even from the Rail Authority, tell us that the cost will have to be continually underwritten by the tax payers.

I have yet to have a person make any sort of reasonable argument why we should spend that kind of money in a state that is going broke.

Re:Simple

[element-o.p.]

Sigh...I rather suspect you are trolling, but here goes, anyway.

You guys always point to reality...as a defense for your delirious mental illness about space. Doesn't work that way.

Ummm...yeah. What do you want people to point to instead? The Starship Enterprise? That's kind of the the point. You say that ${futuristicConcept} can't be done because of insurmountable technical obstacles. Other people point to ${formerFuturisticConceptThatIsNowReality} as a counter-example of something once thought impossible, but now taken for granted. For years, people said it was impossible to fly in a heavier-than-air, powered aircraft...then our friends Wilbur and Orville (or Glen Curtiss, depending upon who's revisionist history you choose to subscribe) did it. People thought that rockets couldn't "fly" in a vacuum because there was "nothing to push against." Then the Russians launched Sputnik. All (or at least "many") experts said we will never exceed the speed of sound...then Gen. Yeager did it. The point of all of these examples is that people thought a number of various things were impossible...until someone figured out a way to get around the obstacles that people thought were "insurmountable." Griping that pointing "to reality" to argue that things are only impossible until someone accomplishes those things is, in fact, the way it works.

Those things were built because they were able to build them...

True statement is true, yes. Your point?

What you are blatantly ignoring is that people didn't think those things were possible -- exactly as you don't think various things are possible now. The problem wasn't that things were intrinsically impossible; it's that people were approaching the problem from pre-conceived notions based upon the limitations of existing technology. In what way are the things you currently say are impossible merely limited by our current understanding of physics? This may come as a shock to you, but...(wait for it)...we don't know EVERYTHING yet. Therefore, we can't predict what "impossible" things will become possible when some "Eureka!!!" moment shows that something we all thought we understood gets shattered wide open by a new discovery. When we get that insight, things that we thought were impossible might suddenly become trivial.

Re:Simple

[nabsltd]

Trip to Norfolk, VA from NYC area.

Fly: ~$300 per person round trip. You get one carry-on bag per person. 1.5 hrs each way + 4 hrs of transit/wait time.
Train: ~$250 per person round trip. You can carry more on. 8 hrs each way + 2 hrs of transit/wait time.
Car: ~$75 per car round trip. You can carry even more. 6 hrs each way; no wait time.

By "NYC area", you mean "an hour south of New York City", right, since it's at least a 7-hour drive from within the city to Norfolk. Yes, you can drive faster than the speed limit (which is what MapQuest and Google use in their 7+ hour calculations), but you need to drive a lot faster to make up for the traffic you will likely hit unless you drive at night.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Unless you *find* the energy source, all you have is DREAMS. My "pessimism" is hard-nosed engineering REALITY. There simply aren't any new elements to be found in the periodic table, there can't be miracle materials and our energy base for the entire planet is decayed plant matter. That's reality. No space stations, no bungalows on Mars. Smaller houses, fewer cars, less energetic societies, that's the future.

Hand drawn pictures from the 1970s about delirious space communes and asteroid mining? Absurd. If we *had* the energy and technology to do it, we wouldn't NEED to, as using that energy and technology RIGHT *HERE* would make 10 times more sense! Always has, always will.

You're doomed from the start, Nutter.

Re:Simple

[PhillC]

If you planned ahead, and had the relevant travel card, that price goes down to EUR79 (USD100).

That journey is a little over 6.5 hours on the train. You'd be lucky to do it under 6 hours driving, factoring in relevant breaks and depending on where in each city your arrival and departure point was. If I had anything to do at the other end, I know I'd much rather travel by train than bust my butt driving.

I regularly catch a tran from Vienna to Graz in Austria. The cost is around EUR18 one way, with discount card. The journey takes 2.5 hours by train, and maybe 2 hours by car, depending on the traffic. On the train I can read, work on my laptop, sleep, walk around, go to the dining car etc. It's a much more pleasant way to travel.

Re:Simple

[X0563511]

OK, but what about AFTER the train would be complete? You have to keep spending those costs for your flight voucher system to work. Once the train is built it becomes cheaper.

Re:Simple

[Rich0]

Maybe, but speeds of 4000mph+ could be a game-changer.

You wouldn't build these all over the place. However, imagine a few strategic lines, like New York to San Francisco. A train travelling at 8000mph could make that trip in something like 20 minutes, with half of that spend accelerating at 1g.

If you give both ends easy transit to an airport you now have a hub-and-spoke system that can use planes to make the rest of the trip, while cutting upwards of 5-6 hours off the travel time. The train would not be affected by weather, so it should be reliable enough to eliminate all the extra time wasted on layovers for multi-stop travel.

Maybe add one stop in the middle of the country and now it is a 40 minute trip, but it gives you more options, or have local/express lines.

The key is to not go crazy with having one of these things stop in every city. The whole point of it is to cover enormous distances in very little time.

An interesting effect would be that at 8000mph you'd experience -0.2g of vertical accelleration, ie you'd feel 20% lighter due to the curvature of the earth.

Re:Simple

[TheRaven64]

First, airlocks used in space are used a few dozen times at most before being completely overhauled. The docking connector on a train like this would get more than that much use in a single day, probably in a single morning.

If you're thinking of airlocks, then you'd have to depressurise and repressurise the train at every station. If you actually mean a tube connected to equal pressures outside of the tube and inside the train, then you're assuming that the seal of something that can be attached and detached, can handle one side moving as the train bounces up and down slightly as people step on and off, and still will have zero leakage.

Re:Simple

[Burz]

Throw enough ridiculously cheap fuel at them (and comparisons that ignore the cost of ownership), and almost anything looks worse than an automobile.

Re:Simple

[impossiblefork]

It definitely is not a useless concept- although I could agree that these very long distance versions might not be very economically feasible (especially considering the risk).

However, in Stockholm, which is located on a set of fairly small islands mostly surrounded by preserved natural areas attempts to alleviate a housing shortage by building new apartments have mostly failed due to the fact that there isn't much space left to build on (especially close to the city).

Imagine then, a train like this going to a nearby town, accelerating at 2 G for the first half of the trip and then braking (electromagnetically) for the second half, perhaps arriving after 7 minutes or so. If such a train existed there would be little reason to prefer to live in Stockholm over living there. If the other town had enough space housing prices would then hopefully equilibriate until Stockholm was no longer so hideously expensive.

Re:Simple

[Dishevel]

Amtrak. US passenger train service is owned by the US Government and is MASSIVELY subsidized.
Americans only like looking at trains and thinking to themselves "If it were more like my car I would love to ride a train."
Trains do not work in the US because of who Americans are.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

its funny how you compare car to "unsubsidized train". who do you think pays for the highway maintenance, police and ambulances arriving at every accident? Dont forget the problem of too many cars that cannot squeeze in the 3 lane highway. Your argument got the financial reasoning all wrong, plus the car solution does not scale well - it either becomes a congestion or "roads too expensive to maintain" in the middle of nowhere. It is a known fact that trains are more economical to operate than car. Sorry, cannot find a link, i am typing from my... microwave.

Re:Simple

[NouberNou]

You do realize that improving infrastructure improves the areas surrounding those improvements as well right? Gotta spend money to make money. I suggest you take a look at a country like Japan, which could easily compare to California in a lot of ways and tell me their rail system doesn't work. Go ahead, explain to me.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Until you've built it, all you have is a tautological religion. If I believe it's possible, we'll be able to build it! Um, no. This is magical thinking. I see the "-1" Space Nutter apologist is out in force today. Are you modding me down from space, or from this mud ball? Hurts, huh? :)

Re:Simple

[NouberNou]

Visit Japan and tell me their trains do not work.

Re:Simple

[Archangel Michael]

LOL, you say that, without knowing the ticket prices or the ongoing subsidies that will be required to keep the system running. You're just guessing based on feelings (warm fuzzy ones) that HSR gives you.

  I can get a ticket for $65 right now, takes me to LA on Southwest Air. $67 for Greyhound, and Greyhound takes nine hours. Amtrak is cheaper at $58, but takes 14 hours. It is six and half hours by car, and costs about $54 in gas (28 MPG/$4 gal).

THAT is all single person fares. Put my family in a car, and the cost per person goes down to $14 / person driving.

Re:Simple

[jpapon]

And don't tell me "it's different in Europe". I was in Germany. I can drive from Munich to Berlin faster than the ICE train. And the train ride costs $150+ each way per person.

Berlin-Munich costs 44 Euros each way (you have to buy the ticket a few weeks in advance though), and takes 6 hours. Driving takes the same amount of time, and will cost you at least 50 Euros in gas (600 km * 5l/100km * 1.65 Eu/l = 49.5 ~ and that's a pretty efficient vehicle - you won't get that efficiency doing 160 on the autobahn). So you're just plain wrong. Not to mention, many routes are much faster than a car; Frankfurt - Gottingen takes 1h40m on the ICE and 2h30m by car.

You can't look at the "in station" ticket prices, that's just ridiculous... have you looked at the price of airplane tickets if you buy them at the airport??

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you realize they're competition g with heavily subsidized highways.

Awesome-o competition G! Iron horse against flaming chariot in battle to reach g-spot. Who wheel win?!

Re:Simple

[Archangel Michael]

You're assuming that there is no other way to spend the money on infrastructure that would have more benefits. How about adding a dozen more regional airports? Same effect, only doesn't cost tax payers on an ongoing basis.

Re:Simple

[N1AK]

In fact it turns out to be cheaper to build a self-levitating and self propelling vehicle than to build a really long and terribly complicated track. I think I shall call my new invention the aeroplane.

And why all cars were designed to work without requiring by far the biggest infrastructure investment on the planet: Roads...

You're right of course that there is a balance to be had but there are plenty of examples of large investments in infrastructure. We don't all operate small power plants in our back yard or pick up big batteries at the store after all. Personally I think we should be throwing money at self-driving cars and efficient ways of operating them. Get cars travelling at 100-120mph safely and the need for just about any other way to travel (bar long haul flights) drops considerably.

Re:Simple

[ed1park]

Chinatown Bus: $25. 7 hours. no wait time. Just show up with your ticket before it leaves!

I've done all 4 modes of transportation BTW, and the 6 hour car trip is optimistically short. You will need to time it to avoid rush hour traffic, stop off for food, bathroom, rest, etc. 7-8 hours is more realistic. The other modes don't require you to focus on the road. You can relax, surf the web, etc. But you won't have to rent a car when you are down there!

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

"Trains only work when government subsidizes them."

Unlike cars, where people built their own roads, because they're just so bootstrappy. May I say you think like a child?

Re:Simple

[Qzukk]

Trains do not work in the US because of who Americans are.

Trains do not work in the US because they're pushed by idiots who don't take into account who Americans are or by idiots who are convinced they can change who Americans are.

Car-driving Europeans seem to manage fine with trains over there .

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

"Outside of heavily subsidized metro area trains, I have not seen a train compete with the cost, let alone the time and convenience of driving alone."

I think Top Gear (completely unbiased) has proven time and time again that, up against all other forms of transportation, the car always wins.

Re:Simple

[oxdas]

Where I live, they can't build light rail fast enough. Every time a new line opens, its usage massively exceeds predictions. Americans like trains and train networks within cities are highly utilized.

The problem is that long distance travel is faster and cheaper by air much of the time. This is a result of a rail network that prioritizes and caters to freight over passengers. Therefore, high speed lines haven't been built and Amtrak is incredibly slow (and expensive for the service they provide). If the U.S. built a rail network like much of Europe or Japan, Korea, etc. I think Americans would use it.

Re:Simple

[jo_ham]

The large amounts of energy it takes to keep my high vac lines at vacuum in the back of my fume cupboard suggest otherwise.

The volume of my Shlenck line is pretty small in comparison, and you can keep an isolated vessel under pretty high vac for a long time, even if you shut off the pump. As soon as you want to interact with it though (let's say, to put something in or take it out) you really need that pump on.

Maintaining a vacuum that you can move things to and from (from an environment at atmospheric pressure) is an energy intensive process.

Re:Simple

[tragedy]

You do realize that this article is about _trains_, right? You and your monomania are what brought space into the discussion. There's nothing impossible about a maglev train, nor a superconducting power cable, nor a depressurized tunnel. We already have all of these things. It may prove cost prohibitive to operate a train system like this.

Frankly, all that the article could really has to say about why such trains aren't being built is that they might be hard to maintain and everyone will die if it crashes. That and some completely hyperbolic speculation about one little leak almost immediately compromising the entire vacuum. So, basically, wow. Super-informative article. No really.

Re:Simple

[Archangel Michael]

I pay Fuel Taxes that are "supposed" to support infrastructure. They are included in the price of gasoline. And in my state, they tack on 7.25% sales tax on top of the other taxes (double taxation). Currently, it is about $.35 gal for California taxes (plus sales tax) and $.184 for Federal Taxes (plus sales tax).

Or do those taxes not count?

Oh, and btw, I'm not against Gas Taxes, provided they DO go towards infrastructure. So, I'm not sure what your complaint is.

Re:Simple

[Dcnjoe60]

Funny, when I go to Amtrak's website, round trip fro Norfolk, VA to NYC is $124. Driving the 356 or so miles will cost you around $75 in gas, but if you figure in the total cost, including tires, oil, depreciation (or decreased value), insurance, etc., then you are closer to $350 (coincidently close to the IRS mileage rage of $0.505/mile).

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

"Trains do not work in the US because of who Americans are."

Wrong. Trains do not work in the US because of WHERE Americans are. I live in Denver, CO. The closest "big city" (+1,000,000) is Phoenix. Then you've got Minneapolis. Who the fuck is going to build a train to Denver from Minneapolis? Nobody will use it. It's not a function of not wanting to use it - there's nobody to USE them in the Midwest/West. The coastal rail systems (East coast anyway) work great. But when it's 500+ miles from cities with more than 50K people ... economics of reality kick in.

Re:Simple

[Surt]

I'm anti HSR in CA also, but you're omitting freight in your analysis, and that's a major gap.

Re:Simple

[hawguy]

You do realize that improving infrastructure improves the areas surrounding those improvements as well right? Gotta spend money to make money. I suggest you take a look at a country like Japan, which could easily compare to California in a lot of ways and tell me their rail system doesn't work. Go ahead, explain to me.

Japan compares to the USA in total land area, but that's about it. It's has about 3 times greater population and 4 times greater density (873/square mile versus 242/square mile)

Japan's rail system works not just because of their density, but because they have an efficient rail system that can take you to just about anywhere you want to go - it's not like the current situation in the USA where rail drops you off in the middle of town and then you spend another 90 minutes taking 3 connecting buses to get you to your house in the suburbs.

The USA has the density for effective rail transit in many places, but building out a nationwide HSR system is probably not the best way to start - to get the most trips moved from cars to rail, building out local rail (and other modes of transit like dedicated busways) is probably a better place to start since there's already a long-distance mass transit system (airlines) that people can use to go long distances, but they still need a way to get home from the airport.

Even in San Francisco there're a lot of low-density single family homes near BART stations, serious transit oriented development will take decades.

Re:Simple

[tizan]

This applies to highways /roads/DOTs and aiports/ntsb/faa etc etc which we ignore when comparing the cost of trains to other forms.....
Every form of public transportation is heavily subsidized, period.

   

Re:Simple

[NouberNou]

Its a damn shame most cities destroyed their interurban rail systems by the 1930s in favor of cars and now are trying like hell to get them back. Hundreds of miles of existing infrastructure destroyed due to market collusion by the likes of General Motors.

Re:Simple

[__aaltlg1547]

They're the cheapest way to ship goods over long distances, so it stands to reason they should also be a cheap way to ship people over long distances.

Re:Simple

[vettemph]

Very well put. ...and besides, where the f are all you people going?
Stay home. Stay local. Stop wasting resources.

Re:Simple

[NouberNou]

Airports are far less efficient. They need to be placed outside of city centers and still require some other sort of infrastructure to get people from the airport to wherever else they are going. Trains, not only high speed, are far more capable of moving large numbers of people into the heart of cities quickly, as well as moving them out to the outlying areas and suburbs.

Flying is only good when connecting vastly separate areas together (read thousands of miles), places that have no useful population centers in-between them.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow; nice example.

I'll do the equivalent for Australia.

Melbourne to Sydney (our 2 largest cities)
fly: $200 per person round trip. + 1 carry on bag. 1hr each way, + 2 hrs transit/wait time. (30 minutes before flight both ends, 30 minutes to CBD on each end)
Train: ???
Car: $150 dollars petrol round trip, 4 people (tight fit) 1 bag per person. 8 hours each way, 16 hours wait time. (for the driver, who needs to sleep after driving 8 hours each way)

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

You've ignored the subsidies for each means of transportation. I'd wager that they're highest for the car: highways aren't cheap.

Re:Simple

[siddesu]

There is a small, but important difference between daydreaming and actually setting out to make something real with the technologies you have at your disposal. In the first case, you get the starship Enterprise movie. In the second case, you get the space shuttle Enterprise.

People were daydreaming about flying around for ages. Around the end of the 19th century, a whole body of junk science about how airplanes were supposed to fly had developed, resulting in a lot of money and effort wasted in unsuccessful airplane projects.

Alas, flight did not happen until the Wright brothers built a testing rig, threw out all the junk theories and designed something that could use technologies available at the time to actually take off.

Eureka doesn't simply happen from staring at your navel for many days.

Re:Simple

[steelfood]

This is true because of a combination of population density as well as the abundance of space and ease of vehicle ownership.

In a densely-populated area, mass transit isn't just the preferred solution. Sometimes, it's the only solution. If you live in a building with 1000 families (which is fairly common in cities--20 units per floor, 50 floors), and each family owned two to three cars, you'd spend the entire day trying to just get out of your garage and back in. Imagine that happening in a 10 block by 10 block area.

The alternative is to walk or take mass transit. The cheapo buses aren't popular because they're expensive. They're popular because they're cheap, and they're cheap because it's feasible to sell a seat so cheaply and still make enough money for a living.

Trains are even more efficient per distance traveled. However, there are several factors that make buses more convenient than trains. The fact that trains run on a set track, the fact that nobody wants a train behind their backyard, and the fact that the road is so well built, all contribute to the low cost of operating and thus traveling on buses. You can argue that these factors are never going to be resolved, so trains will never be as cheap nor as convenient as buses. But this does mean that if the cost of traveling by road was not nearly so cheap, the alternatives would start to look better. And they'd be better energy-use wise as well.

It's probably cheaper to drive even in Europe than take the train per trip. But the TCO of having a car in Europe is much higher than the equivalent travel on a train over the same period of time. The storage fees alone (parking) would be equivalent to several train rides a month. Even if you have a garage, the cost of the land you purchased to fit that car is going to be more expensive than a lot of trips by train.

The cost effectiveness of transportation is about the pressures of society, and what society values both in general and as a consequence of the pressures. Here, personal independence and thus driving is valued highly. Traveling fairly long distances is the norm because space is not a premium, not the exception. Thus, cars are prevalent, while other forms of transportation are not so heavily developed.

Re:Simple

[CrackedButter]

You're coming from a point of view that doesn't suggest the airlines are subsidised as well.

Re:Simple

[SolitaryMan]

You're assuming that there is no other way to spend the money on infrastructure that would have more benefits. How about adding a dozen more regional airports? Same effect, only doesn't cost tax payers on an ongoing basis.

Because airports don't need any kind of support?

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't taking in one factor into account though: confort. I love travelling by train because for trips like that, I can do a full day's work on the train on my laptop. When I'm travelling recreationally, you get far more leg room, restaurant car, etc, and first class isn't too expensive (unlike first class on a plane) so I'd much rather spend a day travelling but actually enjoy it than be a sardine on a plane for a few hours, TSA, etc. or drive.

Re:Simple

[fast turtle]

Everyone is thinking about this problem the wrong way. Instead of using a vacumn, reverse the system and use pressure. It really wouldn't take a lot of pressure - meager +10 pounds to achieve enough economies of scale to move a transport and you have a major advantage in the fact that you don't have to give a damn about vacumn conditions or the possibility of the transport suffering explosive decompression, thus killing people. Another advantage is that the normal Airport Jetways would be sufficient to connect to the transport for passenger/freight movement. Or do like the damn subways and such and simply open the doors and have people move on/off as normal in the station. There's no reason you can't use a small set of motors for moving from the station to the tube where air pressure simply blows the train along.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

> Trains only work when government subsidizes them.

The same can be said of the "National Defense Highway System".

Re:Simple

[element-o.p.]

I respectfully disagree, at least to some extent.

If there were no one daydreaming about the possibilities, no one would attempt the impossible. Thus it seems to me that the starship Enterprise is a necessary step towards achieving the space shuttle Enterprise, even as the space shuttle Enterprise is merely a rung on the evolutionary ladder to the starship Enterprise (there's a recursive conundrum for you, lol!).

Furthermore, compared to a lot of the other attempts at powered, manned, heavier-than-air flight, the Wrights followed a much more rigorous, evolutionary process towards their goals, which is one of the biggest differences between them and their predecessors (as well as many of their contemporaries). However, if you think that they threw out all of the thinking about flight that came before them, you are very much mistaken. Man had flown before Wilbur and Orville, even in heavier-than-air aircraft. Google Otto Lilienthal for an example (hint: what's the biggest, most obvious difference between a Cessna and a Blanik?). The Wrights took the collected knowledge of their day, tested numerous theories, and, as you said, "threw out all the junk" -- but they KEPT a lot of things, too. They had two big breakthroughs that had eluded others: first, they understood that for powered, sustained flight, you don't want the aircraft to be too stable because stable and controllable are diametrically opposed; second, they understood that turning an aircraft required redirecting part of the lift vector in a horizontal direction (i.e., turning requires banking rather than yawing). Basically, they were *excellent* examples of putting the scientific method into practice: observe, hypothesize, test, wash, rinse, repeat, and then take the one additional step that separates a scientist from an inventor, namely, build a practical device that makes use of the results of experimentation.

No, "Eureka!" doesn't happen from simply staring at your navel, but then again, I don't remember claiming otherwise. I merely pointed out that oftentimes, "Eureka!" is the result of approaching a problem from a different perspective. The "insurmountable" obstacles often aren't. They just require technology or knowledge that didn't exist earlier (wing warping, unstable airframes, and strong-enough-but-light-enough powerplants, in the Wright Brothers example or understanding that it is the equal and opposite reaction rather than exhaust gases pushing against the atmosphere in the rocket-in-a-vacuum example I mentioned earlier).

Re:Simple

[spauldo]

Other than the fuel tax, you pay all that reguardless of whether or not you're taking the train.

Police and Ambulance services aren't tied to highway funds (in most states, anyway). Highway maintenance is theoretically paid by fuel taxes, but in many cases they both feed into and out of a general fund. Trucking companies pay for a good chunk of the highway taxes, and you pay those any time you buy pretty much anything, since the cost rolls downhill to the consumer.

If you eliminated the highway system altogether and rode the train, then you'd be right. Without that, you're paying for the highways anyway.

Road congestion is a problem, sure, but you can factor that into your trip time estimates. I do, and I do it for a living.

Re:Simple

[spauldo]

Their trains do not work.

Of course, I was in Okinawa, and it's not exactly rail central there.

Re:Simple

[Kittenman]

Around the end of the 19th century, a whole body of junk science about how airplanes were supposed to fly had developed, resulting in a lot of money and effort wasted in unsuccessful airplane projects.

There was a young man who averred
He had learned how to fly like a bird
Cheered by thousands of people
He leapt from the steeple
His tomb marks the date if occurred

Re:Simple

[GrahamCox]

In fact it turns out to be cheaper to build a self-levitating and self propelling vehicle than to build a really long and terribly complicated track. I think I shall call my new invention the aeroplane.

Brilliant! Seriously, you should patent this.

Re:Simple

[jellomizer]

The problem with US trains for passengers is the size of the US and the population density. That means a lot of people want to get to point B but point B may be very disperse.
I take Amtrak to get to Boston or NYC from Albany. Because these big cities have a robust internal mass transit system. If I lived in Boston and took the train to Albany. (the train station is actually across the hudson river in Rensselaer. ) I would need to find some way to get around. Rent a car or take a bus. Because of this I might as well drive up.

Re:Simple

[spauldo]

The bulk of cargo doesn't need to be fast. That's why rail in the U.S. is generally not suitable for high speed - freight doesn't need it.

There's a few "expedited freight" companies out there in the trucking world (they generally run teams and don't stop much when they're on a run). Then you're got air freight like FedEX and UPS. There's little demand for faster service for cargo.

Re:Simple

[element-o.p.]

I see no difference between stating "I'll believe it's possible, we'll be able to build it!" and flatly stating "That can never be done." In most things I say, I qualify my statements: "I don't see how that will ever be possible, but..." That's a tacit acknowledgement that, at our current level of understanding, there is an obstacle that certainly appears to be insurmountable...but that could change eventually.

For example, you seem to have a pet peeve about ever colonizing space. I agree that with our current state-of-the-art, it won't happen. Chemical rockets can't achieve the kinds of velocities that are necessary to cross the vast distances between earth and even the nearest of stars (excluding the sun, of course). Einstein predicted that even an infinitely powerful engine wouldn't even be able to do so, due to the limiting factor of c. Consequently, yep, the outlook for colonizing space looks pretty bleak from here at the beginning of the 21st century. But neither you nor I know what kind of breakthroughs in physics are going to happen in the next hundred, thousand or even ten thousand years, any more than a Roman Centurion could have imagined the Internet or nuclear fission. It's probably safe to say that there won't be a physics breakthrough that allows us to actually accelerate a mass faster than the speed of light...but is there a way to avoid that limitation altogether? Will we figure something out that lets us sidestep the speed of light as a limiting factor? We don't know. Therefore, I take exception when people like yourself say something like space travel will "never" be possible. Never, as I am fond of telling my daughter, is a really long time. It's certainly a lot longer into the future than you or I will ever be able to see.

Re:Simple

[siddesu]

Thus it seems to me that the starship Enterprise is a necessary step towards achieving the space shuttle Enterprise

Too bad you're wrong about this, as the two are not related in any way, shape or form. The Shuttle program was yet another idea of Herr Wernher, based firmly on his knowledge of the subject of rocketry and quite unrelated to the Star Trek franchise.

If you have any doubts, I recommend you read the sci-fi book about flying to the moon by the dear Herr, and note the differences between that and the less hard sci-fi that garbage like Star Trek and Star Wars are based on.

Re:Simple

[pepty]

Another way to look at it:

Turn the price tag of 65 billion into an indefinite expenditure of $2 billion/ yr.

The current total number of trips (bus, plane, car) is about 8 million per year.

So if EVERYONE switched to the train it would amount to $250 per trip one way, $500 per round trip.

Which means we (CA, that is) could instead buy everyone a RT plane ticket and then give them $250-$350 to spend during their trip. Or buy planes, start an intrastate airline, let everyone fly it for free. An airline could be up and running within two years and service all of the cities big enough to merit an airport, instead of people waiting decades for the train to arrive in their town. And it would save a billion dollars a year doing it.

Or we could buy something useful that people actually, you know, need:

Natural gas and electric buses.

Light rail and trolleys.

Most of the people who would use this train can already afford to fly. How about doing something for the people who can't afford to get to work instead?

Re:Simple

[quenda]

The point is things like planes weren't possible until gasoline engines, very quickly powered flight went from impossible to possible due to one technology and some smart people.

Actually, planes *were* possible before the internal combustion engine, just not economical. It is like manned space travel now, Sure, they could in theory have built rocket-powered aircraft in the 19th century. They "had the technology" just as much as we do now for space travel and vacuum trains, it just was not economically practical.

Re:Simple

[shaitand]

"For a much smaller scale example you could reduce the "indicated air speed" as a pilot would call it of the TGV in France merely by installing gigawatts worth of walmart kitchen fans pointing such that the train gets a nice tailwind. However if you run the numbers it turns out you can get the same performance increase with merely megawatts of extra train power. Similarly, you could invest in terawatts of distributed vacuum pumps, but it turns out you can go just as fast merely by using gigawatts of train power..."

Are you only accounting for the idealized speed objective or are you factoring in the additional engineering complications that go with it. There is no air in a vacuum and no need to design a craft that withstand a 4000mph stream of air. There is a reason aircraft don't travel that fast.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

batteries and electric motors were capable of powering very short flight, even before the existence of internal combustion engines.

Re:Simple

[HornWumpus]

You could setup giant carbon fiber trebuchets and launch commuters at their suburbs wearing parachutes. You'd need another catapult in each 'burb, and lots of Vodka.

Rush hour would be a tourist attraction.

Seriously; trains in evacuated tubes? 2 G?

Re:Simple

[shaitand]

Trains do not work in the US because of what the US is.

Europeans always forget how incredibly tiny their nations are and how incredibly big the US is. Our population isn't bunched up into a few mega cities like yours is either and there is no reason it should have to be. Some people consider privacy to be more important than the infrastructure advantages in everyone being close together.

Suppose you built a high speed rail between LA and New York. Its fast, 200mph. So it can (ideally) cross the 2378.8 miles in a little under 12hrs if it makes no stops. Wonderful, its faster than I could drive it. But how now that I'm in new york, how do I get to the store that is 5 miles away from the station? Now that I am there, how do I get the shopping cart full of goods back to the train? Do I purchase another couple seats to store it? Will the train wait while I load and unload it? How do I get it to my home in a small town 50 miles from the station? What if my purchase included a piece of plywood and four 3m lengths of pvc for some basic work around the house? And if like many I do that every 3 days?

In the EU you might be considered extremely rural if you live 100km from the nearest reasonable point for a passenger station but it would be considered the suburbs here in the US. You'd have to go quite a bit further to reach rural.

Re:Simple

[shaitand]

That is the problem if you live in the major metropolitan areas and travel between them. Even stepping down from New York to something like Miami public transportation becomes far less practical and it isn't even on the menu outside metropolitan areas.

It is neither practical nor reasonable to expect the entire population to embrace city living. There are conveniences to be found in cities but the quality of life difference is comparable to factory farmed chickens in tiny quarters vs free range.

Personally I settle somewhere in the middle. Albuquerque. There is a pretty good bus system here but I still went through quite an effort to haul even a weeks worth of groceries, apartment/house/job hunting were a nightmare because things had to be within reasonable walking distance. First I broke down and got a scooter and then the list of things I couldn't carry on that scooter got too long and I got a car. The list of things I can't fit in the car on a regular basis teeters the line between justifying owning an SUV or truck. And that was living right downtown at the core of the transit system.

Re:Simple

[NouberNou]

I'd imagine only 1 monorail is a bit of a contrast to the main land islands.

Re:Simple

[shaitand]

Which is kind of the point. Trains only work at rail central.

Re:Simple

[shaitand]

You must be buying new vehicles and paying for dealer maintenance, brand new tires, etc, to come up with numbers anywhere near that high. Delivery and truck drivers typically make a profit on mileage reimbursement.

My vehicle cost $3500. Over its life span I will put another $1000 into it for total vehicle maintenance. $4500. I'll probably put about 150,000 miles on it. So $0.03/mile fixed maintenance costs. I get lousy gas milage so it will cost $62.30 at the current $3.50/gallon to drive to Norfolk based on your 356 mile figure and $10.68 covers the wear and tear. That is $72.98 for the trip. Nowhere near your $350 mark.

If you want to attack artificial numbers in the car travel equation you need to look for the subsidies and where you find those is in oil. Oil and Gas proponents point out the big subsidies on alternative energy solutions when those subsidies are negligible compared to oil and gas subsidies. The real price of that gas is probably closer to $15/gallon. That is $267 in fuel cost for my vehicle rather than $62.30 brining the trip cost to $277.68.

Re:Simple

[Bigby]

I checked the prices before we went there and I remember them being comparable to a single person. Once you have 2 people, it gets crazy expensive compared to a car. I couldn't even entertain the option, as there were 4 of us and I like to drive.

We made the trip between Munich and Berlin in 5 hours. Airport (which is 0.5 hrs north of Munich) to the Brandenburg Gate.

Re:Simple

[hackwrench]

Just because there aren't any new elements to be found in the periodic table suitable for new materials doesn't mean that we can't find new ways of arranging and linking those elements together to make better materials, like graphene.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene

Re:Simple

[Bigby]

Wrong? For an individual, you have to plan ahead to come anywhere close to competing with the price of a car. For 2+ people, the rail gets crushed by a car.

And I made the trip myself. The drive is 5.5 hrs from Munich to Berlin. The train takes longer. It was 5 hrs from Munich Airport to downtown Berlin. We had a car from Munich, to Berlin, to Prague, to Salzburg, to Munich, and to areas around Munich for a total cost in gas of 2 tanks...which was no more than $200 US. If you took a train between those cities, you couldn't do it for that price. If you somehow could, you couldn't come close to matching the convenience or time. A train between Prague and Salzburg would probably be quicker, but that is it.

Re:Simple

[Above]

When folks talk about Amtrak, one of the first comments is that it is subsidized. It is, to the tune of 2.6B a year at the current moment.

We spend approximately $150B a year in state and federal money on highway construction and maintenance.

We spend approximately $16B a year operating the FAA and airports, about 3.5B of which is directly spent on facilities construction and maintenance.

All transportation is subsidized. Cost per passenger mile, cost per trip, or other similar metrics are a far better measurement of financial performance. Passenger fairs are also a very interesting thing to look at, if the same subsidy for rail and airports resulted in fares that were 50% less for rail travelers that may be a better subsidy.

The problem in the US with rail is really simple to boil down. Congress mandates Amtrak serve underserved and out of the way communities. Greenwood Mississippi has Amtrak service because the government said they must go there, not because it is the best route, or the most profitable one. At the same time Congress wants Amtrak to be profitable. That's a combo that doesn't work. It could be a profitable service by aligning routes with where people wanted to go, and dumping unprofitable ones. It could serve underserved communities with a subsidy. It can't do both at the same time.

High speed rail is a long term investment problem in the US, and a problem of our red-tape with building things. The transcontinental railroad was built in 6 years, largely with hand labor. California's high speed line is estimated to connect San Francisco to LA by 2030, 18 years from now. Much of this is the ever evil "regulation", however much of that derided regulation is stuff the people voted for in the first place so we don't destroy our environment, and so on. Much of it is time taken up with legal challenges, large and small, wasting time and money in court. We have to take a hard look at this sort of problem, the US is now building infrastructure at a much slower rate than most other western countries, and that's not a way to stay ahead. We can't just throw out the regulations, that will not leave a functioning society, but we need to streamline many of these processes.

Trains can work just fine in the US, and they do in fact operate profitably in several locations today.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

No docking setup. The whole train enters an airlock before entering the terminus. The entire station is pressurized.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

:facepalm: You are being way too literal...

Re:Simple

[siddesu]

Why yes, I am. In my experience, nice things don't come about magically just because I dream them up, I have to actually do something to have them appear.

Maybe it is different in your universe, in which case please let me know how can I move there. Thanks.

Re:Simple

[SurfaceMount]

Driving the 356 or so miles will cost you around $75 in gas, but if you figure in the total cost, including tires, oil, depreciation (or decreased value), insurance, etc., then you are closer to $350

I drive 450 miles a week just commuting to work.
The running costs are nowhere near your figures, I would be broke if they were. Nothing close to $20k is being spent on my transport costs, I would sure as hell notice if it was.

Come up with all the theoretical operating costs you want. I have "mythbusters" style of real world testing proving running costs is nothing like your figures.

Re:Simple

[yndrd1984]

Unless you *find* the energy source, all you have is DREAMS. ... our energy base for the entire planet is decayed plant matter

Wait, where did all the nuclear reactors go?

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true that passenger rail only works if it has government subsidies. But that's not an argument against passenger rail. Around these parts, the road system only works thanks to a massive public investment in roads, plus a bunch of toll roads as well. Flying is fine but works best for longer distances. So it's a societal decision which way to go, just as removing all the light rail systems from downtown US cities was a societal decision.

Re:Simple

[TheLink]

Requiring that a large nation-wide train network that connects many rural areas be profitable is about as stupid as a shopping mall or office building requiring their escalator and elevator (or even toilet) divisions be profitable.

Such things are better run as cost centres. They must meet targets like safety, efficiency, availability, reliability, coverage, etc but I don't see why they must be profitable. If after the other targets are met and they are still profitable, that's icing on the cake.

Re:Simple

[TheLink]

I think Top Gear (completely unbiased) has proven time and time again that, up against all other forms of transportation, the car always wins.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBPQe4dFxk
Top Gear is mostly an entertainment show.

Re:Simple

[SWPadnos]

First, airlocks used in space are used a few dozen times at most before being completely overhauled. The docking connector on a train like this would get more than that much use in a single day, probably in a single morning.

That doesn't seem likely, since you would only use a vacuum-tunnel/4000MPH train for long hauls. Like NY <-> LA. That trip would take about 40 minutes at 0.1G constant acceleration, IIRC.
The locks would be used at most once per hour or so.

If you're thinking of airlocks, then you'd have to depressurise and repressurise the train at every station. If you actually mean a tube connected to equal pressures outside of the tube and inside the train, then you're assuming that the seal of something that can be attached and detached, can handle one side moving as the train bounces up and down slightly as people step on and off, and still will have zero leakage.

You're assuming that the vacuum tunnel goes straight into the station. If I were designing the system, I would have the train go through a big airlock or two before getting to the station, so the last mile or so would be at full pressure, and the doors could be just like airplane doors (ie, they seal, but they don't have to attach to anything on the outside).

Re:Simple

[TheLink]

If the 4 people are drivers who can sleep as passengers the wait time is less.

So car is about 4-5x cheaper but 3x slower.

Re:Simple

[Teun]

That would wholly defeat the idea of the near friction less vacuum.
Airflow in a tube would have to be at the same speed as the 'train' and at the speeds proposed be prohibitively expensive to run.

Besides, exposing people to a sudden 10 psi compression would not exactly be healthy.

Re:Simple

[bogjobber]

Comparing the infrastructure costs of rail to air travel only works if you compare the government money that has gone towards building and maintaining air infrastructure as well.

I'm not sure what the costs of that is, but I imagine if you add up the cost of building and maintaining every airport in California that $65 billion price tag will start to look a lot less ridiculous.

Re:Simple

[Tom]

And don't tell me "it's different in Europe". I was in Germany. I can drive from Munich to Berlin faster than the ICE train. And the train ride costs $150+ each way per person.

That's because they destroyed the excellent german state-owned train company for fame and profit. Seriously.

The Bahn ("The Train Company") was working just well when someone decided that private is always better and it needs to be sold off. They prepared for that for 10 years, during which time they closed many rural train stations, added high-speed trains to only the most profitable routes, and then sat back puzzled why the "long tail" of their economy was breaking away and only the high-speed trains were filled to and often beyond capacity.

Also, they doubled prices in just a few years.

Without corrupt and incompetent politicians, we would still have a system that works in Germany. Now you have to look to our neighbours, such as Switzerland, for a working train system.

Disclaimer: I live and work in Germany. For many years I had to travel all over the place on business. I took the train whenever possible because you can work on the train (1st class), you can't work in economy on a plane, and those two were what the company paid.

Re:Simple

[blackm0k]

As a case example of how it may occasionally be better in Europe: in England, you can go from Manchester to London in 2h5m, whereas the same drive would take you roughly 3h30m (being generous and assuming that there is no trouble with traffic anywhere along the way). True, the rail travel time needs to have time to/from respective stations added, but there appears to be plenty of spare time for that (1h25m). Maybe certain routes in England are a special cases, due to the density of the population and level of demand, but that said trains in North America have been really disappointing to me, even in the populated bits.

Another point you may be neglecting is that travel time is 'lost' time if you're driving, while you can actually use the time to do any of a multitude of things if you're on a train/flight etc.

Re:Simple

[Hognoxious]

Let me get this right: You're going right across the USA by train and then choosing a store that isn't in the 100 closest ones to the station to buy your groceries from?

Yeah. Realistic scenario, that.

Re:Simple

[Hognoxious]

Japan compares to the USA in total land area,

Huh? It's not even as big as Texas.

but that's about it. It's has about 3 times greater population

No, it has somewhat less than half.

Re:Simple

[chrismcb]

Trains do not work in the US because of who Americans are.

Trains don't work in all of America because of how big America is and how far about cities are in the west. I don't live on the east coast, but when I'm out there, the trains seem to work.

Re:Simple

[Hognoxious]

"Going towards" isn't the same as "covering the full cost of".

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

The cheapest offer I found was 59 EUR. So it all depends on the circumstances, a major advantage of the car is that it does not make a price difference whether I decide to go today or three months before.

Re:Simple

[timbo234]

I'll second this as I've had this argument before with people. The ICE is supposed to be a high-speed train but only actually reaches it's 300km/h max speed on some sections of track such as bits in norther Bavaria near Nuremberg, so the total journey time is around the same as the car.

The price of the ICE tickets are the real problem though, basically I've worked out that the only time it's cheaper than a car is when you're going on your own. And since I don't have a car that's basing my calculations on the cost of rental cars!

It's not just Munich-Berlin, me and my girlfriend did Munich-Hamberg return in a rental car for cheaper (incl. fuel) than 2 ICE tickets for the same route would've been. I'd prefer to take the train as it avoids dealing with car rental companies and looking for parking at your destination, but the astronomical prices and overcrowding on some sections like BerlinLeipzig, are too much.

Re:Simple

[LingNoi]

> But continuing to subscribe to weird techno-religious ideas for decades even though not a single bolt or nut was built, that's where I have the problem.

Like the airplane or spaceship as described by jules verne?

Your point is as useless as yourself, simpleton.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

You totally forget the other costs involved for driving a car. Insurance? Parking? Maintenance? Training? Depreciation? Taxes?

A car costs at least 0.3 euros per kilometer.

Re:Simple

[ianare]

Don't know about Germany, but I've driven from Marseille (south of France) to Paris in about 8.5 hours - at night, but not speeding (much) and with food/bathroom breaks.

The TGV, which I've also taken, does it in 3.5 hours, and I can eat and go to the bathroom without stopping.

Cost depends, if you have 4 people in the car and split the fuel and toll costs, it's generally cheaper than 4 train tickets. But for 2 or 3 people, it depends on whether you buy the train tickets in advance or not. For one person, the train will be cheaper, sometimes considerably so.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't your original plan, but it still wouldn't work. No airline would fly to a small regional airport where they would get less than 100 customers per day. Unless... flying there was subsidized by the government. The proof: we are going through this right now. To cut costs, gov't is cutting subsidies for flying to small airports. As a result, airlines are pulling out of many of them. Plus, there are already many of these small regional airports you want to build, the term for them is "general aviation" -- there is just no market for flying to/from them so no one has bothered to turn them into commercial airports.

There are other benefits of the HSR beyond LA to SF too. Suddenly, the SD to LA trip won't take 2 hours by train and at the same time it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than a SD to LA flight (airlines gouge these tickets, they're something line $400+ round trip, if you can even get them; the airlines mostly want to use them for getting people from SD to their LAX hub -- it is cheaper to fly from SD to NY via LA than it is to fly SD to LA).

Are there potentially better uses for the funds? Probably. One I could think of is rerouting the northbound train line from downtown SD to go along I-5 up until Del Mar to shave ~20 min off the trip, even at normal speeds.

Re:Simple

[shaitand]

Maybe not realistic in New York or LA but there it is perfectly likely the store will be several miles away from a station in pretty much every other city in the US.

You also wouldn't be able to carry a sheet of standard size plywood on a train or bus even if it were sold at the station. Nor carry that small volume of groceries that represents a typical grocery purchase scenario. Have you ever tried carrying a cartload of groceries at once even from the trunk of your car to your kitchen? I have. Ever buy a TV when you only have public transportation? How about a lamp? Coffee table? End table? Some weights off craigslist? You can do any of that with public transportation. So you either have EVERYTHING delivered which isn't green, cheap, or beneficial at all, or in some cases you can get a cab. Which certainly isn't any of those things either but sometimes less expensive.

With public transportation you have to go to the grocery several times a week. Even with that, I had to get a cab once a month to get large items. Forget a cart load. It isn't fun carrying just what you need for a meal half a mile to the bus station (not at all unusual in medium sized cities). Lets go with chicken. You need onions, a chicken, broth, celery, carrots, buttermilk, and a bottle of wine. Here in Albuquerque that would be as much as an hour wait for the bus on each end. Since you are going to the store closest to the station that is going to be a long ride with all the stopping, about 30 mins. So that is 3 1/2 hrs of transit time and a mile of hauling bags that cut into your hands. That hauling might be in a blizzard, rain, dust storm, etc. And you've got to do it again tomorrow.

Compare that to 15-30 minutes total transit to the grocer of my choice rather than the one close to the station. Buying a month supply of most items with a very short stop on the way home every week or two to refresh produce. The longest haul of supplies is from the driveway to the kitchen. And in general everything costs 30-80% less because of bulk purchase discounts and being able to shop selectively by price rather than just buying wherever is close.

Re:Simple

[vipw]

What's your hurry? Travelling faster isn't the only way, and it doesn't even seem likely.

Stasis, extreme longevity, generation ship -- any of these seem more likely than breaking c!

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked dollars were not euros.

Re:Simple

[Teun]

I work regularly with deep vacuum and high pressure equipment, some of it is rather large.
With present technology it is very much feasible to build a 2-3 m. diameter evacuated tube that has an extremely low leak rate.

Re:Simple

[Overzeetop]

It is, but can you build and connect thousands of them with an acceptably low leak rate? It's the practical aspect of the project which is daunting, such as tolerance to seismic, thermal, and mechanical forces which make it difficult to accomplish.

Re:Simple

[rally2xs]

Oh, come on now... a 6 hour car trip is probably one stop for gas that takes about 5 minutes, as long as you don't get the large diet coke that has you stopping every 45 minutes to whiz.

Re:Simple

[luis_a_espinal]

Yes, like aeroplanes and submarines...

If you don't reach for the stars you will never get there, if you try, you might .

Best line ever that I've read in a long, long, long time. Re-tweeting that good shit out in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Re:Simple

[Dcnjoe60]

Driving the 356 or so miles will cost you around $75 in gas, but if you figure in the total cost, including tires, oil, depreciation (or decreased value), insurance, etc., then you are closer to $350

I drive 450 miles a week just commuting to work.
The running costs are nowhere near your figures, I would be broke if they were. Nothing close to $20k is being spent on my transport costs, I would sure as hell notice if it was.

Come up with all the theoretical operating costs you want. I have "mythbusters" style of real world testing proving running costs is nothing like your figures.

Of course, you have figured in the costs of purchasing and maintaining your vehicle, including taxes, licensing, insurance and the like. $25,000 purchase price for a vehicle that is traded in every 100,000 miles is $0.25/mile, 28mpg at $4/gallon is $0.14/mile, $1,000/yr insurance is $0.07/mile (assuming 15,000/yr, $600 for four tires rated at 60,000 miles comes out to be $.01/mile driven, a $35 oil change every 3,000 miles is another $.01/mile, regularly scheduled maintenance over the 100,000 (tuneups, wheel balances, etc) even if only $2,000 comes out to another $.02/mile. Not including tolls, and other extra costs, that comes out to approximately $0.50/mile.

Now, one can purchase a used car, which would lower the cost of the car per mile to go down, but then you probably won't drive it for another 100,000 miles which will increase those costs and the maintenance cost will surely be higher, too.

When you figure in the total cost to drive and maintain a vehicle, it is quite expensive.

Re:Simple

[Dcnjoe60]

You must be buying new vehicles and paying for dealer maintenance, brand new tires, etc, to come up with numbers anywhere near that high. Delivery and truck drivers typically make a profit on mileage reimbursement.

My vehicle cost $3500. Over its life span I will put another $1000 into it for total vehicle maintenance. $4500. I'll probably put about 150,000 miles on it. So $0.03/mile fixed maintenance costs. I get lousy gas milage so it will cost $62.30 at the current $3.50/gallon to drive to Norfolk based on your 356 mile figure and $10.68 covers the wear and tear. That is $72.98 for the trip. Nowhere near your $350 mark.

If you want to attack artificial numbers in the car travel equation you need to look for the subsidies and where you find those is in oil. Oil and Gas proponents point out the big subsidies on alternative energy solutions when those subsidies are negligible compared to oil and gas subsidies. The real price of that gas is probably closer to $15/gallon. That is $267 in fuel cost for my vehicle rather than $62.30 brining the trip cost to $277.68.

Yes, in your situation, you are not paying the same as most commuters as you have removed the price of the vehicle from the equation. I would be curious, with used car prices that average $8,000 for a late model vehicle with close to 100,000 miles on it, how you will add another 150,000 miles to your $3,500 vehicle. In addition, for that 150,000 you will need 3 sets of tires and 50 oil changes. Tires cost will be approximately $1,800 over the 150,000 miles and oil changes about $1,750 (both of which do not include inflationary increases). Insurance at $1,000/yr also needs to be figured in, but it may very well be cheaper given the cost of your vehicle.

So, yes, for any given person, the numbers will be different, however, on average, the $0.50/mile is pretty darn close for most people.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Your Religion of Pessimism is just as bad, so STFU

I'm not one to bash other people's religion, but as a former prospective member of this religion I must speak up.

Like I said. I was once a prospective member of the Religion of Pessimism. When I told the church elders how excited I was about joining, and how great it was going to be, and how I thought everything was going to be fine, they immediately tole me I was not accepted.

Re:Simple

[sincewhen]

I sometimes wonder if some sort of hang glider or paraglider would have been possible 150+ years ago.
Not powered flight, but truly controlled flight, yes.
And of course there were hot air balloons since 1783.

Re:Simple

[Dishevel]

Don't get the truck.
You will spend the rest of you life having your weekends dedicated to moving friends.
Just go to Home Depot once in a while and rent their truck for $20 once every few months.

Re:Simple

[hawguy]

Japan compares to the USA in total land area,

Huh? It's not even as big as Texas.

but that's about it. It's has about 3 times greater population

No, it has somewhat less than half.

Sorry, meant California, not USA.

Re:Simple

[Archangel Michael]

You saying that $.53 gallon isn't enough to provide base infrastructure? Then raise the taxes until it does. THAT is the only fair way to pay for it all.

Re:Simple

[Archangel Michael]

The HSR would be useful only if the train didn't stop every 50 miles. Which is the plan. If it was non-stop between Sacramento and LA, that would be useful. But it won't be. It is going to stop in every podunk town in between (look on a map, there isn't much between them. Having a train go 200MPH makes that a two hour trip without stops. THAT would be useful. Put cars on the train ... even more useful. But that is not going to happen. California is too big to not have a car. This isn't the Beltway.

California is longer than Boston to Raleigh NC is . And not as densely populated. Most of CA is in San Diego / LA Metroplex, and Sacramento Bay Area. Separated by couple hundred miles of farmland and open space.

Re:Simple

[Maximum Prophet]

Yes. The Wright brothers experimented with gliders before powered flight. They existed, but were nothing special. They used them to develop piloting skills. AFAIK, paper airplane gliders date back before DaVinci.

Re:Simple

[Maximum Prophet]

Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback wrote about rockets to the moon before Goddard and Von Braun tried it. Verne even applied a bit of science, but did make mistakes.

Is a story about an idea necessary before the invention of that idea. I have no idea*. (:-)

*There are hundreds of thousands of ideas before any implementation. There's no way to "prove" that an implentation wouldn't have happened before any of them were written down in story form. See "Butterfly Effect"

Re:Simple

[Bigby]

My original post called out the capital costs and insurance as sunken costs. That was about where I am in the US though.

As far as Germany, we factored those in. If you are travelling alone and don't already have a car, a train is better. If you are with another person, a train is only good if you are driving one-way with no intent to return. Once you go for more than 2 people or want to visit more than the downtown area of major cities, then the costs just get completely out of control.

Re:Simple

[NouberNou]

That is why you have multiple train sets. In Japan the bullet trains run essentially what amount to locals, rapids, and super-rapids. The local like ones stop at every station on the route, the rapids skip the smallest but still stop at larger ones, and the super-rapids like the Nozomi on the Sanyo line stop only at the largest cities. Smaller stations are built with turn out lines for the platforms, allowing the faster trains to bypass them while they sit in the station.

Also, the length of time a bullet train in Japan is in station is very short, often around 90 seconds. The N700 series also can accelerate very quickly, often being back up to their top speed within a few minutes.

Watch this video of a tunnel entrance on the Sanyo line in Japan and make sure to watch the clock in the lower corner: http://youtu.be/YlPjo9RIQNE

Hopefully with HSR the small towns along the route will grow much larger as well. People keep looking at the negatives and at none of the positives here, they see the immediate cost and none of the long term benefits of more people (and more tax paying residents and businesses) that infrastructure like HSR and other rail projects bring. Its time that we stop looking at the car as the solution for everything and start looking to other countries and how they have done well with rail, because we could ultimately do it better.

Re:Simple

[SoulNibbler]

You really need the discount card. At least here in Austria on the ÖBB, you get an increasing discount for every member of your party. You are correct though and its true, it is ridiculously expensive to travel unless you buy into the system with a discount card.

Re:Simple

[RicktheBrick]

If mankind ever does become able to travel the stars, even 10's of thousands of years in the future than some one on another planet should have already have accomplished it. There are trillions of planets in the Milky Way and some of them should be millions of years more advanced than we are. If there are more than one than there should be some competition to contact us first. Since it has not happened there must be a reason and that might be that it is impossible. Or maybe we will become so advanced that we will not have any incentive to travel the stars.

Re:Simple

[Tyler Eaves]

If you're changing your oil every 3000 miles, that's part of your problem. Even dino-juice is good for 5-8k in most vehicles, and synthetics can last 15-20k in many cases. Many manufacturers are speccing 10k to 15k change intervals now. 3000 miles is a number invented by Jiffy Lube.

Re:Simple

[Tyler Eaves]

You need to really update your knowledge. This isn't 1960 any more. Also, several of your assumptions are flat out wrong.

  $25,000 purchase price for a vehicle that is traded in every 100,000 miles is $0.25/mile - At 100k miles a 25k to purchase car will still be worth 8-10k, which you're ignoring

28mpg is crappy these days. Plenty of cars are capable of 35-40MPG (and that's combined cycle, not optimal highway)

Insurance is a fixed cost. Attributing that per-mile is just wrong.

If you're getting oil changes every 3k in a modern vechicle, you're probably getting ripped off. Modern oils are much better than what we had decades ago.

There's no such thing as a "tune up" on a modern car.

Re:Simple

[Dr. Cody]

Unless you *find* the energy source, all you have is DREAMS. ... our energy base for the entire planet is decayed plant matter

Wait, where did all the nuclear reactors go?

They blew up after exactly 50 years.

Re:Simple

[Shompol]

We can continue dissecting the exact cost structure and who pays those until the time ends. The concept is: after all costs are included, direct and external, for the society as a whole, traveling by train is cheaper than by car. Grandparent argued that train is only better when it is subsidized, completely forgetting that highway system is a form of subsidy and isn't cheap either. Regarding your arguments:

Other than the fuel tax, you pay all that reguardless of whether or not you're taking the train.

If we had a functioning railroad system in US, we would need much less highway infrastructure, and it would be cheaper to maintain

Police and Ambulance services aren't tied to highway funds (in most states, anyway).

They are paid by our taxes. It is not relevant how the funds are distributed inside government, they are paid by us. So are medical services, as well as car damage, which is paid by victims directly.

Highway maintenance is theoretically paid by fuel taxes

All I see is "paid by us".

Trucking companies pay for a good chunk of the highway taxes

And where do they get that extra money?

since the cost rolls downhill to the consumer.

Oh, thank you!

If you eliminated the highway system altogether and rode the train

This is impossible, as train suffers from some logistics limitation, but if a significant portion of population used train, we would need much fewer highways.

Road congestion is a problem, sure, but you can factor that into your trip time estimates. I do, and I do it for a living.

I do, and try to take a train when possible. This also means I don't have to stare at the congested road for hours, but can read a book instead. The good part is that we have a pretty good rail system around NYC. The bad part is that it does not stretch far enough, and bus is not as comfy as train.

Re:Simple

[nukenerd]

Suppose you built a high speed rail between LA and New York. Its fast, 200mph ... faster than I could drive it. But how now that I'm in new york, how do I get to the store that is 5 miles away from the station?

Taxi. You have them in the USA?

Now that I am there, how do I get the shopping cart full of goods back to the train? .... What if my purchase included a piece of plywood and four 3m lengths of pvc for some basic work around the house?

You go from LA to NY to buy stuff in a shopping cart or plywood??!! I know people go a long way to shop in USA, but that far?

How do I get it to my home in a small town 50 miles from the station?

Use your car. It is common in the UK for people to drive to a station and change onto a train for a longer journey. The modes are not mutually exclusive. Some stations are specially built (or adapted from an older station) not to be near a particular place but to have very large car parks to draw custom for a wide area via car. They tend to be called "Parkway" stations.

Most train journeys in the UK are business trips and leisure travel, involving at most a suitcase. More equivalent to domestic air travel in the USA. I have never seen 3m lengths of PVC. People do use them for shopping, but for something special and portable (eg some gadget or a suit) rather than groceries and plywood.

Trains do not work in the US because of what the US is.

Yes, I think your post shows some major cultural differences.

Re:Simple

[airdweller]

"Europeans always forget how incredibly tiny their nations are and how incredibly big the US is."
There are tiny states in the US. Your point? The overall area? Europe is just under 3.9 mil sq mi. The US is just under 3.8. Your point?

"Suppose you built a high speed rail between LA and New York. ... Now that I am there, how do I get the shopping cart full of goods back to the train? "
Does it happen often when you have to go to NY for shopping and then have to haul lots of stuff back? You live an interesting life.

"How do I get it to my home in a small town 50 miles from the station?"
How did you get to the station in the first place? Did you just materialize there?

"What if my purchase included a piece of plywood and four 3m lengths of pvc for some basic work around the house? "
Really interesting life...

"And if like many I do that every 3 days?"
Go to NY from LA, go on a shopping spree and go back? Paris, is that you?

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

"All transportation is subsidized"

Translation: most all transportation is not directly paid for by its users. Taxes enter into the picture.

Yes, that is generally true, but having users 'pay as they use' implies charging everyone a toll for every street or road segment on which they travel. That would not only be onerous (got enough quarters on the dashboard?), but also enormously inefficient. (And electronic tolling versions pose certain privacy & freedom issues.) Thus, paying taxes at the pump is a much lower-cost and very efficient revenue collection mechanism. And, as long as the aggregate of users pay taxes that cover the aggregate of costs, then it can be said that there is NO subsidy. Same goes for airports -- paid for by ticket taxes. RRs are privately-owned and can be considered to not be subsidized. But urban transit can make no such claim -- it is dependent upon taxing non-users.

------------
"Greenwood Mississippi has Amtrak service because the government said they must go there, not because it is the best route, or the most profitable one."

But it doesn't hurt that it's along the Illinois Central's mainline between Chicago and New Orleans, either. You imply that a branch line was required to serve Greenwood.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

There simply aren't any new elements to be found in the periodic table, there can't be miracle materials and our energy base for the entire planet is decayed plant matter.

I am not sure that is true. I think they said that before nuclear power was discovered. And a new element could be discovered on the periodic table at any time. (Creating it in a lab might count too as long as it exists for long enough to be useful.)

Re:Simple

[VanessaE]

...or it could be that everyone and their uncle is already using some kind of warp drive, and we're just not interesting enough to visit - or that no one's even thought to take a ride through this part of the galaxy to begin with.

Let's put it this way:

There are 300 billion stars in the Milky Way, but the universe is "only" ~13.4 billion years old, and so a hell of a lot of travel would have to be crammed into a relatively short time, so let's crunch some numbers:

* The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years in diameter and roughly 1000 light years thick on average. That gives a total volume of 7.9 trillion cubic light years, and we occupy about 1.
* Given the 300 billion stars that are in the galaxy, that yields an average spacing of 26 light years between stars.
* Let's assume that only 1% of those stars are actually worth visiting, and that Sol is in that set. That's 3 billion stars to check out.
* Let's assume that that entire set lies within the parts of the galaxy that are fairly dense, and so let's cut the distance between stars to, oh, 5 light years. That's 15 billion light years' worth of travel.
* Let's assume that our hypothetical ship can travel at an average of 1000c indefinitely.

That's 15 million years' worth of travel time, assuming the ship travels non-stop, via the shortest possible course between subsequent stars/clusters, only studies them while in transit, and thus maintains an average speed of 1000c.

Increase that time by perhaps 5% to allow for time to actually study each destination.

As Doug Adams so famounsly said (in paraphrase), space is big - mindbogglingly so.

Re:Simple

[Dcnjoe60]

It doesn't matter if you get a trade in value or not. At some point you had to purchase the vehicle outright, a trade in is still part of the cost of the new vehicle.

28mpg exceeds the average mileage of cars made in the last three years. Yes, highway mileage is higher, but the OP is talking about driving in to NY. That includes a lot of stop and go city mileage.

Insurance may be a fixed cost, but it is still a cost. The more you drive the lower the cost per mile, but you still have to pay for it.

New cars still recommend replacing oil every 3000 to 5000 miles depending on make of car.

Even new cars still require tune ups, just not every 15,000 miles. Spark pllugs do wear and wires do crack. The computer adjusts for those conditions, but mileage suffers. In addition, many states require emission tests and your car pretty much needs to be mechanically up to date to pass.

But yes, if you ignore the maintenance on a vehicle, you can in the short term lower your cost per mile. Then again one tow truck call in NYC will offset any savings you might have had. And if you add AAA to cover the tow truck, then that is just one more expense to spread.

But hey, you don't have to believe me. Google AAA, for 2012 they estimate it costs $0.60/mie to drive.

Re:Simple

[Dcnjoe60]

Some manufacturers are specifying 10K to 15K oil change intervals on some vehicles. The average manufacturer recommendation, as printed in their manuals is 3K to 5K.

If you want outside verification of the cost to drive, go to AAA's website. They estimate in 2012 it costs $0.60/mile.

Re:Simple

[multi io]

If mankind ever does become able to travel the stars, even 10's of thousands of years in the future than some one on another planet should have already have accomplished it. There are trillions of planets in the Milky Way and some of them should be millions of years more advanced than we are.

Unless Earth is the only planet on which intelligent life has evolved.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the trains should use the cheap fuel too. It's available for anyone to use. Why don't they? If it's unsuitable, then that's a train problem, not a fuel problem.

If you are paying a lot to maintain your car, then you bought something you don't know how to fix. Why would you expect ownership of something you don't understand, especially something that can and does break down often, be a cheap proposition? When I ran a computer store, I knew many customers would budget ~$300 a year to keep their PC repaired, not even including upgrades, because they had no clue at all and would constantly get it infected and otherwise ruined, and my time is expensive (although rather cheap compared to many others, I generally charged $65/hr).

If you drive a car and won't repair it yourself, and therefore probably also don't know how to keep it from breaking often, that's an operator problem, not an automobile problem.

I could take a car from a *wreckers* (yes, there would be a few in a wreckers too ruined to do this cheaply, but I'm saying 75% of them that come into the wreckers are like this--I'm not talking about ones that have had everything in them sold already), get it moving again and repaired well enough to pass safety for less than $2000 because I can maintain them myself. If you have to spend more than that to fix your car (I know people who budget that much yearly for their old cars) then you need to re-evaluate your understanding of them.

If you argue time is money to you, so be it, but that again is an operator problem (in this place the good one of over-earning) and not an automobile problem.

Re:Simple

[couchslug]

Passenger trains in the US have visible dollar input per passenger mile. That doesn't make them a "disaster". That metric IGNORES their wide economic benefits. It's like calling the Post Office a "disaster" while ignoring its enormous national benefit.

Trains can BTW be considered part of the web of AUTOMOBILE subsidies because they draw off millions of commuters from the road net!

In the Northeast Corridor, they have been an economic necessity long before automobiles were available. Trains, more than autos, make dense urban areas practical. Trains made CHEAP commutes from suburbs practical since the late 1800s!

Re:Simple

[siddesu]

Yes, many people wrote about rockets. But the only books that were really relevant were those by that Russian guy, Tsiolkovsky. Everything else was just so much junk.

Re:Simple

[RicktheBrick]

Let use your figures and assume an average of 26 light years between stars. Now lets assume a speed of just a half of the speed of light so it would take an average of 52 years of travel. So lets assume a civilization built just two of these vessels and they built them a million years ago. They each traveled to just one star where they settled one planet. Now those planet would already have the technology to build a star ship but lets give them 896 years to build two more star ships. Now they each travel another 52 years to get to four more stars. So in a 1000 years there is 7 inhabited planets(the first, the two from the first, and four from the two). So what this would do is to double the number of inhabited planets every 1000 years. This assume the original planet and each subsequent generations only travels that one time. Even with these constraints there would be trillions of inhabited planets in only 40,000 years since 2 raised to the 40th power is over a trillion. It works and there is no need for a speed of 1000c because in 20,000 years there would be over a million inhabited planets and at 30,000 years there would be over a billion planets and over a billion new star ships to travel the Milky Way.

Re:Simple

[Miamicanes]

Kind of like electric lights. Electricity was known to the ancients (the Egyptians, among others, used it for electroplating things with gold), and by Ben Franklin's day, it was well known that you could stick metal rods into jars of acid & get a weird shock from it. I think someone even accidentally discovered the precursor of Indiglo lights sometime in the early 1800s, but wrote it off as a nifty-but-useless curiosity. We even had arc lights capable of illuminating half a city block to the brightness of a full moon on a clear night by the mid-1800s (google "Moon Tower" sometime), which was made somewhat commercially viable by a French guy. What we DIDN'T have was commercial power generation and bulbs that didn't consume themselves within hours. Edison took care of the "bulb" part, Tesla (through Westinghouse) ultimately fixed the power distribution part.

Ditto, for telephones. Alexander Graham Bell didn't just spontaneously wake up one morning and invent the telephone, and his famous first phone call wasn't the first time sound had been conveyed by electricity over wires. It was just the first time he did it with the media present to generate buzz and attract investors. The individual components to make it (sort of) do-able existed for years beforehand. All BELL did was acquire enough patents to avoid being sued, and launch the first real commercial infrastructure for making telephones useful. Unfortunately, patents were as much of a double-edged sword back then as they are now... for every innovation they sparked, ten, twenty, or a hundred other potential innovative uses were squashed or sued into oblivion.

The only thing that really changed is that back then, if something couldn't be manufactured and sold without risking confiscation and destruction by the authorities, consumers weren't going to get it. With software, consumers can somewhat take matters into their own hands and implement something on their own anyway. OK, to a very limited extent, consumers did it back then, too (I believe Popular Mechanics was the early-20th century equivalent of "Make" magazine, and used to have articles about modifying commercially-available products in ways that might have been frowned upon by the IP lawyers of their day), but bits are a lot easier to synthesize than atoms.

Re:Simple

[couchslug]

Trains work very well in certain areas of the US, and they SUBSIDIZE auto travel by taking many autos off the roads for commuting.

Re:Simple

[Miamicanes]

> The current total number of trips (bus, plane, car) is about 8 million per year.

You're assuming the number would remain constant if San Francisco suddenly became a painless ~3-hour trip from LA, instead of increasing exponentially. Remember, back when Eisenhower proposed building the interstates, he was heckled and jeered for building roads "nobody would use". Back then, when travel was slow and/or expensive, people just didn't travel unless they HAD to. Driving from New York to Florida was something a family might do with their kids once in a lifetime, not two or three times a year. The idea of living 45-60 miles from your office and driving the round trip daily would have been considered insane.

The interstates didn't just make travel faster and more convenient, they induced several orders of magnitude more travel than had ever existed just BECAUSE they existed and were fast & convenient. High-speed rail has had the same effect in Europe and Asia. Yes, you can drive from Amsterdam to Paris... and people do it every day. But most people either take Thalys if they're affluent, or fly if they're poor, because the drive is more or less identical to I-95 between Washington, DC and New York. Of course, gas is more expensive... but if you ask Europeans why they take Thalys, Eurostar, or ICE instead of flying or driving 250-400 miles, gas prices are usually mentioned as an afterthought -- if they get mentioned at all. Most of the time, they'll just look at you like you're a wacky, weird American & tell you that driving 4-6 hours sucks & the train is nicer.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhh. You'll bruise somebody's fantasy that it's possible for private entrepreneurs to buy up land one vacant lot (or demolishable structure) at a time, assemble 4 square miles of it, and build airports on demand to satisfy consumer demand for travel as it appears. In this fantasy world, things like zoning, neighbors, and 20 years worth of environmental impact studies and public protests don't exist. People complain that they can "hear" trains passing by. People don't even try to complain as a jet flies 250 feet overhead after taking off or as it's about to land, because it's futile to even try to be heard above the noise. I've been at people's houses near airports, and seen everyone just stop talking and stand around looking helpless for 10-20 seconds every time a jet flew overhead and shook the house.

Re:Simple

[Miamicanes]

Well, let's not go overboard here. The trolleys were ripped up because by the late 1950s, most of the people left riding them were poor, and most voters were annoyed by having to share roads with them. They snarled traffic, caused horrific accidents, and generally added nothing of value to the daily lives of America's growing middle-class majority -- most of whom had long since fled to the suburbs and drove to work in the city. Don't believe me? Look at the subways and elevated rail lines. They might have been left to rot and limp along without funding or proper maintenance into a long sunset, but nobody seriously called for their wholesale demolition and destruction. Not even GM. Why? Unlike trolleys, subways and elevated trains don't screw up traffic, so people who don't use them are still largely indifferent to their continued existence.

If you look at popular light rail lines in America, they're almost NEVER "light rail vehicles sharing right of way with cars". They're "rail lines that can mostly run at grade, and can cross minor streets directly, but tend to go over or under any real road wider than 4 lanes". Building a $5 million dollar bridge over a 2-lane residential street is as stupid as NOT building a $10 million bridge over (or box tunnel under) a busy 6-lane arterial road near a major freeway exit or mall. The problem is, most light rail supporters have ideological motivations that include "punishing drivers and interfering with their travel", which the car-driving majority know about and resent. If they could be pragmatic long enough to pitch light rail as a pragmatic compromise between 100% separate heavy-rail ROW and traffic-interfering trolleys -- able to do both equally well as appropriate, they'd have a lot more success. 50-ton trains have no business sharing streets with cars, except at occasional crossing points where there isn't much traffic to begin with.

This is something transit planners just don't seem to grasp, especially in places like Miami. They view BRT as a perfectly good alternative to mostly grade-separated light rail or outright elevated rail, because they look at it only from the perspective of riders. They don't seem to comprehend that 97% of the people who pay for its construction and maintenance don't actually use it. From the perspective of the driving majority, elevated rail is still kind of useful, because it (hopefully) gets OTHER drivers off the road, and doesn't screw up traffic when it's built and operating. From the perspective of drivers, BRT is actively harmful, because any reduction in traffic is neutralized by the additional gridlock it CAUSES. The South Dade Busway is a perfect example. The day it opened, the travel time between Dadeland and Cutler Ridge (~15 miles) INSTANTLY increased by about 10 minutes, and the delays have only gotten worse. Why? Right turns suddenly became traffic light controlled by lights that were usually red, the amount of traffic able to make left turns (and cross the Busway) on a green arrow was reduced to about half the original volume at the original light timings (read: red lights got a LOT longer in all directions), and worst of all... the decision to give green-light priority to the buses totally screwed up the multi-million dollar light synchronization project that had just been completed a few years before, so cars that used to get green lights most of the way now have 50/50 odds of hitting a red light at every single major intersection. Worst of all, the county can't even fix THAT problem, because the grant money used to build the Busway requires that they be given green-light priority over everything. We literally would have been better off if the money that built the busway had been spent grade-separating every major intersection along the Busway's route and widening US-1 (the road it's adjacent to) to 8 lanes. Or just doing what they should have done in the first place, and extended Metrorail along the route instead... as grade-separated light rail (stations at grade, but flyovers over major roads) that continued onward to downtown along the existing Metrorail tracks under third-rail power (like the SF Muni, which runs from catenary power at grade, and thirdrail power underground).

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

you have to buy the ticket a few weeks in advance though

This loss of flexibility is a big deal.

Cars, at most, have a "one week cycle" and, for practical purposes, usually a "24 hour cycle" because of traffic levels and tolls that depend on time of day/week. So, if I decide to extend my stay by a day, when traveling by car it costs me almost no additional transport costs whereas on the train, I have to buy a full price ticket (maybe I get a credit for what I spent on the "advance purchase" ticket?).

So, at least some percentage of the train/air trips need to be at "full, no advance purchase" prices to compare. And, presumably, it is the existing mix of full and discount fares that reflect the actual cost of an unsubsidized "break even" airline or train route. For reference, on many airline flights, a single full fare first class passenger provides more profit than all of the passengers in economy class (if the economy class passengers even return a net profit on that flight).

I frequently travel between two locations that are about a six hour drive apart. I used to fly commercial airlines using "advance purchase" discount fares. With the discount fares plus parking/cabs, the fly vs. drive decision about a "break even" proposition from a financial perspective. The airline was, perhaps, a hour faster when counting getting to/from the airports (since they were a little out of my way - about 30 to 45 minutes at each end), TSA "time tax", and "average" flight delays. However, the lack of last minute flexibility caused by the "advance purchase" trap was just too inconvenient because "life is unpredictable" so I started driving instead and am much happier with that situation because it's less stressful.

(I do drive economical cars and drive them until they are no longer the best financial option -- if you buy a new expensive car every year to replace last year's "oh so yesterday" model, your costs of driving will be much higher of course -- but then, you should probably compare your driving costs to the costs of a chartered plane as "cattle class" on a discount carrier probably isn't your cup of tea either.)

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

However, don't forget depreciation, maintenance, and insurance costs on the car.

And, is it really 6.5 hours with the family? My attempts to make what I suspect is much the same trip you are describing doesn't work so well with the family - they don't think it's reasonable to drive 400 miles without a restroom break (I don't know why, it seems to me to be poor planning on their part -- they knew we were hitting the road and they should have passed up the Big Gulp).

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

May I say you think like a faceless child?

Re:Simple

[uncqual]

Wouldn't it more logical for the train to decelerate in an (admittedly long) "off/onramp" tube parallel to the main tube which was always maintained at a vacuum like the rest of the system? You probably wouldn't want the fact a train is accelerating or decelerating interfere with full speed traffic in the "main" tube anyway and this would solve that problem, albeit at some expense. In addition, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to take a train going 4000 mph in a vacuum and slam it through an airlock with 1 atmosphere of pressure on the other side even if you could figure out how to do it as that would probably be pretty hard on the meatbags aboard, to say nothing about inducing stress and fatigue in the train.

Then, after having decelerated to whatever low speed was desirable (a few MPH), the train could pull off to a short "parking cul-de-sac" tube where it would completely stop . A airlock door/gate would close just behind the end of the train. Then the pressure would be brought up (perhaps "gradually" to reduce compression/decompression fatigue on the train during each cycle?) to 1 atmosphere in the "parking cul-de-sac" and passengers could disembark. Not that it probably matters much in the grand scheme, but if the train fit very snugly into the portion of the "parking cul-de-sac" which was pressurized, taking it back to a vacuum would require the evacuation of very little air and hence could be done quickly with less energy.

Leaving the station would be the inverse but would use the remainder of the "off/onramp" tube as the onramp back to the main line.

With this approach, there would never be a need for an air lock to accommodate a moving object while maintaining a seal - it's somewhat more like a classic airlock. As well, with multiple airlock doors in the "parking cul-de-sac" tubes, most repairs and maintenance could be done on the doors in a "worker or robot friendly" 1 atmosphere of pressure. Only the door closest to the "off/onramp" tube would ever need to be serviced "in a vacuum" on both sides. With the addition of one more door, this final door would be rarely used - probably only when the "next" door closer to the end of the parking tube needed service and it was deemed cheaper/faster to service it in 1 atmosphere.

Re:Simple

[spauldo]

Yes, my point was that the highway systems get paid by us anyway, except the part you pay directly as fuel tax. We are in full agreement on that point - cars are subsidized by the fact that our taxes pay for the roads.

You're talking about exchanging highway maintenance funds for increased use of trains. I'd love to see increased use of trains; I'm a truck driver, and I'd love to see the interstate become more truck-oriented (don't even start on reducing truck freight by using trains - it will never happen, for very good reasons).

The problem is that it wouldn't work. You still need highways to serve rural areas. You still need cars in smaller communities. My town has 22,000 people in it - there's no mass transit and it takes a couple hours to walk from one side of town to the other. It's the largest town in the county.

Walking doesn't work in towns like this. It gets well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and drops below 0 in the winter. We get snow, and while we don't get as much as you do in NYC we do get ice storms that knock out power for a week every few years. We get torrential rain in the spring and, of course, the occasional tornado (although, really, you don't want to drive in a tornado any more than you want to walk in one). The nearest convienience store is four blocks away, and the nearest grocery store is about a mile and a half away. It's about two and a half miles to the Wal-Mart, which is the only place you can buy most dry goods around here. And of course, we have plenty of elderly people who can't walk that far anyway. So, we drive.

If you've already got a car, and are already paying insurance, it's much easier to just drive to where you need to go. If I need to go to the next largest town in the county (roughly half the size, physically and by population), I could take a theoretical train there, but then I'd have the same problem of needing to get to where I'm actually going to. It's the last mile problem.

To serve communities like this, you'd be subsidizing not only a train system (there's not near enough traffic to be self-supporting, even without people driving between towns), but also a bus system to get around the town. You'd still have the highways around here because you can't downgrade them much; they're already mostly two-lane affairs running between towns, and you need them for trucks and rural traffic (a surprising number of people live outside the city limits).

In large cities, the story is different, although once you get west of the eastern seaboard the towns tend to be much less dense. I seem to remember Oklahoma City was once the largest city by acreage in the country, although its population has never been high; it's currently about a million and a half people. Congestion? You get a bit between Norman (where the University of Oklahoma is) and Oklahoma City on I-35 around rush hour, but it's nothing compared to Dallas or Baltimore. People don't feel a need for public transit there, and a bus/train setup can't beat a car on convienience. People here actually enjoy driving.

Local train traffic will never take root in most parts of this country. It's just not going to happen. Maybe if we installed a Walt Disney-style peoplemover system, but so far no city in the world has done so.

Trains as an alternative for aircraft, however - there's some potential there.

Re:Simple

[yndrd1984]

-Wait, where did all the nuclear reactors go?
They blew up after exactly 50 years.

How many vortexes are there, and how fast can Dr. Neal Cloud get back?

Re:Simple

[ahem]

Wait. Intelligent life evolved here? I haven't seen much evidence of it.

Re:Simple

[PaddyM]

It's called a power plant for a reason. That reason is a play on words. The reactors are also decayed plant matter in a manner of speaking.

Re:Simple

[Duhavid]

First, dream
Then, do

Re:Simple

[Duhavid]

Or, keep the train in vacuum all the time, have the passenger exit/enter system do the "airlocking".

Re:Simple

[yndrd1984]

That was too punny, even for me.

I already built one

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why i got to post first!

Re:I already built one

[O('_')O_Bush]

And the lie is obvious... :p

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why aren't we shooting people around the city faster than a bullet? Hmm, I don't know. Because it's crazy?

Re:Why?

[O('_')O_Bush]

If man was meant to fly, he'd have been born with wings.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it makes so much more sense to send people from city to city in a cylinder with wings, traveling almost at the speed of sound ten kilometers above the ground, and where a single defect could cause it to crash into the ground and burst into flames. Compare it to sending people in a evacuated tube at multiple times the speed of sound where any defect could cause them to crash into the walls and burst into flames.

Crazy.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if man wasn't meant to have sex with sheep then God wouldn't have made them so damn sexy!

Re:Why?

[thedonger]

XKCD reference

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Compare it to sending people in a evacuated tube at multiple times the speed of sound where any defect could cause them to crash into the walls and burst into flames.

I'd rather not speculate on what you planned on carrying, wearing, or eating prior to boarding one of these things if you expect YOURSELF to burst into flames when you crash into the walls...

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It's because Detroit is too poor to afford 9mm laser pistols.

Re:Why?

[viperidaenz]

At those speeds, flames would be the least of your worries. a 20,000kg train at 6400kph carries the kinetic energy of a 8,000kg of TNT (31GJ). It would take 3 minutes to get to that speed with a constant 1G acceleration and require a 17MW output engine, and would travel 160km while getting up to speed.

Re:Why?

[element-o.p.]

Compare it to sending people in a evacuated tube at multiple times the speed of sound where any defect could cause them to crash into the walls and burst into flames.

Hah! Shows what you know. There are no flames in a VACUUM (at least, not for long, anyway) =P

Re:Why?

[garyebickford]

... or invented floppy boots! (to put the back legs in)

- from a very, very old joke. :)

Re:Why?

[MrL0G1C]

It would take 3 minutes to get to that speed with a constant 1G acceleration and require a 17MW output engine, and would travel 160km while getting up to speed.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

After a hundred miles it's probably used under $200 worth of energy, and 3 minutes!! really - why not chill out and take 10-15 minutes instead.

How many MW output does a normal train have?
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/RadmilaIlyayeva.shtml
6-7.5MW looks like the norm.

Re:Why?

[rHBa]

Corners could also be a problem...

Re:Why?

[MickLinux]

No, No, No. You use a roundhouse.

Re:Why?

[Razgorov Prikazka]

<quote><p>Compare it to sending people in a evacuated tube at multiple times the speed of sound where any defect could cause them to crash into the walls and burst into flames.</p></quote>

<p>I'd rather not speculate on what you planned on carrying, wearing, or eating prior to boarding one of these things if you expect YOURSELF to burst into flames when you crash into the walls...</p></quote>

one word: VACUUM.
Two words: fire triangle
Two words containing a difficult one: fire tetrahedron
Before one will burst into flames one needs oxygen first. In a vacuum there is no hazard of bursting into flames. Remember this, and when you get your first physics lesson on combustion at school you will be mister smartypants!

Re:Why?

[sabri]

one word: VACUUM.
Two words: fire triangle
Two words containing a difficult one: fire tetrahedron
Before one will burst into flames one needs oxygen first. In a vacuum there is no hazard of bursting into flames. Remember this, and when you get your first physics lesson on combustion at school you will be mister smartypants!

If there is no oxygen, how on earth do you think the occupants of that vehicle are going to breath? You bet that such a train will need to carry oxygen, one way or the other. And in the event of a crash, that oxygen could be released into the vacuum, and there is your fire triangle, complete.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

17MW is only 23,000HP, and a single GE90 turbofan is 145,000HP already. The RTA96-C cargo ship engine is just 109,000HP.

Re:Why?

[viperidaenz]

Those figures are based on a 20,000kg train. Those trains you mentioned were 4 to 9x that. That power also needs to be the forward thrust of the train. The magnets also need to lift it. Your power needs to also be transferred 1000's of kilometers so you've got a lot of transmission loss as well, unless you generate the power on board then you have the added weight of an engine, generator and fuel like a traditional train - which doesn't have to lift itself above a rail.

Re:Why?

[swalve]

Gravitational slingshots.

Re:Why?

[socialleech]

Or, you know, have a superconducting power line running the length of the track. From the wikipedia page on superconductivity: "An electric current flowing in a loop of superconducting wire can persist indefinitely with no power source" That logic would prevail as having virtually no transmission loss.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much energy do you expend to keep it super conducting.

Re:Why?

[HornWumpus]

Thigh waders.

Re:Why?

[w0mprat]

one word: VACUUM. Two words: fire triangle Two words containing a difficult one: fire tetrahedron Before one will burst into flames one needs oxygen first. In a vacuum there is no hazard of bursting into flames. Remember this, and when you get your first physics lesson on combustion at school you will be mister smartypants!

If there is no oxygen, how on earth do you think the occupants of that vehicle are going to breath? You bet that such a train will need to carry oxygen, one way or the other. And in the event of a crash, that oxygen could be released into the vacuum, and there is your fire triangle, complete.

Oxygen would be the least of all problems in a crash at 4000mph. Also I doubt any such design would carry combustible fuel. Such a train would need the output of whole external powerstations. I doubt there is any need to carry pure oxygen either, there would be trace air in the conduit (perfect vacuum: impossible) and at 4000mph you'd have no problems capturing and compressing it. Finally what exactly is a vacuum train going to hit? A train coming the other way? In power loss a trains own mommentum could keep mag lev functioning while an emergency stop is performed. If reserve compressed air and CO2 scrubbing runs out, the tube can just be opened to atmosphere and people can literally walk to an exit hatch. It seems that it really isn't so dangerous compared to an airline flight after all.

Re:Why?

[DMUTPeregrine]

Also, not all oxygen needs to come from air. For example, chlorine trifluoride is a better oxidizer than oxygen. Also a better fluorinating agent than fluorine. It will happily burn sand, asbestos, bricks, concrete, and other such substances. Even works in a pure nitrogen atmosphere, or a vacuum. While I'd certainly hope there isn't any in the vicinity of the train there are lots of other oxidizers that will be present. Even aluminum train body + rust on any steel in the tunnels could create a (probably small) thermite reaction.

Just because there's no combustion doesn't mean it isn't exothermic.

Re:Why?

[Tom]

If there is no oxygen, how on earth do you think the occupants of that vehicle are going to breath?

Air, which is only about 20% oxygen.

You bet that such a train will need to carry oxygen, one way or the other. And in the event of a crash, that oxygen could be released into the vacuum, and there is your fire triangle, complete.

It would quickly dissipate into a much, much larger area (the tube) and - someone with a physics degree can certainly do the math here - probably be dissipated too much to be of use to any fire within seconds.

Unless air leaks in from the outside atmosphere, you can ignore fire as a serious hazard.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

maglev doesn't require energy to levitate. there's only the energy needed to chill the superconductors on the train. and once the train is up to speed, it requires little to no energy to maintain the speed, and most of the energy can be recovered in the deceleration at the end of the journey

Re:Why?

[MrL0G1C]

So you tell me, if the lines are super-conducting and/or you using a couple of 10,500Kw (electric) trains and you settle for going 4000km/h after 15 min's instead of 3 min's, and a vacuum removes the air resistance and mag-Lev removes rolling resistance so perhaps the idea is feasible.

And correct me if I'm wrong but the 'have to lift itself above a rail.' is done by magnetism and saves energy overall.

The real problem actually seems to be the cost of creating thousands of miles of expensive track in an airtight tube and how to deal with sudden loss of vacuum.

Re:Why?

[Neil Boekend]

When crashing into a wall @ 4000mph (or worse: skidding over a wall) almost anything becomes a fuel, simply due to the immense heat generated.

However: since we managed to get airline flight safe we'd get this safe. Safer than driving a car would probably be a breeze. Self induction in the maglev coils could keep you safe in case of an power outage. Sensors in the tube could detect a leak (due to increased air pressure) and thus could prevent crashing into a "wall of air" of 0.02 bar by sending a signal to the train to get it to emergency speed (500 kmh, or 310 mph, would be a useful emergency speed in this case.). Remember, if there is a leak the air has to spread from a small opening to the volume of the tube. This spreading takes time. As a result the "wall of air" will most probably be a length of tube where the pressure gradually rises (barring catrastropical failure of the tube, where the diameter of the tube is the diameter of the hole).

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

one word: VACUUM.

Two words: fire triangle

Two words containing a difficult one: fire tetrahedron

Before one will burst into flames one needs oxygen first. In a vacuum there is no hazard of bursting into flames. Remember this, and when you get your first physics lesson on combustion at school you will be mister smartypants!

If there is no oxygen, how on earth do you think the occupants of that vehicle are going to breath? You bet that such a train will need to carry oxygen, one way or the other. And in the event of a crash, that oxygen could be released into the vacuum, and there is your fire triangle, complete.

I would guess the occupants don't sit on the engine...

If I were to make a wild guess, I'd assume the engine is on the outside part of the trains and the occupants on the inside part.

Re:why?

[rally2xs]

A nice 12 hour flight from DC to Kuwait that I did a couple times really beats you up. You start thinking about hypersonic airliners...

Re:Why?

[heathen_01]

If man wasn't meant to fly, he'd have been born with roots.

Re:Why?

[mcgrew]

If man was meant to fly, he'd have been given a big enough brain to design a 747.

Re:Why?

[cycleflight]

You're talking about tubes that are hundreds of miles long and cars that are maybe a mile long, needing only to carry enough _air_, not oxygen, to survive the trip plus excess for the car itself. If all of that were released into a giant tube at once, and all 18% of it that is oxygen went right out the window with it, that newly polluted vacuum would be about as flammable as cured wet concrete.

Re:Why?

[viperidaenz]

As long as the lines are dead straight. See my other post on this topic. To make a turn with 0.1g lateral acceleration at 4000mph you need a radius of 2000 miles. There are also other comfort issues to take into account, since you're traveling several times faster than the rotation of the earth your passengers may start to feel the effects of lower gravity, since the earth is not flat and you're traveling at ~17% of escape velocity depending on the direction you're going. 24,000mph would give you zero gravity

Re:Why?

[viperidaenz]

Name one superconducting material that works at any significant temperature above absolute zero. "high temperature superconductors" can still work at up to -135 degrees centigrade. most require -200c. It's not going to be cheap or energy efficient to keep the maglev components at those temperatures. Why do you think the LHC cost so much? It only has 27km of superconducting magnets.

The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

There's only one reason rapid public transportation of any type isn't being built in the USA. Poor people use it, and this country hates poor people.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[SJHillman]

I will volunteer to be raped by hobos if it means I get to zoom around at 4,000 mph.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[jdastrup]

So all the subway users in New York are house cleaners and students? Wrong. The reason why only poor people use it in other cities is because most public transportation was built around cities that were not designed for it, therefore driving your own car is more efficient, and therefore poor people that don't have cars obviously have to use it. Building public transportation in large spread out city after the fact is a complete waste of money, doesn't matter what kind; e.g. bus, rail, subway, or these new "tubes" - they just won't work in the suburbs.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Old97]

At the same time?

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

I will volunteer to be raped by hobos

I see you're still getting a 'b' when you hit the 'm' key.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[MRe_nl]

It's the mile-low club.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

wow you are an idiot.

LOTS of people use commuter trains and subways. Just because your myopic self can't grasp all the users of a tech or service, doesn't mean there aren't any.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[nschubach]

You wouldn't need to be raped by hobos if you didn't have an entire freaking train setup to do this. I don't understand why the system can't be designed to use small "taxi" pods where you and your friends can be ferried to many more points in the line without having to rely on where the majority of your train wants to be or stopping for someone else along the way.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[TheRealMindChild]

I think you are mistaken. The people riding public transportation do it because they have to. No one wants to ride into the city for an hour, just to get a connecting transfer out of the city to their job... then turn around and do it after work is done. A car may be more efficient AND convenient, but the folks riding public trans can't afford one, let alone the gas money to use it.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[vlm]

It's the mile-low club.

Technically its the "mile per second club".

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

poverty transport

Re:The only answer for the USA

[h4rr4r]

In major cities I disagree. Many people choose to use it because it is faster than getting stuck in traffic.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never lived in a major city. Driving a car is a major hassle in traffic, and it's quicker to get around on the bus.

I'd leave my car parked for months on end. And it's a nice shiney mercedes and I was living in a plush downtown condo, so no, it's not "just for poors". You're just a sheltered doofus.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[osu-neko]

I think you are confused. Reread what the person you're replying to said. Most of what you said in no way contradicts it, nor do you explain what you think is "mistaken" about what he said. You pretty much just went off on a tangent and explains why people do use public transportation in cities that weren't designed for it, despite it not being more efficient (a fact OP mentioned).

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Antipater]

The Transcontinental Railroad cost $1.2 billion in 2012 dollars. The Eisenhower Interstate System cost $425 billion of the same.

Are you sure you don't understand why a decentralized "pod" system wouldn't work?

Re:The only answer for the USA

[dgatwood]

Not necessarily. Bear in mind that when you're talking about accelerating to 4,000 MPH, you're limited to very-long-distance travel. Bear in mind, we're talking about Los Angeles to New York City in a little over half an hour. This wouldn't replace subways, but rather would replace jets and trains.

Also, when public transit is used by people who can afford cars, it is usually because driving is unholy in those cities. It would be more precise to say that public transit doesn't work unless the normal road system is hopelessly broken, which is not the case in the suburbs.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[TheRaven64]

As the grandparent said, it depends. In dense cities, using the subway is likely to get you to your destination faster than driving in the congested streets. Take the subway from Wall Street or 5th Avenue in NYC sometime and you'll see a lot of people who could definitely afford to take a car, if it made sense for them to do so. The same is true on pretty much any of the London Underground lines.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

You must work in Pittsburgh...

Re:The only answer for the USA

[R3d M3rcury]

What a silly bunt.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Red Flayer]

Hah. I rode the train daily with Goldman Sachs guys who lived in houses I can barely *dream* of owning. The train was more convenient from Summit NJ to Manhattan than any other kind of transport, including helicopters (according to one of the guys, after his second paper-bag beer one Friday*). Apparently helicopter transport to NYC is a pain in the ass, because the helipads are not conveniently located -- either on the departing side or the arriving side.

*So every Friday, four GS guys who always sat in the same spot, would have beers on the train. One of the guys retired, and they need a fourth to occupy the seats -- they didn't want some random person sitting with them. They asked me to sit with them, it lasted about two months until circumstances made it better for me to commute by bus instead of train. These guys would pound a beer (or two) in Penn Station waiting for their train, then drink another one (or two) on the 40-minute train ride home... they jokingly said it was the ammunition they needed to deal with their wives for an entire weekend.

But I digress...

If you take the Morris & Essex express into Hoboken or NY, which skips all or almost all the stops in Essex county, you'd believe that it's only the *wealthy* who take trains.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[SJHillman]

Tt costs 425 times as much but probably gets far more usage than that. How many people, businesses and goods use the interstate system compared to trains?

Re:The only answer for the USA

[viperidaenz]

They won't work in any short distance travel. You would have traveled over 200 miles just by accelerating to 4000mph at 1G then stopping again at 1G. That's going to be pretty uncomfortable too. High speed trains get up to 0.1G. That's 30 minutes to get top speed. That's 1000 miles to get up to speed and stop again. Forget about doing any turns without the breakfast of your commuters on the side windows of the tube either. I think my calculations might be off on this one (because it seems ridiculous) but to achieve a comfortable 0.1G lateral acceleration, the turning radius would have to be 20,000 miles - this planet isn't big enough.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Antipater]

Possibly. But how are you going to build it in the first place? $100mil per mile * 3000 miles * 425 = $127.5 trillion.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[fridaynightsmoke]

The Transcontinental Railroad cost $1.2 billion in 2012 dollars. The Eisenhower Interstate System cost $425 billion of the same.

Are you sure you don't understand why a decentralized "pod" system wouldn't work?

One coast-to-coast (well, west coast to somewhere-in-the-middle, to be pedantic) railroad costs less than a whole network of many coast-to-coast, north-to-south and everywhere in between highways? Really??

I would say "you're comparing apples to oranges" but it wouldn't even come close. You're comparing one apple to a crate of oranges.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy: mandate it and tax for it!

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Belial6]

Which basically comes down to the public transportation sucking just as bad or worse in dense cities as sparse cities, but the roads being even worse yet. And the call for public transportation in sparse areas is just an attempt to make the sparse areas that are currently better to be as crappy as the cramped dense cities.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Antipater]

Uh, yes, exactly. Because the person I was replying to asked "Why are we discussing a point-to-point rail system when we could be discussing a distributed web where individual transport vehicles go where they please?" Given the price of an apple, the price of an orange, and the price of a crate of oranges, I can pretty well justify an estimate for the price of a crate of apples.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[trout007]

The big problem in NYC is parking the damn car. People who have the bucks take taxis or town cars. They are almost always the fastest.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[TheRealMindChild]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry that you know that

Re:The only answer for the USA

[kat_skan]

Somehow I don't think bragging about how fast you were is ever going to catch on.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[CrimsonAvenger]

I think my calculations might be off on this one (because it seems ridiculous) but to achieve a comfortable 0.1G lateral acceleration, the turning radius would have to be 20,000 miles - this planet isn't big enough.

Your calculations are off. Just a bit over 2000 miles radius for a 0.1g turn.

Your main point was correct, however - this is a train that does long straight lines really well, but that's about all.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[dontclapthrowmoney]

Build it in Afghanistan?

Re:The only answer for the USA

[viperidaenz]

2000 miles is still crazy. That's half the radius of the planet.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[hawguy]

As the grandparent said, it depends. In dense cities, using the subway is likely to get you to your destination faster than driving in the congested streets. Take the subway from Wall Street or 5th Avenue in NYC sometime and you'll see a lot of people who could definitely afford to take a car, if it made sense for them to do so. The same is true on pretty much any of the London Underground lines.

Even in less dense areas (SF Bay Area) taking transit often takes less time than driving (especially when you include the time to find parking and walk to the office), but even when transit takes more time, when you take the train you can read a book or get some work done (as long as you're not riding in a crush-load commute hour train).

Re:The only answer for the USA

[swalve]

"maped my homos"? Failure.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[forceman130]

The Transcontinental Railroad cost $1.2 billion in 2012 dollars. The Eisenhower Interstate System cost $425 billion of the same.

Are you sure you don't understand why a decentralized "pod" system wouldn't work?

How many miles was the Transcontinental Railroad, and how many miles is the Interstate System?

Re:The only answer for the USA

[schroedingers_hat]

Public transport gets better with population density (or at least number of people using it). I've lived in areas where I just walk out the front door and hop on to one of the two different bus routes that stop outside every five minutes (both of which went to several of my usual destinations). If I was going anywhere on those routes (or a single transfer) I wouldn't dream of using a car.
I've also lived in places where it's quicker to walk 8km than use the bus/train.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Belial6]

Yes, it gets better. It goes from completely useless to sucking really bad. That is better.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

This is definitely not true. Personally, I ride the LA metro rail lines from Long Beach to El Segundo. Why? Well, I live near the Metro in Long Beach and it drops me off close to my workplace. I could drive (and in fact I do occasionally) but don't for a number of reasons: less environmental pollution, not having to deal with traffic (esp. stop-and-go), easy way to force myself to exercise (walking to and fro), not putting miles on my car, not having to fill up with gas every week, etc.

Sure there are some nice things about driving, mostly being able to have my own schedule for arrival and departure, but I still feel that 90% of the time it's not worth driving versus taking the Metro. Oh and driving takes about 10 minutes less, 20 if you count walking to and from the station.

And before you go down this road, I certainly have enough money to pay for gas and car wear and tear, hell, I could even purchase a brand new car on my salary but it just seems unnecessary. Honestly, I've lived in Long Beach for years, but now that I've moved to the true downtown heart, I'm been really happy walking and taking the Metro to places. I still drive occasionally (mostly late at night when buses don't run), but it's very freeing and healthier (not to mention more interesting) to walk out my door and pass my car.

Point of this long rant aside, the only thing hurt by my riding the Metro is my car's feelings...

Re:The only answer for the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you mean someone actually had a job in PIttsburgh?

Re:The only answer for the USA

[profplump]

No one said the chairs have to remain perpendicular to the surface of the earth.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[avandesande]

Airplanes doing short hops don't reach their altitude ceiling either. I am not sure why you are requiring 4000mph for short distances.

Re:The only answer for the USA

[viperidaenz]

Airplanes don't travel in a fixed tube. If a corner in the tube is too tight for high speed travel every journey will have to slow down to take it, not just the short distance ones. Until someone uses this Higgs particle to change the effect of mass then inertia will always be a problem

Re:The only answer for the USA

[couchslug]

Buy the right-of-way and trains can work as well as they do in the suburbs rail travel made possible in the first place.

Rail is a very long term investment, but areas with good rail nets benefit greatly from them.

Liability

[robinsonne]

Who wants to accept the liability if passengers/surrounding objects get turned into goo when a tiny defect causes the 4000 mph object to decelerate in a not-quite-so-planned manner?

Re:Liability

[geogob]

Airlines?

Re:Liability

[O('_')O_Bush]

The article mentions this... the problem is, it sets up a false dichotomy. The options aren't no vacuum trains or ones that go at 4k mph... there is a whole range of speeds that these trains could be effective and efficient, and not all will turn passengers into goo if it crashes.

Re:Liability

[MozeeToby]

You're not any more dead than if your airliner falls out of the sky at 500 mph.

Safety is not the real problem. If you really put some research and development into it, you could probably get maglev down to $500,000 per km and probably a similar amount (if not more) for the vacuum tube (compare to $100 million per km right now). Then there's the cost of the trains, running the lines, maintaining vacuum ect. And for any run to make sense it's going to need to be thousands of km long, and every stop you make is going to defeat the purpose so direct lines between major cities are a must. A run from NY to LA would run you several billion dollars just to get started and several hundred million every year after that for maintenance and repair. So, the real question is: is there enough traffic between NY and LA (for example) to recuperate the cost of construction and operations. I highly, highly doubt the answer is yes.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

So, this is to contrast with airplanes?
Tube vs. plane:
Massive new series of partially vacuum tubes for each route you want vs. communications infrastructure and specialized building at each destination you want.
Tube breaks and the entire train 'crashes' into the normally preassured air vs. anything short of losing both wings still has a good chance of gliding into a relatively slow landing.
Crammed into tiny chairs in a high speed tube vs. crammed into tiny chairs in a flying high speed tube.
Specialized docking situation to allow passengers to bypass the low-preassure region without damaging the vacuum vs. specialized docking station so airports can sell $15 slices of pizza.

Ok, 2 wins for planes, 2 ties. And that's just for travel on the same continent, things get much more awkward when you want to build a giant tube across an ocean.

Re:Liability

[pthisis]

A run from NY to LA would run you several billion dollars just to get started and several hundred million every year after that for maintenance and repair. So, the real question is: is there enough traffic between NY and LA (for example) to recuperate the cost of construction and operations. I highly, highly doubt the answer is yes.

If it were that cheap it'd be "yes, absolutely, and we're going to hook up every major city as well."

They're talking about spending over $150 billion for the high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and Amtrak's discussing $100 million in track improvements to get TGV-level speeds from Boston to Washington, DC.

Those are the nicest train routes in the country, but they're peanuts compared to how profitable a NY-to-LA in under an hour route would be if it only cost a few billion to get going and several hundred million a year to operate.

Re:Liability

[vlm]

The article mentions this... the problem is, it sets up a false dichotomy. The options aren't no vacuum trains or ones that go at 4k mph... there is a whole range of speeds that these trains could be effective and efficient, and not all will turn passengers into goo if it crashes.

Sadly in this case, no. You can't financially handle the R+D and building costs to make this thing and plod along at 100 MPH like the Milwaukee to Chicago run does today. Also cannot operate at a mere 500 MPH like a aircraft given the high costs. So you need to run over 500 MPH. The effects on the passengers of a derailment at 550 MPH are not likely to be a lot better than derailment at 4000 MPH. Sort of like how falling 10 stories off a building doesn't turn out ten times better than falling 100 stories.

Re:Liability

[thedonger]

Or the liability when we all suffocate while waiting in the vacuum for the train to arrive. Or the liability of our organs exploding due to the G forces on acceleration. Or the liability of all those exploding organs coming out of our mouths when the train decelerates.

But think of the fun one can have putting pennies on the tracks. I bet they would melt. Or destroy a city block when the train derails - make that de-tubes.

Is it fast enough to alter time? Say, I enter the train Monday morning to go to work, and get off the train 10 minutes later, but on Tuesday? (Yes, I live 700 miles from work.)

Re:Liability

[vlm]

you could probably get maglev down to $500,000 per km

LOL, no you could not. Lets look at a nice unpressurized low speed shallow ultra low tech project, Boston's "big dig". Thats 14.6 billion dollars for 5.6 kilometers for a mere cost of 2.6 billion dollars per kilometer. And you think you're going to build an evacuated hypersonic deep modern high tech ultra high speed train for a fifth of that. Well.... good luck with that. Maybe you mistyped and meant 500 billion dollars per KM, which is not too far out of line for a superconducting particle accelerator? At 4000 KM from NYC to LA (roughly) thats a ridiculous amount of money, enough to buy each human being currently in the USA a midrange bizjet.

Re:Liability

[icebike]

First there was never any realistic suggestion of 4000mph, I think he made it up as a premise to write his fluff article.
The story is about as thin on science or facts as your typical comic book.

If you could achieve 400mph that would be sufficient. Nobody has seriously suggested 4000mph land based travel.

400mph tube trains would allow you to have fixed stations supplying the propulsive power, and the mag-lev or air-suspension engineering can easily handle any defects that would affect the ride at that speed, or at least detect them before they became serious issues

However, what remains to be seen is if the cost of building the tubes is worth the hassle, vs more conventional electrical powered surface trains.
After all there is no free lunch, and removing the air from in front of the train while pumping it in behind induces some rather huge air movement requirements, and inefficiencies in that process may well be higher than more conventional electric trains pushing air out of the way.

The problem we have in the US with high speed trains is our rail system is beat to crap by freight trains, meaning our trains can't go very fast. Other countries tend to use new and separate facilities for passenger and freight. Even Amtrak is starting to gear up for high speed rail, but it is dependent on private railroads for track. But laying new track, or improving existing track is far cheaper than building tubes all over the country.

In short, this article sets up the straw man and knocks it down very handily, but the fact of the matter is this was never seriously a contender for mass transit.

Re:Liability

[undefinedreference]

Actually, that's probably an optimal route. If you group California's flights (not just LA) that go to the northeast corridore, this would easily be economically viable. The problem is that the startup cost and long lead time before it'd be functional would make the actual construction costs far higher.

But if you could get people from Los Angeles to New York (or just above anywhere in the northeast corridore) in 41 minutes, rather than 375 minutes, everyone within 120-180 minutes of either end point by some form of transport to somewhere within 120-180 minutes of the other end, you could easily replace 95% of cross-country flights within the US.

With effective 'packet' switching, you could run a trunk down the center of the country and split off to Chicago or Atlanta somewhere in the middle. This could revolutionize meatspace networking.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

... ones that go at 4k mph...

Oh, you use Metric and Imperial all in the same sentence? You must be so smart to be able to convert that on the fly.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I agree with your other points...

So, the real question is: is there enough traffic between NY and LA (for example) to recuperate the cost of construction and operations. I highly, highly doubt the answer is yes.

A better question would be, was there enough traffic between NY and LA (for example) before the advent of commercial jet airlines to justify routine service between LAX and JFK? When it comes to speedy travel between major population centers, there's a definite potential for a Field of Dreams effect.

Re:Liability

[AK Marc]

When you mention the Big Dig as an example if reasonable costs, then you are an idiot not worth talking to. If you used it as a worst case, then you inadequately explained yourself in an obviously biased manner, and thus are not worth talking to. I agree that $500,000 per km is likely too low, but 2.6 billion dollars per km is similarly insane.

Re:Liability

[Archangel Michael]

We have 400 MPH Tube Trains ... they are called Airplanes.

SPACE is the next great travel method for grand distances over a certain length.

Re:Liability

[element-o.p.]

...enough [money] to buy each human being currently in the USA a midrange bizjet.

Oooh! Then I choose option "B." I've always wanted my own Lear Jet! Wait...do I have to pay for the fuel for it, or is that included?

Re:Liability

[element-o.p.]

...things get much more awkward when you want to build a giant tube across an ocean.

Yep. *cough* tectonic plates *cough* vacuum tunnels *cough*

Re:Liability

[MickLinux]

Okay, then try this on for size-- typical price of a 50' wide segmental bridge done on the cheap, 120 million per mile.

Re:Liability

[MickLinux]

Packet switching an internet hub is a headache, but is cheap. Packet switching hypersonic trains is probably next to impossible, unless you design it from the get go to be "loss tolerant". But that phrase may be hard to sell to potential passengers. . I think the key here is to abandon the impossibly high tech, and work on packet switching at speeds like 60 mph, travel at 180 mph, and frequent turnover on many repetitive loops.

Re:Liability

[garyebickford]

I dunno - considering the level of catastrophe that happens to vehicles going 4000 miles through air when a paint chip strikes them, making a vehicle that operates a minuscule fraction of a millimeter from walls going by at that speed without turning into molten slag seems pretty difficult. I can argue that it _might_ be possible to extend our present knowledge and technology to build a 550 MPH (800 KMH?) vehicle that could survive most minor events - I would think that making derailment impossible would be one useful approach. But at 4000 MPH even a bump a millimeter high - anywhere on the hundreds of miles of wall - would be beyond fatal as any minor removal of material would cause the removed material to propagate and become a storm of removed material.

I will note that many stores still have very useful vacuum-based paperwork distribution systems to ship receipts or something from checkstands to the central office. So vacuum systems do work - I just think 4000 MPH is beyond fantasy.

Re:Liability

[CrimsonAvenger]

but they're peanuts compared to how profitable a NY-to-LA in under an hour route

Won't be under an hour, unless we're pulling .2g or so.

More like 80-90 minutes.

Your point stands, however - it would make a bloody mint if it existed. If only from people who rode it just so they could say they did it....

Re:Liability

[garyebickford]

Well, in fairness, the Big Dig is not a good example considering that 2/3 of the money probably ended up in the hands of criminal syndicates of one sort or another. Also, it was built underground below the water table, and required a tunnel six or eight lanes wide - probably an order of magnitude or two more difficult and expensive than a train-size tunnel.

By comparison the City of Portland, Oregon recently completed the 'Big Pipe' projects, digging about 10 miles of tunnel up to 160 feet underground (and under a river) to handle storm runoff. They used 14-foot diameter boring machines and did the whole project for $1.5 billion, which is about $150 million per mile. That cost included all the pumping stations and other costs, not just boring the hole. (See also West Side CSO Tunnel.)

So the cost of drilling a train tunnel, which would fit nicely in a 14 foot diameter tunnel, should be of the same order. Adding maglev or whatnot to make trains actually go would be additional, of course. At $150 million per mile, the 400 miles from SF to LA could be drilled for $60 billion. But you actually need three tunnels - one each way plus a service tunnel (like the Chunnel between UK and France), so call it $180 billion.

Re:Liability

[garyebickford]

It's worth noting that several recent airports (Dallas/Fort Worth, Montreal, Dulles) each took more land area than a four-lane freeway going between those Dallas and NYC.

Re:Liability

[garyebickford]

The problem we have in the US with high speed trains is our rail system is beat to crap by freight trains, meaning our trains can't go very fast. Other countries tend to use new and separate facilities for passenger and freight. Even Amtrak is starting to gear up for high speed rail [inhabitat.com], but it is dependent on private railroads for track. But laying new track, or improving existing track is far cheaper than building tubes all over the country.

Yet another example of how politics can ruin anything. In order to get the law creating Amtrak through, the politicians agreed to allow the railroads to continue to prioritize their profitable freight over Amtrak. Amtrak trains, except in a few cases, get the lowest priority of anything on the track. And Amtrak has no ability to improve track so their trains can go faster. In many areas they are restricted to 20 MPH due to track conditions, hills, urban conflict, etc.

The right way to do it would have been to nationalize the railbeds (buy them from the railroads) and let the railroads, now stripped to their essential function, compete on service and price. This could have been done back when the railroads were all going bankrupt. Now it's too late. Governments are reasonably good at maintaining infrastructure, businesses are generally better at service, so it would have been a productive arrangement, similar to both airlines vs. airports and trucks vs. highways.

Re:Liability

[icebike]

Buy the from the railroads?

They were GIVEN the land in most cases, and have enjoyed the right of way a hundred years or better. We could hold their feet just a little closer to the fire if you ask me.

But why not pay them to maintain them to a standard. You rent an apartment, you expect windows that aren't broken. We pay via taxes for roads, why not direct some of that money to railroad improvements?

Re:Liability

[dontclapthrowmoney]

Plus, if it was more convenient and also faster than air travel, more people would use it. One hour from LA to NY would take about the same time as my regular commute into work from the suburbs into the city (a distance of roughly 25 kilometres, in traffic).

Re:Liability

[tocs]

A plane crash can turn a pretty large number of passengers into non human like substance. If it could be done reasonably safely. Maybe they could start out sending mail (freight).

Re:Liability

[hawguy]

... ones that go at 4k mph...

Oh, you use Metric and Imperial all in the same sentence? You must be so smart to be able to convert that on the fly.

4k != 4km

Re:Liability

[undefinedreference]

Nobody said you had to switch the 'packets' at line speed. We're talking about a fairly dumb tube for most of the distance, but in some regions a tag on the 'packet' indicates that it needs to be switched off the trunk, so you drop it to a manageable speed (ex: 60 mph) and transfer it to another tube. If it's going all the way you simply keep it at velocity. Los Angeles to New York would be 41 minutes, but Chicago or Atlanta might be 35, even though the actual distance of the trips might be shorter.

The funny thing is that it would still cost more to get to Chicago than New York from Los Angeles, even though the distance is shorter, because your switching would require a delay in traffic to New York.

I still think this is a great public works project idea.

Re:Liability

[macshit]

You don't have to guess about the maglev part, because Japan is building an actual long-distance maglev line. Costs seem to be about $200 million / km, but that includes everything, stations, etc (compare the various route choices and note that the construction costs don't vary nearly as much as the distances [that's affected by the amount of tunneling, etc, too, of course]).

Re:Liability

[RajivSLK]

Why would it have to be underground all the way? I would think that for most of the distance you could build an above ground structure for far cheaper. Or at the very least build a cut and cover tunnel much cheaper than boring a hole. That would only need to be done in the cities.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly in this case, no. You can't financially handle the R+D and building costs to make this thing and plod along at 100 MPH like the Milwaukee to Chicago run does today. Also cannot operate at a mere 500 MPH like a aircraft given the high costs. So you need to run over 500 MPH.

Yes you can, because there are other advantages; the ability to run near-frictionless, hence saving LOTS of energy. This results in reduced costs and therefore large numbers of customers.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

and removing the air from in front of the train while pumping it in behind induces some rather huge air movement requirements

You're 150 years late. This isn't about pneumatic tubes.

Re:Liability

[yndrd1984]

-...things get much more awkward when you want to build a giant tube across an ocean.

Yep. *cough* tectonic plates *cough* vacuum tunnels *cough*

And we couldn't possibly put the tube under water?

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Check your math. Accelerating at a rate of 6mph/sec (slower than a minivan at 0-60) would put you at 4000 mph in a little over 11 minutes.

Re:Liability

[ngg]

Won't be under an hour, unless we're pulling .2g or so.

More like 80-90 minutes.

Your point stands, however - it would make a bloody mint if it existed. If only from people who rode it just so they could say they did it....

I'm not sure I buy that: Round-trip flights between LA and New York can be had for under $300 and take 7-8 hours, including time at the airport. So what price premium is the public willing to pay to get there in 1/3 the time (assuming it takes some time to get on and off the train)? I have trouble believing the capital costs of a vacu-mag-lev passing through two mountain ranges is going to have a lower per-mile cost than the current California HSR (currently ~$100 billion for ~500 miles, or $200 million / mile).

Do you think you can really charge a big enough price premium to cover the extra capital and operating costs of such a thing? I think the Concorde has your answer.

Re:Liability

[Grayhand]

,2G is uncomfortable and people couldn't walk around but it is doable. The problem is if it's constant since there's no G force once you achieve speed. You could offer two services one that was low G that took a bit longer then one for the doctor's approved class that would be under an hour then you could even pull .5G. It's only 1G and above where difficulties can crop up. Most healthy people would be fine with .5G. Even 1G is like some one your size laying on you. Above a certain point you need G chairs and suits to keep you from passing out during sustained Gs.

Re:Liability

[ILMTitan]

Are you concerned over the passengers collapsing over a mere .2 g? At that acceleration (perpendicular to gravity), people would only feel 2% heavier. People would only feel 20% heavier at .66g (numbers brought to you courtesy of the Pythagorean Theorem). Humans can withstand a lot more force than that. Roller coasters hit more than 3g. I can't imagine minimal safe acceleration would be less than .5g.

Re:Liability

[element-o.p.]

o_O

Re:Liability

[Tom]

Most of the issues outlined do not depend on the speed so much. A blocked (rockfall or whatever) piece tube is a death trap whether you're hitting it at 6000 km/h or 600 km/h. Given that you're probably going to sit and walk around much like in a train or plane, i.e. no belts or only during certain times, no airbag, etc. it would probably be fatal at 60 km/h.

Re:Liability

[Tom]

If it were that cheap it'd be "yes, absolutely, and we're going to hook up every major city as well."

I may be biased, but I would make Vegas the central hub and connect every major city there.

Who doesn't want to go to Vegas and back in a time that allows for plausible deniability?

Re:Liability

[amake]

is there enough traffic between NY and LA (for example) to recuperate the cost of construction and operations.

You mean "recoup".

Re:Liability

[mlmjunction]

It's worth noting that several recent airports (Dallas/Fort Worth, Montreal, Dulles) each took more land area than a four-lane freeway going between those Dallas and NYC.

hmmm.......

Re:Liability

[mlmjunction]

but they're peanuts compared to how profitable a NY-to-LA in under an hour route

Won't be under an hour, unless we're pulling .2g or so.

More like 80-90 minutes.

Your point stands, however - it would make a bloody mint if it existed. If only from people who rode it just so they could say they did it....

yaah...........

Re:Liability

[GuB-42]

Because there is no air there is no reason for a storm to happen if some material is removed.
A projectile will just be like a bullet fired at a static target. Damage will be done but unless some vital component is affected the train will continue to run. Of course because of the speed, even a small particle will have a lot of kinetic energy but that's all.
As for your millimeter high bump, if there is sufficient shielding it will probably just do some minor damage before being leveled by the passing train.

Re:Liability

[AmiMoJo]

I dunno - considering the level of catastrophe that happens to vehicles going 4000 miles through air when a paint chip strikes them

The Shuttle regularly went faster than that and was continually hit by small debris, as well as having air resistance to deal with. A train in a tunnel devoid of air would have much less to worry about, and defects could be checked for with lasers periodically.

No question it would be a major feat of engineering, but we have already built stuff to travel much faster in much harsher environments.

Re:Liability

[AmiMoJo]

So, the real question is: is there enough traffic between NY and LA (for example) to recuperate the cost of construction and operations.

Nope, the real real question: would there enough traffic between NY and LA (for example) to recuperate the cost of construction and operations.

Japan's rail network is a really good example of this. When they build a station other businesses and entire towns spring up around them. By bringing high speed rail to a city they create the demand to travel there.

Re:Liability

[baffled]

Assuming constant acceleration/deceleration for each half of the trip:
d = .5a(t/2)^2 + .5a(t/2)^2 = 1/4at^2
a = 4d/t^2
NY to LA is 2464 miles
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%5B4*2464miles%2F(60min)%5E2%5D+%2F+32ft%2Fs%5E2
0.13 g for a 60 min trip.

Re:Liability

[ultranova]

I dunno - considering the level of catastrophe that happens to vehicles going 4000 miles through air when a paint chip strikes them, making a vehicle that operates a minuscule fraction of a millimeter from walls going by at that speed without turning into molten slag seems pretty difficult.

The difference is that this is a train, so weight is not going to be a problem. So make the outer shell out of solid steel 10 centimeters thick, and it's going to be fine.

Re:Liability

[Prof.Phreak]

Not sure why something the size of an oil pipe-line wouldn't work... 3' diameter or something, where you lie down in a pod that zaps through the tube. With perhaps 2-seconds gap between pods. Perhaps with a switch that allows for more than one destination. That would be cheaper (e.g. maybe 100x more expensive than a similar-length oil-pipeline, but still "within imaginable range").

Hmm... though 2 seconds between pods would mean you can only service ~40k people a day (how many does JFK service a day?). Though you could double that by halfving the distance between pods... perhaps have a nearly continuous stream of pods going 4kmh?

Re:Liability

[westlake]

it would make a bloody mint if it existed. If only from people who rode it just so they could say they did it....

That is what they said about Concorde.

Re:Liability

[khallow]

Because there is no air there is no reason for a storm to happen if some material is removed. A projectile will just be like a bullet fired at a static target.

Ok, a "jet of lethal fragments" not a "storm". And it's worth noting that the train is traveling several times faster than the usual bullet.

As for your millimeter high bump, if there is sufficient shielding it will probably just do some minor damage before being leveled by the passing train.

You can always put a lot of space between you and those millimeter bumps (since there is no physical contact between train and anything else in normal operation). It's even less of an issue than what the earlier poster was claiming.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

...but with the advent of pervasive network access, is there as much demand for anyone to have to travel cross country in a brief amount of time for anything?

The Concord worked because there were actually business types who needed (or at least really wanted) to be in meetings on both sides of the Atlantic, now they can do that with video conferencing.

Vacuum trains are just like the Dubai high speed bus story earlier this week, a solution for a problem that doesn't exist anymore.

Re:Liability

[jcgam69]

A run from NY to LA would run you several billion dollars just to get started

LA moves north at 33 mm per year, which would likely cause problems for tunnels from LA to any destination in the east.

Re:Liability

[northernfrights]

I don't think there are any liability differences between transporting people 300+ mph and transporting people 4000 mph...

Re:Liability

[Immerman]

First off 4000mph is Mach 5, not much travels through air that fast for very long, certainly not paint chips. You're probably thinking of orbital collisions in which case the rules are very different - namely that chip of paint "floats" in it's own orbit, whereas on Earth, especially in a vacuum it would immediately fall to the ground, out of the way). Plus LEO orbital velocity is ~18,000mph, or 20x the specific energy on impact. To make matters worse the real dangerous collisions are the head-on ones, in which case the specific energies are 4x higher (2x the speed, squared), for a total of 80x the specific energy of a 4000mph impact. And it's still more like a bullet impact than an explosion (more specific energy canceled by less mass), it's just that when you're floating along in a giant high-tech tin can full of things that can go wrong and quickly kill you, getting shot at is really no fun.

A "scraped wall" scenario wouldn't snowball as you describe - first off all impacts would only be glancing blows, allowing most of the energy to be safely dissipated, moreover any shrapnel from a really sever impact would be moving at a speed somewhere between that of the train and the wall, resulting in lower energies to begin with.

More to the point there's absolutely no reason to have the train pass within millimeters of the wall in the first place, and as you point out there's very good reasons to leave considerable clearance just to be on the safe side. The reason pneumatic tubes have such close tolerances is in the name - they use air pressure to propel the canisters, so they can't very well let that pressure get past them if they want to operate. In this case it's all magnetic drive, the vacuum tube is just there to eliminate air resistance. And with magnetic levitation the train never even touches the tracks, so debris on the tracks is a non-issue as well, you just have a train floating down the middle of a vacuum tube on magnetic fields, no physical contact with the outside world whatsoever. In such a situation the only real limitation on speed is how tight a turn you can make without breaking free from magnetic confinement and colliding with the walls.

Re:Liability

[sjames]

Add in FedEx runs and such and it could become quite practical.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

I will! Now give me some money!

Re:Liability

[Bill_the_Engineer]

It would be nice if it could be used to link regional airfields to a system of high speed rails. Think of a system of them being trunk lines that transports passengers from one coast to the other.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Or possibly you could undercut the airlines and cause demand to shoot up.

$20 each way for a day trip to LA from NYC? Fuck you could go on a whim.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that you don't have to deal with TSA when you travel by train (yet). It's possible that you save even more time by not having to stand in those lines.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad you included a link to what the 'Big Pipe' was. In Portland it could very well be have a few different meanings.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

80-90 minutes, plus the 3-4 hours for the required TSA rectal inspections.

Re:Liability

[Anonymous Coward]

Concord could not fly supersonic over US, hence it didn't make any sense for it to do so.

And you know, you can always add more trains. The most costly part of a train system is the track, not the train.

Re:Liability

[couchslug]

Airline crashes are easy to clean up and don't interrupt airline service in most cases.

Perhaps..

[ackthpt]

Perhaps it could work, but the technology and mechanics would have to be pretty darn reliable or people would arrive as pâté

We're having a dickens of a time getting our Bullet Train going in California, which has finally been green-lighted to sell bonds and collect some federal funding.

Re:Perhaps..

[usmc4o66]

But it won't be a bullet train... They are going to use it for "Blended" (read: slow, crappy Amtrak) rail, subway, infrastructure upgrades... It is a joke, and will not solve any traffic problems.

Re:Perhaps..

[Dyinobal]

You know of all the places to build a bullet train California seems one of the worst places to do it. Forgetting for a moment that the state already has crippling debt, lets think about Earthquakes, which happens to be one of the natural disasters that strike with little to no warning. I can't imagine any sort of high speed mag lev line will have any sort of real earth quake tolerance, but maybe I'm wrong and some physics or engineering major can come on here and tell me why traveling at a huge speed, on a systems that requires a contiguous track in an earthquake prone region is a good idea.

Re:Perhaps..

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Just maglev the entire mavlev train system.

Re:Perhaps..

[glueball]

Someday maybe the Japanese can figure out how to build a bullet train in an earthquake zone.

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine any sort of high speed mag lev line will have any sort of real earth quake tolerance, but maybe I'm wrong

Yes, you're wrong, and if you'd thought for a few seconds, you would have realized it. Japan does just fine with their bullet trains, despite having plenty of earthquakes.

Re:Perhaps..

[AgNO3]

Yeah those bullet trains in earth quake ridden Japan are always killing people. Oh wait no thats Godzilla.

Re:Perhaps..

[TheRealMindChild]

I don't see a reason these tubes can't shift. If the car is magnetically leveled to the middle of the tunnel, it can take a lot of wiggle room

Re:Perhaps..

[vlm]

I can't imagine any sort of high speed mag lev line will have any sort of real earth quake tolerance, but maybe I'm wrong

Yes, you're wrong, and if you'd thought for a few seconds, you would have realized it. Japan does just fine with their bullet trains, despite having plenty of earthquakes.

Come on AC, don't be a jerk, explain why. The reason why earthquakes don't matter in civilized country with trains is data travels around the speed of light (well, Vp correction factor, but pretty GD fast) and earthquake waves travel at the speed of sound in rocks (well actually compression waves go a different speed that transverse waves but whatever). The point is the ratio is ridiculous. So you have earthquake sensors everywhere including deep in mines and wells and even in worst case scenarios you can get warning minutes before the quake hits the train (no kidding). Now 4000 MPH is faster than sonic so if you're headed away you ignore it, the wave isn't going to hit until long after you arrive at destination. If headed toward, well you got issues, but 4000-0 is not really all that long. A spacecraft like the shuttle never peaked above 3 G but went 0 to 18000 in what 9 minutes or something? So if you're willing to risk 10G I think you can stop pretty darn quick.

Its the same reasoning why satellites save lives in hurricane areas... yes the satellite is much further away than the hurricane, but even so, the radio waves get to the shore long before the hurricane arrives...

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

10Gs would kill anyone who isn't strapped to a chair with a harness, and probably a few of the frailer people who are strapped in. If you have a 10G emergency brake, either forget serving drinks and taking bathroom breaks or forget your attendants and anyone in line for the can.

Re:Perhaps..

[epine]

So if you're willing to risk 10G I think you can stop pretty darn quick.

Thanks for that. I actually snorted out loud. Trained marines in pressure suits with the force vector compacting the spine are reduced to peering through a constricting black tunnel in their field of vision in the desperate attempt to not black out before the missile passes.

I've heard -3g (e.g. non-inverted power dive) described as having an 800lb gorilla sitting on your shoulders squeezing your head between his thighs as if he's nearing his moment. Pilots rarely try this twice.

If people are facing forward wearing lap belts, they will all be praying to Allah with outstretched hands the size of dinner plates while bleeding from ruptured eyeballs. Roller coasters are limited to about +5g for short duration in optimal seating conditions. The nearest such coaster to my location is the one in West Edmonton Mall.

On the evening of June 14, 1986, after the yellow train (train #1) completed the second inverted loop, it encountered one of three areas of uplift before the third and final loop. Missing bolts on the left inside wheel assembly of the last car of the four car train caused the bogey assembly to disengage the track with a full load of riders. This caused the final car to fishtail wildly, disengaging the lap bars as it collided with support structures, thereby throwing off passengers and losing speed. The train entered the third and final inverted loop, but did not have the speed to complete the loop. The train stalled at the top, then slid backwards, crashing into a concrete pillar. Three people were killed during the accident and a fourth man was almost killed.

Not to worry. I'm sure those powerful magnetic fields in evacuated tunnels are magically convex--at least on paper--after a little problem with the Swiss-made magnet contacts is sorted out.

At the time of the accident the park was packed with people who were attending a concert. The ride had shut down twice, as the operator had heard a metallic noise from the train prior to the accident. Despite running the trains empty, the source of the problem could not be located by the maintenance staff, and the regular operation of the ride resumed until the accident occurred.

If a train squeaks in an evacuated tunnel, does anyone hear it?

An investigation and inquiry was launched that revealed that there were problems in the translation from German to English of operational and maintenance information from Schwarzkopf, the German coaster manufacturer. Additional issues with quality control were found as a result of the manufacturer going bankrupt during delivery of the ride, and portions of the ride being finished by the receiver of the firm.

I had forgotten all about Canary Wharf. An ever popular business model: dream big, or go home. These kinds of projects never attract the feeble of heart.

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

What about just putting railroad wheels on cars (in addition to regular tires) and then people could ride along on highways getting a whole bunch to the gallon and then get off the highway and drive like normal. Better yet, you don't need to build tons of new crap that might or might not work...you just build it out a little at a time since it builds on existing infrastructure (cars). Boom. Problem solved.

Re:Perhaps..

[CrimsonAvenger]

Now 4000 MPH is faster than sonic so if you're headed away you ignore it, the wave isn't going to hit until long after you arrive at destination.

A quick google gives a speed of sound through rock of 6-7 km/s. Which works out to about 13,500+ mph.

So, no, if you're heading away from it, it's still going to catch you.

Re:Perhaps..

[spauldo]

The train has a lot of inertia. Those magnets would have to be insanely strong to keep the train in the center if there was a shift in the tunnel.

Even then, imagine going 4,000mph and then getting shifted say, four inches to the right all of a sudden. You'd have a hard time keeping your internal organs, well, internal.

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

A spacecraft like the shuttle never peaked above 3 G but went 0 to 18000 in what 9 minutes or something? So if you're willing to risk 10G I think you can stop pretty darn quick.

Ahem, do you have any idea about the stresses that 10g's can place on a human body? Sure the Mercury astronauts dealt with it, but they were highly trained and in peak physical condition. I really doubt that a 50ish 300lb out of shape executive could survive a 10g emergency deceleration. Especially if it was unexpected and he was caught in the loo. The 3g one would be bad enough for someone not in good physical condition.

Re:Perhaps..

[Jeremi]

The train has a lot of inertia. Those magnets would have to be insanely strong to keep the train in the center if there was a shift in the tunnel.

Either that, or the tunnel would have to be built some percentage larger than the train, so that the train could wander farther from the center of the tunnel without touching the tunnel wall.

Even then, imagine going 4,000mph and then getting shifted say, four inches to the right all of a sudden. You'd have a hard time keeping your internal organs, well, internal.

I don't really see how the forward speed of the train would amplify the effects of lateral shifts. 747s shift four inches to the right every day when there is turbulence, with little damage beyond airsickness. Heck, the Earth is speeding at 67,062 an hour on its journey around the sun, and yet I can shift in my chair as often as I like without losing any internal organs.

Re:Perhaps..

[ChrisMaple]

Oh, for goodness sake. If the "track" shifts "four inches to the right all of a sudden" it doesn't mean the train has to. The train is magnetically suspended above the roadbed, and it has tens of miles - tens of seconds - to adjust by those 4 inches.

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

Does not work like that.
First, earthquake waves below surface travel at 8km/s, much higher than sound in air.

Then, sensors don't work. Why ? coz near the epicentre, where you really desperately need warning, you can't get any warning. More far away, where you have less damage, you will get some seconds of warning. Not much, not enough to take action. Sensor networks work or tsunamis, nut much else.

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

But you ARE aware that earthquake waves in the crust travel at speeds of 4,440 - 18,000 mph, are you? They don't magically stop and say "hey, let's travel through air, so the trains can stop in time".

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall the human body handles negative G's (from braking) much much worse then positive G's. So I don't think braking with 10G is going to be a big success

Re:Perhaps..

[profplump]

That's only relevant if you're dead-set on having the chairs face the forward edge of the vehicle.

And if you're looking for high-G handling I don't know why the chairs wouldn't simply rotate to accommodate the current local acceleration profile.

Re:Perhaps..

[sociocapitalist]

Someday maybe the Japanese can figure out how to build a bullet train in an earthquake zone.

All of Japan is an earthquake zone and they already have bullet trains.

Japan's earthquake information site:
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/quake_singendo_index.html

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

> 4000 MPH is faster than sonic

No, not in rock, nowhere near it. 5km/s*3600s/h = 18000km/h ~= 11250 mph

Re:Perhaps..

[Anonymous Coward]

Even then, imagine going 4,000mph and then getting shifted say, four inches to the right all of a sudden. You'd have a hard time keeping your internal organs, well, internal.

I don't really see how the forward speed of the train would amplify the effects of lateral shifts. 747s shift four inches to the right every day when there is turbulence, with little damage beyond airsickness. Heck, the Earth is speeding at 67,062 an hour on its journey around the sun, and yet I can shift in my chair as often as I like without losing any internal organs.

The difference is in the amount of time over which the movement of four inches occurs. On an airplane in turbulence, the shift of four inches probably occurs over a period of half a second or so. If a tunnel is shifted by for inches abruptly (over a length of say 2 feet) that train traveling at 4000 mph will have to shift four inches in significantly less time.

Government Spending

[dokebi]

It is hard to spend money on infrastructure (*any* infrastructure) in the US. I imagine most of government revenue will be eaten up by tax cuts for the rich and for programs for retirees who vote. Perhaps we can figure out a corporate sponsored infrastructure improvement program (say privately owned bridges, or paying for highway segments for rights to display ads there). I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Government Spending

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you need a crash course in where government (at the fed, state and local levels) speeds money. Most money is spend on social programs, various forms of welfare, and feel good programs.

Re:Government Spending

[niado]

Spending at local and state levels is extremely variable and requires a little research, but federal spending is pretty easily accessible. Here is a nice interactive chart!

Keep in mind that public finance and macro-economics are a bit more complicated than this, but it's good information in any case.

Re:Government Spending

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is hardly alone in that respect. The UK is right up there with the US, and so are most European states (because they have no money, other than Germany that has manipulated the Eurozone in its third attempt to dominate Europe in 100 years)

Re:Government Spending

[Anonymous Coward]

We could get all the money we needed for this thing if we could somehow figure out how to build it out of prisons.

Re:Government Spending

[HornWumpus]

Sneaky Germans, always working and only buying things they can afford. I hate them.

Re:Government Spending

[Anonymous Coward]

Most mass transit in America is used by... ahem... those people. We moved out of the cities to avoid them. We're not interested in building mass transit because if we build it, they will come. MARTA is an acronym for Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta, but it's really a jobs program for those people. The Washington, DC Metro is used by many of us too, but it's a jobs program for those people.

Unfortunately, we're stuck with cars and airplanes for the forseeable future. It's not too bad, soon the cars will be self-driving.

Re:Government Spending

[ChrisMaple]

I imagine most of government revenue will be eaten up by tax cuts for the rich

I'd say you can't possibly be that stupid, but you obviously can. I'll translate what you said into a different realm:

The bottle became empty because I stopped using big scoops to fill it.

The answer is in the photo of the author.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the photo of the author at the bottom of the page.

I do wish they'd put those things at the top. Saves me the trouble of reading the article when I can plainly see it was written by some douche.

Maybe because...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the British did it they had hella mechanical problems. The smallest glitch with a seal and suddenly your trains aren't moving nearly as fast anymore. You'd have to build two tunnels: the vacuum tunnel for the train, and then a slightly larger outer tunnel that allows for service and leak detection.

Re:Maybe because...

[Anonymous Coward]

How long would it take for workers to actually travel to the middle of a tunnel to get said leaks fixed?

Re:Maybe because...

[Derek Pomery]

You'd think we'dve improved techniques in the last 150 years.

Re:Maybe because...

[TheRealMindChild]

Build the tunnel from thick rubber.... treat it like a tire

Re:Maybe because...

[Teun]

Not exactly comparable right?

The British pneumatic system was somewhat comparable to the steam slings used to launch aircraft on carriers and was inherently leaky.
And that's aside from the crude technology available 1-1/2 centuries ago.

As a matter of fact there is no comparison.

Re:Maybe because...

[vlm]

How long would it take for workers to actually travel to the middle of a tunnel to get said leaks fixed?

Not only do you not need to limit yourself to one (or two) holes, its actually better to drill as many as possible. This is as true in mine and tunnel engineering as it is true in pr0n.

Re:Maybe because...

[kheldan]

Never mind leaky tunnels, what about leaky cars? I can see the headline now:
Mach 10 Train Arrives At Station, All Passengers Dead From Exposure To Vacuum

Re:Maybe because...

[Anonymous Coward]

Except a tire is inflated with positive pressure. So it's like a run-flat tire. There's more than rubber in those.

Re:Maybe because...

[gutnor]

Thanks for the info, but really 150 years old tech ? 150 years ago aluminium was more expensive than gold, now take a look at your kitchen foil roll and the 6 pack in the fridge.

To put that in perspective, the first notable "flying machine" was invented 50 years after that. Yet we managed to put a man on the moon 69 years after, and 100 years after the sky is filled with airplane carrying passenger with safety record that rival all the other type of transportation.

Re:Maybe because...

[dotbot]

1999 South Dakota Learjet crash
Helios Airways Flight 522
Those headlines have done nothing to stop people flying, and they didn't even arrive into an airport.

Re:Maybe because...

[igny]

A bigger concern is what if two trains travelling toward each other collide due to a mistake or on a purpose? Isn't anyone affraid of a black hole consuming Earth here anymore?

Re:Maybe because...

[Anonymous Coward]

Technology for seals and so has moved on a little since the 1840's though.

Re:Maybe because...

[Bonobo_Unknown]

I went to find the six pack in my fridge but there wasn't one. You shouldn't play with people like that. I really wanted a beer too...

in the year 3000

[Anonymous Coward]

...in the year 3000 we will have that, I've seen it in Futurama!

Re:in the year 3000

[jsepeta]

hopefully the passenger dispersal method will be safer than just dumping us on the curb

Re:in the year 3000

[tmosley]

Feh, that only happens to tourists.

G-force

[aztrailerpunk]

Wouldn't g-forces still apply? Making speeds like that not possible for human travel.

Re:G-force

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't g-forces still apply? Making speeds like that not possible for human travel.

Better tell all those pilots and astronauts that what they're doing is impossible, then.

Re:G-force

[Iniamyen]

As long as you don't accelerate too fast, the human body doesn't care about the relative speed that it's traveling. You have Sir Isaac Newton to thank for that.

Re:G-force

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't g-forces still apply? Making speeds like that not possible for human travel.

The speed does not matter. It is the acceleration/deceleration (you should know that, since you mention g-force).

Captcha: underway.

Re:G-force

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on the rate of acceleration and, in the case of turning, the radius of the turn.

Re:G-force

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's the acceleration that would worry me... there are many limits on that (power input, for one). It's the sudden, unexpected, and uncontrolled DEceleration that has me worried. At 4000mph in an enclosed tube, it wouldn't take much to send things awry.

MadCow.

Re:G-force

[AgNO3]

G-force is on our side. Its spectra you have to worry about.

Re:G-force

[nschubach]

Supposedly, you wouldn't accelerate to 4000 mph fast enough or take sharp enough turns to impact the rider much... and most likely, you wouldn't be hitting 4000 mph unless you were travelling very far distances.

Re:G-force

[Vaphell]

in the case of turning, the radius of the turn.

... which translates to... wait for it... acceleration! (a=v^2/r)

Re:G-force

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you don't accelerate too fast, the human body doesn't care about the relative speed that it's traveling. You have Sir Isaac Newton to thank for that.

Sounds more like Galilei's relativity than anything by Newton to me.

Tube to space

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiosity, if you were to run a tube from the surface of the earth to outter-orbit (the vacuum of space), would there not already be a vacuum in the tube? Could we not just use that pressure to propel things upwards? Someone school me on this, please. It's 3 minutes shy of quittin' time, so my brain may be misfiring.

Re:Tube to space

[Iniamyen]

You could, but once you used that vacuum to propel something, you'd essentially have a stack of regular atmosphere inside the tube. This would have to be pumped out again before you could re-use the tube. The stack of atmosphere wouldn't naturally evacuate, because you still have Earth's gravity pulling on it.

Re:Tube to space

[mmell]

Yes, as long as your vehicle is lighter than the quantity of air it displaces (i.e., lighter than air). It's not like that tube will "suck" atmosphere up into space - after all, our atmosphere is directly exposed to space everywhere, and yet it hasn't been "sucked" up. (There is no such thing as "suction" - only lower pressure)

Now, once you get several miles up, yes, there will be a vacuum in the tube up there (again, more accurately, not a "vacuum" - just way less air pressure than you and I are used to). Incidentally, it's physically impossible to suck water up a straw beyond around thirty-odd feet (depending on the barometric pressure). BTW, if building a space elevator is beyond our current technological ability, a space straw is really beyond us.

It's a couple hours shy of quittin' time here, so my brain hasn't started firing yet.

Re:Tube to space

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't work for the same reason the atmosphere doesn't get sucked out into the vacuum of space - it's held down by gravity. Now, If you could somehow make an anti-gravity tube, then you'd be talking.

Re:Tube to space

[Anonymous Coward]

The air will be pulled down by gravity with an equal pressure, and thus the system would reach a boring equilibrium.

Re:Tube to space

[tmosley]

You would need trillions of tons of unobtanium for that. Boy oh boy are some giant sexy smurfs going to be sad now :(

Re:Tube to space

[Teun]

No, that would only be the case when you'd be stupid enough to use the atmospheric pressure at the bottom to propel the capsule.

Re:Tube to space

[Iniamyen]

Either way, you'd still need work against gravity, which constitutes the bulk of the energy required.

Re:Tube to space

[Anonymous Coward]

No, for the same reason your glass doesn't spray water everywhere just because you put a straw in it.

The Real Problem

[Jetra]

It doesn't mention the fact of how many Gs the body would be under. Yes, I know it's not instantaneous, but that speed still might cause some serious problems regarding your organs wanting to stay behind.

Re:The Real Problem

[Iniamyen]

Why is this such a common misconception? Your body does not care what SPEED you are traveling, only how quickly your speed changes (acceleration.) If you average a 0-60mph time of 15 seconds (rather slow), then you could reach 4,000mph in just over a minute, as drag would not increase appreciably. Are you saying that a 0-60mph time of 15 seconds is enough to physically injure you?

Re:The Real Problem

[Iniamyen]

Sorry, bad maths. It would work out to be 15 minutes to reach top speed. Still acceptable =)

Re:The Real Problem

[nschubach]

Eventually your organs catch up to your body just like your body catches up to the train.

Re:The Real Problem

[ZeroSumHappiness]

At one g it's 3 minutes, 2 seconds, I believe. (Using Wolfram Alpha 4000 mph / 1 g acceleration).

Re:The Real Problem

[Jetra]

Huh...so, you can go 4,000 mph and still have one G? My brain cannot cope.

Re:The Real Problem

[Hognoxious]

It doesn't mention the fact of how many Gs the body would be under.

You can't be under any number of Gs. The gravitational constant is used to calculate the force between two objects, along with their masses and the distance between them.

Re:The Real Problem

[Bonobo_Unknown]

You only experience Gs during acceleration. Once you reach 4000km/hr and maintain the speed you will feel as though you weren't moving at all.

Related questions...

[fahrbot-bot]

...high efficiency ground transport is technologically within reach – so why isn't anybody building it?

... Why aren't space ships with warp drive being built, under-sea cities, space elevator or a thousand other things people have thought of over the years? Where are my self-cooking hot dogs? Why do hot dogs come in packages of 10 but hot-dog rolls in packages of 8?

How about something practical that all people could use like free, universal health care or an end to greed, war and other (ultimately) petty squabblings?

Re:Related questions...

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Why do hot dogs come in packages of 10 but hot-dog rolls in packages of 8?

Two for Fido.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

HAHAHAA nothing is free dumbass. You mean "healthcare where the government forces those who work hard to pay for care for those who don't."

Re:Related questions...

[caknuckle]

Why do hot dogs come in packages of 10 but hot-dog rolls in packages of 8? Two for Fido.

OR....so they force you to buy two packages of buns. When hot dog makers start putting 8 to a pack, bun makers will conveniently scale down to 6 buns and call it the "economy pack", and remove all 8 bun packages from the shelf.

Re:Related questions...

[AgNO3]

free health care? OR do you mean TAX FUNDED healthcare? Cause I'm not going to med school and then residence then specialization and spending 15 years doing it if I can make the same pay going to school for 4-6 years.

Re:Related questions...

[Iniamyen]

That assumes that you are buying the buns in response to the hot dogs. What we need are some recipes that use only the buns, without the dogs. That would turn the tables on those fat cat hot dog industry bastards.

Re:Related questions...

[tmosley]

We have free health care. It's called WebMD. Remove prescription requirements for non-narcotics and you eliminate 80-90% of health care demand.

Re:Related questions...

[Antipater]

I've never understood this joke, despite it being a staple of bad stand-up. Where the heck do you do your shopping? Dogs and buns both come in packs of 8, or you need to switch supermarkets.

Re:Related questions...

[Nadaka]

The military has already invented caffeinated bacon, and you can get baconated coffee at select retail outlets.

Just be patient. The futurama will happen eventually.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here (UK) typically buns come in packs of 6 and the hotdogs in packs of 4 or 10.
http://www.hertafrankfurters.co.uk/products/
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/#/tesco-price-comparison/rolls_and_bagels/tesco_bakery_white_hot_dog_rolls_6.html
Just as an example. Other supermarkets are similar.

Re:Related questions...

[dAzED1]

markets are better about it now, but not too long ago, the 10/8 issue was very much the norm.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, go be a doctor just for the paycheck... Great idea :) You'll figure it out someday I hope.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawd, every time i go to WebMD i come away convinced I'm pregos... and i'm a male...

Re:Related questions...

[fahrbot-bot]

free health care? OR do you mean TAX FUNDED healthcare? Cause I'm not going to med school and then residence then specialization and spending 15 years doing it if I can make the same pay going to school for 4-6 years.

No, you're correct, free is not the correct word; tax funded is. We already have two Universal health care system in the US - Medicare (elderly) and Tricare (military) so providing it to the rest or us shouldn't be an issue except for how to fund it. Those that have should help those that have not (the former might be one of the latter someday)

And you're correct in that you should receive fair compensation for your education and skills, but how much is enough? Do you need a $150 K Mercedes and gigantic house? Sorry, perhaps not a fair stereotype for you, but I ask it of all well-off people. How much is enough? How much should be enough? Imagine how many jobs could be created or healthcare provided if all the hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars going to PACs and political campaigns - or expressions of personal wealth (houses, cars, boats, jewelry, etc...) - went to actually creating jobs (because the people with that cash are, you know, the "job creators").

In your case, how about if your education expenses were paid for? Would you work for less income?

Re:Related questions...

[tmosley]

It helps to put in the right gender.

Re:Related questions...

[AgNO3]

Well How much is is enough? What about all the people that make say Yachts? Or Mercs? Or build fancy houses? Now at what point the tax rate goes WAY up as they benefit from those things provided by the society from which they profit is a WHOLE other question.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah ... no. You're making the mistake of undervaluing something you don't understand, much like "It's just a simple matter of programming, right?".

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this modded insightful?

Most people self-diagnose the worst possible scenario. If WebMD were the health care package the entire nation would decide it had fatal Bolivian tongue fungus cancer.

Re:Related questions...

[Jeremi]

How much is enough? How much should be enough?

It just so happens that we have the answer to this question: $75,000 per year per person is "enough".

I suppose that number will need to be adjusted periodically to account for inflation, the introduction of new tchotchkes from Apple, etc.

Re:Related questions...

[ChrisMaple]

Most of health care expense is late-life, often just the last few weeks in a hospital's ICU. Figure $200,000 for two weeks before dying as a not unusual situation. Very little of that is drugs. It's very expensive tests using very expensive machines, very expensive very highly skilled labor, and 100% minimum hospital markup to compensate for deadbeats and lawsuits and screwups. Prescription requirements are an affront to common sense, but they're not 80+% of health care demand measured in dollars.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do hot dogs come in packages of 10 but hot-dog rolls in packages of 8?

Hail Eris.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good! I'd rather wait to see a doctor who cared about medicine than be seen by some asshole in it for the money.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

We have free health care. It's called WebMD. Remove prescription requirements for non-narcotics and you eliminate 80-90% of health care demand.

And you subsequently end up with every single bacteria developing resistance to every known antibiotic. Doctors know about the risks of overprescribing antibiotics, and they still end up doing it. What do you think will happen when every parent with a child who has a runny nose has free access to antibiotics?

Re:Related questions...

[sociocapitalist]

We have free health care. It's called WebMD. Remove prescription requirements for non-narcotics and you eliminate 80-90% of health care demand.

You're probably right if for no other reason than subsequent deaths due to misdiagnosis and mistreatment.

You can't actually believe that people can successfully act as doctors for themselves and their families without any education or training whatsoever?

Even if they could, with any degree of accuracy, you're still ignoring all the medical support systems like x-rays, any physical intervention (ie setting bones, operations of any type, long term care, etc.

Re:Related questions...

[Bonobo_Unknown]

I hope this isn't a rhetorical set of questions...

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what the hell is wrong with the food producers where you're from, but every standard package of hotdogs and buns in Canada come in twelves!

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about something practical that all people could use like free, universal health care

When the price of something is 0, people consume it until its marginal value to them becomes 0. Healthcare is no exception. Because there is a limited supply of healthcare (limited number of doctors and nurses, hospital beds, drugs, lab technicians, etc), competition for those resources would still exist even if the price were 0. Either the government steps in and starts rationing, or wait times extend until some people voluntarily give up, or both. And are you ready for the really tragic part? Under these conditions, the poor will still get the short end of the stick, because they both lack the money to pay bribes and are also usually more "time poor" than the wealthy. Poor people can't take time off from work to sit in a waiting room as easily as wealthier people usually can. So the very people this utopian vision of yours is most intended to help are actually the ones who are fucked hardest by it. And this is not just theorizing. It's a proven fact that in the UK, which has had something like 60 years to practice getting universal healthcare right, the poor continue to have worse health outcomes than the well-off.

The problem is not that some people are "greedy". It's basic economics. Totally free, universal healthcare is not going to happen until we've brought about some kind of post-scarcity fantasy society where energy is unlimited, and we have Star Trek-style matter synthesizers and personal medical holograms.

Re:Related questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about something practical that all people could use like free, universal health care

Health care is not free, universal or not. Oh wait... you mean free as in someone else paying for it. I see.

Re:Related questions...

[damnbunni]

Because butchers like to package things in fractions of a pound, and a traditional hot dog is ten to a pound.

Bakers, on the other hand, like multiples of fours because they package easily. Eight hot dog buns (in two rows of four) or eight hamburger buns (in two slabs of two-by-two) make for a nice, roughly square package that stacks well on the shelf.

vacuum trains?!

[Thud457]

this idea sucks

Re:vacuum trains?!

[thrillseeker]

Geez people - sucks ... vacuum ... get it?

Re:vacuum trains?!

[coofercat]

Actually, it really could blow too ;-)

One thought I had was:
1) Put people on the train
2) Evacuate the tube
3) Start the train moving
4) let the air back in behind the train

I'm sure (1) costs a lot to do, but (4) gives you some free acceleration because opening a hatch isn't especially expensive. I'm sure someone will chime in telling me why this won't work, but as I said, it was just a thought.

Safety is not an issue

[Hentes]

Use it for cargo first, and if there are no problems we can start using it for passengers. But the cost is a big obstacle.

Re:Safety is not an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Because no one would live near the train lines. And if that really were the case, why would passengers eventually want to ride it?

Re:Safety is not an issue

[Yvanhoe]

They don't even manage to find the funds for a maglev line between Shanghai and Beijing. I don't see anyone building a vacuum maglev line anytime soon over a meaningful distance. There is a construction cost and a maintenance cost that is proportional to the line's length, and of course, a minimum distance is required for people to accept the price difference (you usually don't pay twice the price to go twice as fast on an otherwise 10 minutes trip). The direct competition for this is the construction of two airport and maintenance of airliners. In 2012, that is the cheapest option, even with fuel prices going up.

Re:Safety is not an issue

[Overzeetop]

If it takes two hours or two days to cross the country by train, your container of plastic shit doesn't care. There's very little money in shaving a day and a half off of transcontinental freight. People, otoh, are very expensive to keep out of service and tend to require maintenance every couple of hours. Reducing the time-in-transit from 6 hours to 1 hour can reduce the cost of a business person by a factor of three (one day in transit, one day in meetings/consulting, one day in return transit), and increase the enjoyment of leisure time by almost 30% (first and last days of a "typical" 7 day vacation not lost to transit), or make distant destinations practical for shorter breaks.

Re:Safety is not an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes sense if it went from China to the US or Europe.

Re:Safety is not an issue

[AdrianKemp]

Safety is still an issue with cargo.

A train derailment at *100*kmh can be catastrophic. A train derailment (it's tens/hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo) at *4000*kmh... that's considerably faster than most muzzle velocities, except instead of a few grain bullet you're talking about hurling a skyscraper that fast.

Not buying my tickets yet ..

[n5vb]

Wake me up when someone actually manages to build a tunnel anywhere near that size that's vacuum tight and has a realistic notion of what size and number of vacuum pumps would be required to keep a high enough vacuum in it. Oh, and handling the exterior pressure loading without risk of accidental implosion would be nice. ;)

The other problem which is less trivial than it might seem is how to get people and cargo (and possibly vehicles) onto and off of these trains without breaking the vacuum .. really big airlocks at the stations maybe? .. and how to evacuate one of these safely in case of an emergency on the main line ..

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Also....

What if there is traffic?

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

While it's true you need a rather huge amount of air moved, I would imagine the level of vacuum would not have to be that high to get a good speed on your train. So the problem isn't really implosion, it's moving multiple train-sized volumes of air per second as the thing moves along the track.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[rHBa]

All valid points but wouldn't a major problem with transporting humans (or any living animal for that matter) at 4,000 mph be the acceleration/deceleration?

I mean how long would it take and how big a distance would you need to do it safely? I can see how it works in space, where you want to travel thousands of kilometres and can accelerate relatively slowly but your average commuter isn't a physically fit, trained astronaut capable of pulling 6-10 Gs. And that's in a straight line, what about going around corners, without everyone blacking out?

Is this major road block covered in TFA? Should I bother reading it?

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, practical systems use both slight overpressure and slight under-pressure to work, moving the object in the differential between them. You just pump air from one end and into the other and the object moves towards the lower pressure. There is no air friction.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Carnildo]

Acceleration really isn't a problem. Assuming the train can manage an acceleration of 10 meters/second/second, it'll take about three minutes to get up to speed. Combined with the Earth's gravity, that give you a net acceleration of 1.4G at an angle of 45 degrees to vertical. If you can't survive that, you probably should be in a hospital rather than commuting cross-country.

Turning radius is a problem that's covered (briefly) in the article, but these trains are meant as long-distance point-to-point links, eg. to get from New York City to Tokyo, you'd take the New York to Los Angeles vactrain to Chicago, switch trains to the Chicago-to-Beijing link (probably passing through Calgary or Edmonton), then take a local flight or high-speed surface train to Japan.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

To add on:

How much energy you expend running a life support system on train. Oxygen Supply, CO2 scrubbers, etc...

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[khallow]

Wake me up when someone actually manages to build a tunnel anywhere near that size that's vacuum tight and has a realistic notion of what size and number of vacuum pumps would be required to keep a high enough vacuum in it.

Consider the Large Hadron Collider. It doesn't have significant volume compared to a piece of the tube train track discussed in the article, but they have figured how to maintain vacuum over a 17 mile long tubular ring. And the quality of vacuum in the LHC would be better.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

How does the evacuated beam line of the LHC compare?

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[ChrisMaple]

The exterior pressure loading issue was handled over a century ago, or we wouldn't have the numerous tunnels under the Hudson and the East River.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Tom]

The first problem is already solved. Underground tunnels have so much pressure from the surrounding rock on them, the additional atmosphere of pressure if you pump out the air matters little.

The second problem is also solved. Of course the trains would always stay within the vacuum tube, then the whole problem comes down to connecting two pressured tubes in a vaccuum - and we've solved that problem long ago in space travel.

Safety is the main concern. There will be accidents, there always are, and at speeds in excess of Mach 10 there won't be much left to identify the bodies.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

The LHC beam line is about a meter diameter and 27,000 meters long. That gives it a volumn of ~21,000 cubic meters.

NYC to Washington DC is ~320,000 meters. A train tunnel would need a diameter of about 5 meters. That gives a volumn of ~6,000,000 cubic meters.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

C01 is poisonous C02 is not that's just a scare mongering by green tree hugger's. which are communist's who want to ban all private transport and private everything in flagrant breech of the constitutian.

(roman_mir, having trouble logging in)

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a link [cern] to a pretty big ultra high vacuum tunnel with a rail gun built into it. Mind you the vacuum would not need to be nearly as good to transport a train within.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake, up! The LHC wants to talk to you.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Overzeetop]

Actually, CO2 is quite deadly - even in relatively small concentrations above normal. It's a big deal in closed systems like the space station. For short periods, as would be needed by hub-to-hub continental trains, this probably isn't a large concern, but for trips longer than 30-40 minutes you would likely need to provide an air change or two via compressed air storage. Not impossible, but an added cost nonetheless.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, building a project like this would be daunting task.

But wrt the load/unload... the 'stations' could be maintained under normal pressure, As trains would take time to accelerate and decelerate, they could do the begin and end of that under normal atmospheric pressure. So the trains could enter and exit the 'hi-speed' parts on the network through a double airlock +- 10 km's outside the stations... the double lock would protect the station from explosive decompression into a vacuumed section of the tunnel. Plus having the stations at normal pressure would make not only loading/unloading simpler but also scheduling of multiple trains entering and leaving a station at different times And at normal pressure the station would also allow for multi-platforms, etc, etc/

Second I doubt the whole tunnel would need to be keep in vacuum... depending on the time it would take to close a airlock and depressurize a section, plus considering the braking distance of the train. I would imagine the tunnel could be broken into compartments with airlocks, Each +-150-250km's apart (considering the train at top speed travels +-107km/minute and assuming somehow that it would only take about 2 minutes to close a lock and depressurize a section. Keeping 2 sections in front of the travelling train depressurized.

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[luis_a_espinal]

Wake me up when someone actually manages to build a tunnel anywhere near that size that's vacuum tight and has a realistic notion of what size and number of vacuum pumps would be required to keep a high enough vacuum in it. Oh, and handling the exterior pressure loading without risk of accidental implosion would be nice. ;)

The other problem which is less trivial than it might seem is how to get people and cargo (and possibly vehicles) onto and off of these trains without breaking the vacuum .. really big airlocks at the stations maybe? .. and how to evacuate one of these safely in case of an emergency on the main line ..

Wake me up when someone actually builds a flying machine or an iron-clad boat... oh wait :)

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

C01 is poisonous C02 is not

OK, we'll put you in a room with 'normal' air apart from 20% CO2/60% Nitrogen instead of the normal 80%Nitrogen. Let us know (from beyond the grave) how you did.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-comfort-level-d_1024.html

Re:Not buying my tickets yet ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I understand what you mean, maybe it's not a good idea to compare bullet trains with a tube where there are collisions all the time.

On the other hand, imagine how much data we would get if we were to collide two trains near the speed of light :)

This project is not cost effective

[Anonymous Coward]

The eurotunnel is 32 miles long, took 6 years to build, and it cost £9 billion to build. A standard railroad typically costs $2 million per mile to build. Now you want to build a pneumatic vacuum tunnel a few hundred miles long or more? Trains and airlines make all their money from transporting goods, not from transporting passengers who don't want to pay a lot for a ticket. I think you need to a good economics 101 course!

Re:This project is not cost effective

[Anonymous Coward]

The eurotunnel is 32 miles long, took 6 years to build, and it cost £9 billion to build. A standard railroad typically costs $2 million per mile to build. Now you want to build a pneumatic vacuum tunnel a few hundred miles long or more? Trains and airlines make all their money from transporting goods, not from transporting passengers who don't want to pay a lot for a ticket. I think you need to a good economics 101 course!

I got the other one : Bad Economics 101. The most memorable moment was that the best way to stimulate was to fly over and dump currency.

What do the guys do with the Vacuum Train if the car comes to a halt a hundred miles from a station?

Re:This project is not cost effective

[SlashDotDotDot]

I question your $2 million per mile figure. Minneapolis/St Paul is currently building a 10 mile light rail line at a cost of $1 billion. ($100 million per mile) That's at street level through a moderately dense urban area and it includes the cost of all the stations. Maybe $2 million per mile is the cost through flat countryside with no stations and land acquired for free?

Re:This project is not cost effective

[NouberNou]

I think you need to look at countries other than the US.

Re:This project is not cost effective

[Rich0]

Well, you'd keep stations to a minimum - the point is to use it for long haul and keep it at very high speed (think NY-LA in half an hour). You'd obviously aim to miss populated areas, except for the terminals. Those might even be away from city centers, but it would make sense to have them near airports and conventional train hubs.

Sure, there are the usual right-of-way issues when you're in urban areas, but much of the country is flyover territory.

Infrastructure also has huge long-term value, and often it employs the sorts of people who aren't going to be working on the next iPhone. If we're going to be paying them welfare anyway so that they don't starve, why not at least have them build something useful, which gives Americans a competitive advantage in the workforce?

Re:This project is not cost effective

[guruevi]

That seems tremendously overpriced. Over 10 miles you would probably have only 2 train stations. You can see 1 mile far, it's really not THAT far. For it to have 2 rails and some wood, acquire land etc. should not cost $100M. Are they using gold bricks as rails?

Re:This project is not cost effective

[swalve]

I'm betting it's more like stations once every half mile or so.

Re:This project is not cost effective

[SlashDotDotDot]

The project includes 18 stations, substantial work on a bridge across the Mississippi, ripping out and rebuilding ten miles of urban thoroughfares and sidewalks, a variety of mitigations to reduce negative impacts on university science buildings and other facilities, and, of course, the actual trains and tracks. You can argue back and forth about whether it's a good way to spend money (I think it is), but I don't think you're going to get all that at a radically cheaper price.

Re:This project is not cost effective

[joe_frisch]

This system is clearly more complex and expensive per mile than conventional trains. I honestly don't know why it is so expensive to build high speed rail in the US ($70B estimated for SF to LA, and most projects come in over budget), but it seems the vacuum train would be a lot more.

The high speed vacuum train idea has been around since at least the 60s, and while it would be great, I doubt we can afford the capital costs.

BTW: no reason not to keep accelerating for long trips (NY -> Shanghai). Once you exceed orbital speed, the train rolls inverted into a forced orbit. Nothing like 25000 mph, upside down. (especially if they used a clear tube above ground).

Re:This project is not cost effective

[guruevi]

I don't see why in a distance of 10 miles, you need 18 stations. That is roughly equivalent to every 1 km. In Europe, most light rail even in the city has roughly 5 km of track between each station and most smaller stations are raised sidewalks with a pole and some lighting. Off course, you can raise the price of anything but it seems that someone is lining their pockets there.

kinetic energy

[joostje]

it takes more or less the same amount of energy to accelerate from 3,000 to 3,050 mph (4,828 to 4,908 km/h) as it takes to get from 50 to 100 mph (80 to 161 km/h)

No, kinetic energy goes with the square of velocity. So to accellerate from 3000 to 3050 mph takes as much as to get from 0 to 550 mph. The rest of the article may be interesting, but it's strange they make errors like that.

Re:kinetic energy

[GodfatherofSoul]

Ruh?

Re:kinetic energy

[Intropy]

The article has it right. When dealing with changes in energy you have to consider the frame of reference. From the train's frame of reference, which is moving with respect to the Earth's, any incremental change in velocity results in the same change in kinetic energy. Consider this thought experiment. You are on a stationary train. You stand up and begin walking forward at 5 mph. Later the train is moving at 100 mph. You stand up and walk forward at 5 mph. From your point of view the change in kinetic energy both times was the same. It did not take more energy for you to walk on the moving train vs. the stationary one.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinetic energy (KE) = 1/2 * mass * velocity^2

Change in KE from one speed to another (Delta KE) = 1/2 * mass * (V_end^2 - V_start^2)

X = (Delta KE) / (1/2 mass) = (V_end^2 - V_start^2)

To go from 50 to 100, X = 7500
To go from 3000 to 3050, X = 302500

so the author's statement of

it takes more or less the same amount of energy to accelerate from 3,000 to 3,050 mph (4,828 to 4,908 km/h) as it takes to get from 50 to 100 mph (80 to 161 km/h)

is incorrect. That 50 mph change in velocity takes over 40 times the energy when starting at 3000 mph as it does when starting at 50 mph.
If the energy required to accelerate from 3000 mph to 3050 mph were applied to the vehicle from a standstill, the vehicle would accelerate to 550 mph.

Re:kinetic energy

[ari_j]

E = m*v^2. Leave out the m. 3050^2 - 3000^2 = 550^2 - 0^2. For comparison, the above-quoted excerpt from the article is off by a factor of 40.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

it takes more or less the same amount of energy to accelerate from 3,000 to 3,050 mph (4,828 to 4,908 km/h) as it takes to get from 50 to 100 mph (80 to 161 km/h)

No, kinetic energy goes with the square of velocity. So to accellerate from 3000 to 3050 mph takes as much as to get from 0 to 550 mph. The rest of the article may be interesting, but it's strange they make errors like that.

This is amazingly incorrect. Do you even realize what you're saying? Why would an object require more energy to accelerate the faster it's moving? (at non-relativistic speeds)

Re:kinetic energy

[Tyr07]

You sure about that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but in a frictionless environment similar to space, do we not have ion drives
that exert the same constant force continously accelerating without increasing energy consumption?

In an environment like a frictionless vac tube it sounds like any kinetic energy would provide constant accelerating at a constant acceleration if the energy output was the same?

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Please correct me if I'm wrong. But quick calculations show me that it will require 16GigaJoules of energy to accelerate to 4000mph train that weights 10 tons.
Thats close to 8882kwh to get the speed. With no air friction part of this energy can be retrieved when breaking.

Re:kinetic energy

[vlm]

it takes more or less the same amount of energy to accelerate from 3,000 to 3,050 mph (4,828 to 4,908 km/h) as it takes to get from 50 to 100 mph (80 to 161 km/h)

No, kinetic energy goes with the square of velocity. So to accellerate from 3000 to 3050 mph takes as much as to get from 0 to 550 mph. The rest of the article may be interesting, but it's strange they make errors like that.

They obviously thought of momentum. However your analysis is wrong in that it has the danger of the old aether problem because there is no magical motionless reference state.

Think about it... When I drive to work the surface of the earth is rotating about 1000 MPH east under me, so I'm actually driving east at 1075 MPH every morning and driving home by driving 925 MPH east every night. My car should have a measurably faster 0-60 time and measurably better MPG going west than it does going east but it does not...

A rocket for instance always gets a delta-V of 4000 MPH when it burns 1000 pounds of fuel, in this made up example of pitifully poor Isp value. It does not magically "know" its supposed to burn more fuel to get that delta-V in different directions. A rocket in a frictionless levitated airless underground tube is not much different than a rocket in earth orbit. Any given delta-V of 400 MPH will always require a delta-mass of 100 exactly pounds of fuel regardless of direction. The delta-V of a rocket depends solely on Isp (performance) and mass burned, any existing momentum vector doesn't matter.

Re:kinetic energy

[Zorpheus]

That is not the same. If you start walking while on the train you give the train a negative impulse, which is decelerating it. You only don't feel it because the train is much heavier than you.

Re:kinetic energy

[Rich0]

An object doesn't even need more energy to move faster at relativistic speeds, FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE OBJECT.

If you're travelling along and going faster and faster, you don't suddenly sense some futile point where you can't go any faster (the speed of light). Instead you feel like you're going faster and faster, but you do notice that everything around you is shrinking and moving towards the front of your field of view. If you want to travel from here to the other side of the universe in 15 minutes that isn't a problem at all, as long as it is 15 minutes on a clock you take with you.

Happy to be corrected by an expert, but my understanding is that the speed of light is the same in every frame of reference. So, in your ship travelling at the speed of light (relative to somebody outside) if you turn on a flashlight it works just fine - you're no closer to the speed of light than when you started, as you measure it. What you see is everybody else in the universe moving backwards at very close to the speed of light - imagine how much energy it must have take to accelerate the entire universe to that speed!

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no matter how you cut it, it's dE = mv dv. That is, the faster you go, the more energy you need to spend to gain the same speed increment.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Changes in energy must hold in all frames of reference.

The reason it doesn't take any more effort to walk at 5mph on a 100mph train is because when you accelerate, you're absorbing energy from the train. The train slows down slightly, due to conservation of momentum.

Re:kinetic energy

[CrimsonAvenger]

Apples to oranges, perhaps. A rocket (including its fuel) have a single frame of reference, and the effects of the rocket's velocity relative to Earth's surface doesn't affect the engine performance because the rocket fuel is affected the same way.

I don't think we're talking a rocket-powered train here, since it would leave the vacuum tube full of exhaust gasses instead of the hypothetical vacuum. And any external power source (like an induction catapult) would be in a different frame of reference from the train....

Re:kinetic energy

[OliCharlesworth]

Changes in energy must hold in all frames of reference. The reason it doesn't take any more effort to walk at 5mph on a 100mph train is because when you accelerate, you're absorbing energy from the train. The train slows down slightly, due to conservation of momentum.

Re:kinetic energy

[Zorpheus]

Common guys, the grandparent is correct since it is E=m/2 v^2. This can't be correct, don't mod it up.
Yes it takes the same energy for you to accelerate to 5mph in the train, no matter if the train moves or not. But that ignores that the kinetic energy of the train is reduced at the same time if the train is moving. The engine of the train has to compensate for this, it is spending the additional energy that you don't feel when walking in the train.
If the train is driven by a rocket then the parent is correct, the energy needed to accelerate the train by 5mph is the same at each speed. But trains normally work by pushing themselves off directly from the earth, and not from the exhaust gases of a rocket, since this saves the energy needed to accelerate the exhaust gases in the opposite direction.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

The energy required scales with the square of the *change* in velocity. Absolute velocity isn't even a thing.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, YOU (and the author of the article) are wrong.

Do you think that you can "add" energies with relative reference frames at no cost? Think again. Even if you consider you can take the energy on-board (which you sort-of can as we are still deep below speed of light) the same amount of energy as to accelerate the WHOLE train from 0-50 would speed up by another +50 km/h only HALF of the train, the other half of the train (and the other half of energy used) would DECELERATE by -50. You are forgetting about f*king conservation of momentum. Even if in classic mechanics you can use Galilean velocity addition, you CAN NOT use addition of energies. Yes, mechanical energy is relative.
But relative does not mean what you think it means, RELATIVE != ADDITIVE

Now, get back on the school and stop trying to teach grandparent who knows better that you...

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, energy conservation holds locally.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually rockets also require more and more power to maintain constant acceleration.

Re:kinetic energy

[quenda]

but in a frictionless environment similar to space, do we not have ion drives?

Are you insane? There is a perfectly good wall to push against (physically or magnetically), and you want to use an ion drive? That's like putting a propeller on a car.
Friction is good for propulsion or braking.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, you are kidding right? Drag increases as a square of the velocity, force does not. F= ma remember? To accelerate from 3000 to 3050 takes the same force as accelerating from 0-50 IN A VACUUM WITH NO ROLLING FRICTION.

I knew Science was in trouble in the US, but it seems much worse than first estimated.

Re:kinetic energy

[ChrisMaple]

The frame of reference is the place on earth against which the train is applying force (or equivalently, the place on earth applying force to the train). You are not free, in energy calculations, to take multiple arbitrary frames of reference and use them to calculate the whole system energy, without performing a number of messy transformations. Which you did not perform.

Re:kinetic energy

[Solandri]

The article has it right. When dealing with changes in energy you have to consider the frame of reference. From the train's frame of reference, which is moving with respect to the Earth's, any incremental change in velocity results in the same change in kinetic energy. Consider this thought experiment. You are on a stationary train. You stand up and begin walking forward at 5 mph. Later the train is moving at 100 mph. You stand up and walk forward at 5 mph. From your point of view the change in kinetic energy both times was the same

No no no no no. You're forgetting Newton's 3rd law and mixing up momentum with energy.

If you accelerate to walk forward at 5 mph on a stationary train, you impart a reverse acceleration on the train. Basically, as you walk forward, you push the train backward. Because this acceleration on the train is momentum-based, it scales linearly with velocity. So if the train weighs 10,000 times more than you, when you accelerate 5 mph, you decelerate the train by 5/10,000 = 0.0005 mph. The kinetic energy change of going from v=0 to v=-0.0005 is negligible.

Totally different story at 3000 mph. From the reference frame of the train, the same thing happens when you accelerate to walk forward at 5 mph. But even though the delta-v for the train is still -0.0005, it's from 3000 mph to 2999.9995 mph, which is a huge energy change. Compared to the stationary train case, it's [(3000^2)-(2999.9995)^2] / (.0005)^2 = 12 million times more energy lost by the train. Basically the same amount of energy needed to accelerate you from 3000 mph to 3005 mph. You provide just enough energy to move yourself from 0 mph to 5 mph, which is why it seems the same to you. But the energy the train needs to maintain 3000 mph when you walk forward is 12 million times greater than when it's stationary.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Ruh?

The faster you are going, the more energy it takes to accelerate. This is why you can't simply accelerate for a long time and reach the speed of light- the closer to lightspeed you get the more energy it takes to speed up, you won't ever get there while maintaining any mass.

Re:kinetic energy

[Hognoxious]

If the train is driven by a rocket then the parent is correct, the energy needed to accelerate the train by 5mph is the same at each speed.

Nope that's wrong too.

For $diety's sake, you quoted the equation. Even if you can't do the [elementary] calculus to work out that the differential isn't constant you ought to be able to visualize a quadratic.

Re:kinetic energy

[Hognoxious]

kinetic energy goes with the square of velocity.

LOL, you are kidding right? Drag increases as a square of the velocity, force does not. F= ma remember?

I knew Science was in trouble in the US, but it seems much worse than first estimated.

Indeed. There are even people around who don't know the difference between force and kinetic energy, can you believe that?

Re:kinetic energy

[Lord_Naikon]

Since their seems to be much confusion about this point I'll try to explain it in more detail.

The article is both right and wrong.
If the train needs to actively push itself along the track (using powered wheels) we have to deal with the following formula (for the purposes of this though experiment I've set the mass of the train to 1kg):

W = F * s

Where W is the work/energy (in Joule), F is the force (Newton) and s the distance travelled (meters).
Suppose the train is already going 100m/s and needs to accelerate to 200m/s. Using its wheels it exerts a force of 10N on the train. So it will take 10 seconds to accelerate to 200m/s (V = a * t, a = F/m). In that time it will have travelled 150m/s * 10sec = 1500m. In ideal conditions it would have taken the train 10N * 1500m = 15kJ/kg. Accelerating from 1000m/s to 1100m/s would result in an energy expenditure of 1050m/s * 10sec * 10N = 105kJ/kg, much more energy.

On the other hand, if the train is powered by a rocket, it doesn't have to push itself along the track but instead it pushes itself by pushing rocket fuel at high speed out of the back.

Why is this not more efficient? Because you need to accelerate the rocket fuel as well (and lots of it). In a way the rocket fuel does what the earth it self does for a normal train (a diesel train even uses combustion like a rocket to push itself forward). Because the normal train doesn't have to carry the earth with it it is more efficient. However, there is a point (very high speed) where a rocket train becomes more efficient, because the speed difference between the exhaust gases and the train are not dependent on the trains "absolute" (relative to the earth) speed.

Re:kinetic energy

[Zorpheus]

I mean that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation. The speed change that a rocket generates does not depend on the initial speed.

Re:kinetic energy

[Giant Electronic Bra]

lol, yeah, no. You're correct that KE = m/2 v^2, but the proper consideration is momentum. If what you're saying were true then an object falling towards the surface of the Earth under the influence of gravity would accelerate more slowly the faster it went, which is plainly contrary to actual observation. The "kicking off" argument used below doesn't work either because this applies both to the train and the passenger AND TO THE EARTH. The same is true of an object freefalling. Not only does the object fall to Earth, but the Earth free falls in the object's gravity as well. There's ALWAYS action/reaction.

Re:kinetic energy

[Tyr07]

Sorry I wasn't trying to suggest the use of an ion drive as minor friction would quickly negate it. I just ment from a technological stand point based on the physics observed with an ion drive, Meaning that the energy requirements in a frictionless environment I didn't think would be the same to go 3000 -> 3050 as 0->550.
I realize we have some minor friction magnetically due to the fight with gravitiy, but you get what I mean hopefully.

If someone could explain that it'd be cool.

Re:kinetic energy

[quenda]

Tyr07 ,
the point is that while you want to eliminate friction for drag, you make use of it for propulsion.
Any sane propulsion system will "push" on the tunnel, so P=mav. For constant acceleration, power is proportional to velocity.
It it not like a rocket, which has nothing to push against.

Re:kinetic energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the square of the change, the change of the squares.

u^2 - v^2, not ( u - v )^2.

Re:kinetic energy

[Tyr07]

So hovering the train in a vac with magnetic forces 'pushing' in a repulsion field wouldn't constantly accelerate with a constant power level? Would not the train constant exert force against the track with 0 friction pushing it forward continously? Since the train moves forward, it's pushing on the nearest part of the track constantly?

Re:kinetic energy

[quenda]

constantly accelerate with a constant power level?

No, P=Fv, same as in a car or regular train. At least that is only linear to velocity - easy! Drag is much worse: proportional to square of velocity.
So without the vacuum, power needed to resist drag rises with the *cube* of velocity.

Go figure

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have thought it was the expense of building and pumping-down a leak-free vacuum tube 8 to 10 feet in diameter and hundreds or even thousands of miles long.

Or actually two of them, since people probably want to go in both directions.

And maintaining it leak-free for years, or hopefully, decades of use.

Nah, it must be politics.

Vacuum-Tube Trains

[fustakrakich]

They do have a warmer more 'natural' sound

Re:Vacuum-Tube Trains

[ColdWetDog]

They do have a warmer more 'natural' sound

In a vacuum, no one can hear you scream.

Re:Vacuum-Tube Trains

[Anonymous Coward]

They do have a warmer more 'natural' sound

In a vacuum, no one can hear you scream.

its a feature

Re:Vacuum-Tube Trains

[Ellis D. Tripp]

But you have to sit in the station for a while after the doors close, while the cathodes warm up....

Re:Vacuum-Tube Trains

[Anonymous Coward]

In a vacuum, no one can hear you scream.

That's by design. That way when it crashes, bystanders don't hear the screams of the dying passengers.

Ah Yes Vacuum Tubes ...

[Anonymous Coward]

They sound so much warmer than that transistor-based transportation.

so what if...

[Anonymous Coward]

instead, we setup the tubes and don't put them in a vaccum
instead we have the air flow through the tunnel at an optimum level for the train
past a certain speed, wind resistance becomes like trying to drive a car through a gigantic block of butter
matching train speed to relative air speed would be more cost effective than maintaining a constant vaccum

Re:so what if...

[Teun]

I can see you are no engineer :)

Pumping the proposed tube vacuum is a one-off effort and providing the tube is of sound construction (similar to a long distance gas line) you don't need much effort to maintain the vacuum.
Contrary to a gas flow inside a tube that does require constant and not insignificant maintenance.

Re:Tube to spaceballs

[cornface]

It is more efficient to build a giant robot maid to attach an equally gigantic vacuum cleaner to the outer atmosphere and suck the air out.

Suck...suck...suck.

Why the exagerated speed?

[geogob]

I don't get what the author of this article wins by proposing such ridiculously exagerated speeds. Sadly, this kind of nonse plagues sci-fi-like tech news since tech news exists.

I see no need for a train going at 6000 km/h. But the idea could be interesting even at much lower speeds. A vaccuum tunel based maglev going at 600 km/h would already be quite at win for energy efficiency. But as long as it costs less to build and maintain reactors to power electical trains, you won't see any of these around.

Re:Why the exagerated speed?

[GodfatherofSoul]

More important, you go that fast below ground on an isolated track and you've probably beaten out air travel as a better infrastructure option considering logistics and payloads.

Re:Why the exagerated speed?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you go at orbital velocity there's an enormous fuel economy to be had, plus you attract a much larger clientele, for economies of scale.

Re:Why the exagerated speed?

[spauldo]

Why not?

If you're going to build a vacuum tunnel and put a maglev train in it, there's no reason not to go insanely fast.

An accident at 600 km/h would be just as bad as one at 6000 km/h, so safety's not a reason. Efficiency isn't a problem if the vacuum is hard enough. Plus, you have to justify the cost of building all this vs. just using airplanes.

If we ever build maglev tracks on the moon, you can be assured they'd take full advantage of the speed available. I doubt it'll ever be cost effective on Earth, though.

Re:Why the exagerated speed?

[Tom]

I see no need for a train going at 6000 km/h.

Here it is: If you are trying to acquire funding for something on the order of billions, you need a really good answer to the question "what does it do that planes don't"?

And "New York to Vegas in one hour" is a pretty darn good answer.

Earthquake prone

[rabenja]

...like Japan, for instance...

Vactrain

[foobsr]

Probably its time that /. posts links to Wikipedia entries to be at least a little more informative.

If one would have looked up Wp, one could have found this, quote: "Vactrains have occasionally appeared in science fiction novels, including the works of Arthur C. Clarke (Rescue Party, 1946), Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451, 1950), Peter F. Hamilton (The Night's Dawn Trilogy), Joe Haldeman (in his novel Buying Time), Larry Niven (A World Out of Time), Robert A. Heinlein (Friday), Jerry Yulsman (Elleander Morning), and Jasper Fforde (the Thursday Next novels). Flash Gordon (1947) and the movie Logan's Run (1976) featured similar high-speed transport trains. The Space: 1999 TV series, featured a Lunar Vactrain. 23rd century San Francisco has one stretching across the Golden Gate Bridge in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Earlier Gene Roddenberry television productions, Genesis II and Planet Earth, featured such transport systems.".

CC.

Re:Vactrain

[Anonymous Coward]

The final season of seaQuest DSV (called seaQuest 2032) also featured a vac train that ran from SF to Tokyo, IIRC. It was only in one episode though.

Re:Vactrain

[Anonymous Coward]

The "trains" in the Thursday Next novels were actually high-speed gravity powered "fallers" that plummeted through a vacuum tube toward and through the centre of the Earth, then used momentum to coast back up the other side to the destination at the antipode. In that world, the idea of people hurtling through the atmosphere in little metal tubes was considered ridiculous. As I'm sure I don't need to point out here, while it makes for great reading, there are about a thousands things fatally wrong with this idea from the scientific/ engineering perspectives.

I would also point out that this world also had woolly mammoths roaming the Thames Valley in the mid-eighties, Jurrasic-Parked pet Dodos, pretty much every mind-twistingly paradoxical time-travel trope you can think of and, oh yeah, a gigantic meta-meta-fictional multiverse where every book ever written contains its own internally-consistent and exactly-as-described-in-the-literature world (with characters repeatedly acting out their roles for the "audience"), with real and fictional characters jumping between books and reality at will.

The TN books are massively enjoyable and I recommend them to anyone, but you'd have a better argument for classifying the Teletubbies as "Science Fiction" than anything I've read by Jasper Fforde.

Posted AC for obvious reasons.

Inertia

[Anonymous Coward]

Inertia. Both Literately and Figuratively.

The idea doesn't get off the ground because it requires very expensive technology (sealed vacuum tubes, and magnetic levitation, both which require durable materials and high switching speeds to prevent accidents. If a mag lev crashes from loss of power, it lands and stops moving, not derailing. Now do the same with a vacuum tube with no air friction.

The other side of this, is that you can't get optimal speeds unless it's all flat, at best this means under-sea links, not land-based. The only land-based link that is viable is Alaska/Yukon/NWT/Nunavut to Russia, and that would be intentionally going beneath the ice at the north pole. Think about it, we can't fly over the north pole, and we can't send a ship through it, yet it's a much shorter distance from Seattle than first flying to NYC to get to London.

Re:Inertia

[TheRealMindChild]

;ncpdr

(no closing paren, didn't read)

Re:Inertia

[Teun]

Why do you see a problem with maintaining the vacuum, for many years we've successfully build large diameter and long distance gas trunk lines that have a much larger delta-pressure than a measly -1 atmosphere (-14.503 psi for the old fashioned) vacuum.
Stopping the capsules when loss of power occurs is just a matter of simple friction brakes like on high speed elevators.

And what makes you think we can't fly over the North Pole???

Re:Inertia

[Teun]

Oops, absolute vacuum is in most states -14.73 psi, -15.2 psi in Louisiana :)

Re:Inertia

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF?!? Okay, first off, what are you talking about? Are you suggesting someone has built a tunnel large enough to fit a car that can carry people in it that has a vacuum on it much larger than 1 atm? How, exactly? I understand there are pipes of large diameter and length with more than 1 atm positive pressure within them, but vacuum? It's much easier for a pipe to handle having higher pressure inside than outside, since the pipe's strength under internal pressure needs to be tensile, whereas to withstand external pressure it would have to have compressive strength, which is much harder to do. Also, the cars inside the tube carrying people need to hold their air, and not let that leak out. The surface area of a tube with a 2 meter radius, (which seems ludicrously small) and 1 kilometer long, is about 12,592 square meters, or about 135 539 square feet. The pressure if you bury this tube, and it only has the atmosphere, (as opposed to atmosphere AND ROCK) sitting on top of it, is just shy of 2 million pounds of force. In any case, that's just 1 kilometer run. You have to keep ALL the atmosphere out of the tube from the outside, and prevent any leakage from the car in the tube, and somehow manage to have the car interface with the world in which there's air, at 1 atm, for people to breathe.

If you let air in, your 4000 mile per hour train is going to slam into it at 4000 miles per hour. If the train takes up enough of the tunnel, there might not be enough space around it for the rarefied atmosphere to escape, which would cause the air to pile up in front of the train, also heating both. It's a recipe for disaster. If there IS enough room, you still have friction with it, if enough air gets in.

It would make WAY more sense not to use vacuum, but instead to pressurize the tunnel and simply get the air going the same direction as the train, at the same speed, meaning of course you'd need to build basically a racetrack underground. If you make the walls smooth enough, there might be a small enough amount of friction to make it work. The easiest way to get people on and off either way, is simply to have the ends of the tube plug into holes at either end, and have the entry and exit doors at the end of the car facing the end of the tunnel.

Either way, you reach a point of diminishing returns, when you spend so much time and effort, to say nothing of the money to build a device for letting people travel that rapidly between A and B. Also, you fail to consider, seems to me, the law of unintended consequences. You start letting people travel so cheaply it's trivial, so quickly it's tough to keep track, and before you know it, someone gets Ebola into a few passengers, and they jump into these tubes, and next thing you know, you have thousands of people infected because everyone travels everywhere. There is something to be said for the fact we can't just "beam" form one place to another just yet, and that's just ONE consequence of such a system. As for brakes... if you're spending that much to overcome inertia, there's no reason not to try to recoup it at the other end. As for flying over the pole, I always understood that going over (or near over) the pole was how most transcontinental flights were routed. Who thinks you can't fly over the pole?

Re:Inertia

[Anonymous Coward]

The North Pole is too tall duh!

Re:Inertia

[Teun]

Sure it's harder to resist collapse of a cylindrical construction than to have it hold positive pressure but hey it's only 1 atmosphere of pressure, for example a composite would do easily.
The rock overlay is no problem as there will certainly be an outside concrete tunnel to house the installations required to run the thing, (as a matter of fact your estimation of the total burden is so nonsensical it disqualifies the rest of your thoughts) :)
The better the vacuum the easier it is to have little by-pass, it's just one of the simpler engineering problems.
Slamming into air when a leak develops is a real consideration, a bit similar to an aircraft meeting the ground head on.
But when this tube would indeed be build the total volume would be so large that a regular leak would not cause a sudden pressurisation and by consequence the vehicles in the tunnel would, depending on their distance o the leak, slow down at a reasonable rate. Many here talk about 'cars' holding the passengers or freight, I would say by definition they will be capsules similar to what we use in space.

Article left me unfullfilled

[Anonymous Coward]

The basic problems it describes are:

1) Cost for mag lev and plus cost to maintain vacuum - including pin hole leaks.

2) Risk of death from accident/sabotage

But the most interesting vacuum tube mag lev train concept is vertical, not horizontal. I.E. space fountain. The costs for space travel already exceed the costs for mag lev and vacuum maintenance. And as everyone knows, the accident rate is unfortunately rather high (at least for the space shuttle).

It continues to look like a no brainer to build a space fountain.

And also

[Anonymous Coward]

Travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy.

Uh...

[Anonymous Coward]

through a vacuum tunnel

Yeah, that's great for cargo, but human beings can't survive in a vacuum, am I missing something here?

Re:Uh...

[tragedy]

Yeah, you're missing something. You see, trains can be designed to be pressurized just like planes already are. So, even though the train is travelling in a vacuum, the passengers are not. Sort of like how the entire planet Earth is travelling in a vacuum but those of us on the planet still get to breathe.

Re:Uh...

[spauldo]

Yeah, the pressurized cabins.

And it wouldn't be great for cargo. A lot of cargo (many foods, anything in a sealed plastic container, anything with foam or trapped gasses) can't handle vacuum. Most of the bulk cargos (coal, steel, etc. but probablay not flour and definitely not grain or livestock) that freight trains haul would probably be all right, except no one really cares if they get them this afternoon or next week.

Many reasons, but author demonstrates ignorance

[istartedi]

Add to this the hidden cost of maintaining the vacuum (presumably by constantly pumping air particles out of thousands upon thousands of miles of vacuum tube)

Apparently, the author hasn't heard of airlocks. I just skimmed the article. This was enough to make me not want to read it in detail.

The obvious problems are obvious

[Patch86]

The article might as well have cut to the chase- cost.

Japan's non-vacuum-tube, low-speed mag-lev came in at $100 million per kilometre. A 4,000 mph vacuum-tube railway will cost a lot more. Compare with conventional high-speed railways (which are far far slower) at about $10 million per kilometre- which are already considered way too prohibitively expensive to build in any quantity. If you could keep the cost at $100 mill per km, that'd make a London to New York line cost about half a trillion US dollars. Just for the set-up cost. Excluding the cost of maintaining 5,500 km of vacuum tubes UNDER THE OCEAN. Got that money spare?

That's without getting into minor performance issues, such as the huge breaking distance or colossal turning circle for something travelling at 4,000 mph. With conventional rail or aircraft it's fairly trivial to connect up a network of cities on a continent. Try playing join-the-dots with European cities with a network with these limitations instead.

Re:The obvious problems are obvious

[Jeremi]

Excluding the cost of maintaining 5,500 km of vacuum tubes UNDER THE OCEAN. Got that money spare?

Clearly not. I think a system like this would only become practical after some real revolutions in manufacturing -- large-scale self-assembling nanotube structures or something like that, maybe combined with automated repair robots.

Well, a guy can dream anyway. Back to my paperback SF novels....

Re:The obvious problems are obvious

[Overzeetop]

Half a trillion? Meh. The US gave the large financial institutions 140% of that one autumn because they made some poor bets on housing.

If each person in the US and EU paid $1000 for a round trip ticket, we'd have the cost covered. Though, to be honest, you wouldn't want those Americans wandering around Europe, and our rednecks would probably shoot half of the 'farners who traveled here.

Yeah, it's probably a bad idea.

Will never happen because

[Simonetta]

Will never happen because:
one- The United States is broke. They pissed away all their money on permanent unwinnable wars, housing scams, and Wall-Street bank bailouts. The idea that they would be able to spend trillions of dollars to build 1000 mile long tubes to convey peasants across North America at 4000 MPH is absurd.

two: Present company excepted, but Americans are technologically incompetent at long-term projects. All their bridges and highways are in disrepair, and they can't even get 50MPH trains to run competently. Didn't they once even have a space program?

three: What's the point of moving thousands of people around? For every person in one place, there is a another person in just like them in any place that you would send them to.

four: Walk to any corner and there's a McDonalds, a Bank of America, a Chevron gas station, and a Starbucks. Travel a thousand miles in any direction and you're on a corner with a McDonalds, a Bank of America, a Chevron gas station, and a Starbucks. What's the point of travel?

Re:Will never happen because

[fiannaFailMan]

Will never happen because:
one- The United States is broke. They pissed away all their money on permanent unwinnable wars, housing scams, and Wall-Street bank bailouts. The idea that they would be able to spend trillions of dollars to build 1000 mile long tubes to convey peasants across North America at 4000 MPH is absurd.

two: Present company excepted, but Americans are technologically incompetent at long-term projects. All their bridges and highways are in disrepair, and they can't even get 50MPH trains to run competently. Didn't they once even have a space program?

three: What's the point of moving thousands of people around? For every person in one place, there is a another person in just like them in any place that you would send them to.

four: Walk to any corner and there's a McDonalds, a Bank of America, a Chevron gas station, and a Starbucks. Travel a thousand miles in any direction and you're on a corner with a McDonalds, a Bank of America, a Chevron gas station, and a Starbucks. What's the point of travel?

On a point of order: "It will never happen" != "It will never happen in the USA."

Re:Will never happen because

[Microlith]

Your dystopian perspective is... not refreshing. Sorry. Might as well kill yourself now and get it over with.

What's the point of moving thousands of people around? For every person in one place, there is a another person in just like them in any place that you would send them to.

Because companies don't benefit from having to place duplicates of their staff, whatever the role, all over the place. They'll put people in specific regions to manage them, but chances are your core staff will be in a handful of locations if not fewer. And sometimes they need to go there.

Walk to any corner and there's a McDonalds, a Bank of America, a Chevron gas station, and a Starbucks. Travel a thousand miles in any direction and you're on a corner with a McDonalds, a Bank of America, a Chevron gas station, and a Starbucks. What's the point of travel?

I take it you don't actually travel.

Re:Will never happen because

[dthx1138]

Congratulations, you have just crossed over the Flamebait Singularity. Any sincere words you attempt to utter are now longer able to escape your mouth due to the irresistible urge to have all of America lambast the shit out of you.

Physics FTW.

[Anonymous Coward]

Put a rail in a vacuum with a 600V potential on it, (same as a train), guess what happens.

Re:Physics FTW.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not drunk enough to be reading this article and responding intelligently.

In the 1800s???

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, dude, now i feel really old. My employer still uses a system like this, even if it's mainly used by sysadmins for beerdistribution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8yRjVnl8Yo

Why not do it to Zoidberg?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just remove the train part and just move people around! http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/futurama-zoidberg-why-not-zoidberg

What I want to know is...

[siliconeyes]

So obviously one of the biggest issues with an idea like this is the need to maintain a vacuum over hundreds of kilometers, where a single defect can render the entire setup useless. SO, how about just blowing air into one end of the tunnel at a high speed, like let's say 200 km/h, and sucking it out from the other end at the same rate? Heck, this way the train doesn't even need to be powered anymore - it'll just get pushed by the high pressure behind it, and low pressure in front. No catastrophic failures in case there is a hole somewhere in the tunnel either - just a little loss of efficiency!

Re:What I want to know is...

[MetalliQaZ]

Because over a very long tunnel (say, 1000km) the energy to generate those pressure waves would be unattainable.

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!!!!

[Picass0]

You will wake up remembering nothing and feeling refreshed.

Space Elevator

[yanom]

I take it this is why we don't/won't have space elevators?

Re:Space Elevator

[TheRaven64]

Vertical travel is a very different proposition. Compare the energy usage for a person standing at the top of the Empire State Building and a person standing in a helicopter hovering a few metres away. Both are at the same height, but one is having to use fuel (in quite significant amounts) just to stay in the same place. Now have the man in the building go up and down the stairs for an hour and have the helicopter maintain the same height as him. At the end, compare their energy usage.

In contrast, for something like a train the majority of the energy is used in acceleration. Reducing air resistance and rolling resistance give some benefits, but it's not huge. The advantage of the hypothetical maglev vacuum train is that it can keep accelerating for as long as it wants (air resistance increases with speed). This isn't really useful for most trains, although it would be useful for something like a transatlantic or transpacific railway where you'd have a long distance and nowhere where you might want to stop on the way.

For reaching orbit, a space elevator means you don't need to carry as much fuel. Over 90% of the mass of a rocket going into orbit is the fuel required to carry the fuel into orbit. Take that away, and you've made a huge saving. If you can power the climber from the ground, it's even better. Acceleration is also an issue. A rocket must accelerate at more than 1g just to move upwards. Because of this, it must accelerate hard so that it doesn't run out of fuel just maintaining the 1g needed to stay in the same place. A climber can maintain a constant speed or a slow acceleration.

The main reason we haven't built a space elevator is that we've only recently made materials in the lab that are (probably) strong enough to be used for the tether, if we could work out how to mass produce them.

Re:Space Elevator

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not even materially possible. Never mind the engineering. Or the cost. Or the ultimate question of why space is so important. It's empty, guys.

Re:Space Elevator

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what they would need to do for a space elevator. And you would want to build it on a 15,000+ ft tall mountain, so a lot of the air is already gone.

They would also be better off building this vacuum mag-lev on the Moon. Once we build underground Moon colonies. It was Newt's only good idea.

Re:Space Elevator

[garyebickford]

Or the ultimate question of why space is so important. It's empty, guys.

- only until we get there. :)

Re:Space Elevator

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you, but you are in space, buddy. It's not so empty as it may seem at first glance.

Re:Space Elevator

[avandesande]

Why not make the vacuum where the train is? Use a plasma to reduce the density of the air at the front of the train... similar concept to the cavitation torpedoes.

Re:Space Elevator

[TheRaven64]

I may be overly pessimistic, but I suspect that a lot of people would object to something that is effectively a scramjet flying at an altitude of under a metre...

Why?

[Sez Zero]

I think I figured it out when you said "4,000 mph vacuum-tube trains".

Fire - Catastrophic Fire Risk ...

[Cassini2]

The reason the vacuum systems went out of favor was the massive associated fire risk. At first, it doesn't seem obvious why a vacuum system would have a fire risk, as in theory the vacuum should extinguish the fire. However, this doesn't work in practice.

What actually happens is the fire starts outside the vacuum system, where it has access to air. The fire then causes this air to expand. The logical place to expand is straight into the nearest low or negative pressure environment around, which is the vacuum system. In no time at all, the vacuum transportation system spreads the fire between floors - and disaster ensues.

Vacuum transportation systems used to be popular in multilevel buildings of large companies. Then one by one they caught fire. Eventually, the fire codes understood the significance of plenums and air return systems in spreading fires. Now any kind of vacuum, plenum, or return air space that stretches between floors has special safety devices inside it. They are extremely dangerous spaces if fires occur.

Additionally, vacuum systems were never used to transport people, because if air integrity on the capsule fails, then everyone suffocates.

Re:Fire - Catastrophic Fire Risk ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then stop making your buildings from wood.

Use concrete and gypsum, much like they are done in Europe - you got a fire in a room, the room burns, not the building. and most of the time even your infrastructure in that room is intact (cables are in tubes in the concrete and so on)

I have a great investment plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Take $100, burn $50 of it, but the other $50 in the bank and withdraw $10 a year for the next five years.

On the plus side, it provides a steady income stream of $10 a year for 5 years.

On the negative side, it has a high initial cost. So when you weight up the two, I guess it's still an ok investment.

And done in one....

[Anonymous Coward]

Fill the tubes with helium.

Article missed something

[fiannaFailMan]

The article raises the obvious problems of maintaining a vacuum and the inevitable costs that go with it. But it also raised safety concerns based on the idea that these trains would be carrying passengers. Why would you make that assumption? This would be great for freight if you could pull it off. You could scale it down a bit so that the "series of tubes" have just a big enough diameter to hold a standardized container about the size of a forklift pallet-load. Would shave a considerable amount of cost off drilling and maintenance, although could be a tight squeeze during construction if you were to need people in the tunnels to operate any of the machinery.

Re:Article missed something

[nadavwr]

Hell, you could even send through avians carrying optical media. Justifies the "series of tubes" title.

Price

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect that a tunnel could be planted from coast to coast deep enough that the surface environment was not disrupted. But the expense would never be tolerable. Think of what a one way ticket might cost. Also the air removed from the forward direction could be pushed back behind the train in order to make use of the energy. But safety and liability would probably be too great an issue. What does one do with a large number of people smeared all over a tunnel at 4,000 mph?

1870's Version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must have been a sight to behold

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/02/0226new-york-pneumatic-subway/

Cabin pressure

[Guppy06]

When a commercial airliner loses cabin pressure, everyone will still have a minute or so of consciousness, oxygen masks drop down for the passengers, and anybody who didn't have time to get one on will wake up soon enough after the pilot has finished the requisite emergency dive.

If a train cabin in an evacuated tube loses pressure, well...

Re:Cabin pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

... and anybody who didn't have time to get one on will wake up soon enough after the pilot has finished the requisite emergency dive.

Unless the pilot forgets the plane is flying in alternate law.

Physics-101?

[solidraven]

The author of the article needs to retake Physics-101 it seems. Energy of an object in motion is 0.5*mass*(velocity squared). It takes a lot more energy to go from 3450 km/h to 3500 km/h than it does to go from 50 km/h to 100km/h. It only takes about 46 times the energy it would but yeah, that's about the same right! To make it clear:
0.5 * 1 kg * (((100 km/h)^2) - ((50 km/h)^2)) = 289.351852 J
0.5 * 1 kg * (((3500 km/h)^2) - ((3450 km/h)^2)) = 13 406.6358 J
Now considering a train tends to weigh a few tons the difference isn't really all that small.

Re:Physics-101?

[Anonymous Coward]

Already raised and answered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

Read it. Kinetic energy (e=mv^2) is relative to the frame of the observer.

Heres a good example; when you are standing on the surface of the earth, and you walk towards the west at midday; or to the west at midnight. Since your total kinetic energy is going down at one of those times (velocity of earth around sun - walking pace) surely you basically "fall" in that direction right?

Re:Physics-101?

[syockit]

You have to consider the energy recapture during deceleration.

Re:Physics-101?

[solidraven]

That wasn't the argument made in the original article. He claimed it takes about the same energy to go up from 50 to 100 km/h as it does for something close to 4000 to 4050 km/h (exact value doesn't matter). It's simply not true.
And the same argument can be made for magnetic levitation systems anyway.

The trouble with tunnels

[Animats]

There's been enthusiasm for underground tunnels in science fiction since at least the 1920s. Tunnels, though, are hard to build. Read a few issues of "Tunnels and Tunneling" to get a sense of the problems.

Solid ground isn't really that solid. Tunnel projects encounter sand, silt, water, oil, natural gas, shale, coal, and salt. Each requires different techniques, and most can't support an open in space in them. Tunneling often involves building a structure able to hold the tunnel bore open. Support rings, props, rock bolts, shotcrete, and steel are used when necessary. A single long tunnel job may encounter all of those.

As a construction project, a tunnel has a major logistical problem - most of the work is at the cutting face. So there's not much parallelism. Major tunnels are bored from both ends. In some cases, shafts are dug to intermediate points to allow advancing from multiple locations.

That option is possible on land, but slow and expensive for deep tunnels. It was used for the 57km Gotthard Base Tunnel, and required digging two access shafts around a kilometer long. That job took 14 years of tunneling.

Underwater tunnel projects are usually limited to working from both ends. In a few cases, existing islands, or even artificial ones, have been used to gain access points. The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line has an artificial island.

Large tunnel projects today seem to run about US$0.2bn to $1bn/kilometer. It's much more expensive in urban areas or earthquake-prone areas. Hard rock tunnel projects are slow, but not overly expensive. Tunnels in difficult ground get very expensive.

MPH

[MRe_nl]

"Miles per hobo".

Re:MPH

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly it's hobos per mile.

Imagine the views...

[bluie-]

I can't help but wonder what it would be like to look out of a window and clear tube from barely above the earth at a speed of 4000mph, it must be quite spectacular! And imagine seeing the sun "move" through the sky as daylight changed. Is this speed fast enough to cause any significant amount of time dilation for those in the trains? I'm better no, but maybe someone could be more precise about it. This is one of those things that is really awesome to think about, no matter how unrealistic it is to actually build.

Let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me guess, is it because its a 4000 mph vacuum-tube?

as i previously said...

[Anonymous Coward]

in response to the recent article about a 'superbus'...
if it moves over 200mph and carries a massive amount of people, i don't call it a 'superbus'. i call it a 'super population reducer'.

Re:as i previously said...

[Anonymous Coward]

just to clarify, i say 'build it!' :)

Heaters and Cathodes and Grids, Oh No!

[carrier lost]

Why Ultra-Efficient 4,000 mph Vacuum-Tube Trains Aren't Being Built

Well duh. Not much of anything uses vacuum tubes any more.

My Vacuum Tube Mode of Transportation

[Anonymous Coward]

12AX7's and 6L6s, an axe and sweet Mary Jane.

Wooshing right by...

not possible in a real world environment

[Anonymous Coward]

There are so many variable that would make this almost impossible. One of those would to actually keep a 20ft tube in a vacuum for any real length of time.

It's a no-go

[downhole]

I thought of the idea a while back, and I'm sure plenty of other people have too. It's really cool in a way, but I doubt it would ever be practical. The main problems I thought of:

Cost. It would have to be ungodly expensive by any measure, both to build and to operate. Could there ever be enough people willing to pay enough money to get, say, from NY to LA, faster than anything else to justify it? And it isn't very flexible either compared to air travel. If some other part of, say, NY, gets much more popular, then you can just build a new airport and reroute flights as needed. If you're using these giant vacuum tubes, you'd have to re-drill half of the run.

How tough it is to keep the tube in vacuum? We don't have any good way to estimate that now. Might need several high-grade vacuum pumps per mile that draw lots of power. It's pretty single-point-of-failure too - any significant air leak anywhere on the entire run, and any trains going fast enough to make such a system worth the trouble would probably be completely destroyed. It isn't just an air-resistance problem - unless the tube is much, much bigger than the train, then all of that air would be forced through the relatively small area between the train and the tube, thus much higher pressure spikes that would probably compromise any structure, and once you get the first crack, the whole thing will disintegrate real quick under the 6k MPH winds, leaving everything and everyone in the train as a stain on the walls over the course of a few hundred miles.

Handling sounds tough too. Like loading, unloading, servicing, turning them around, etc. You'd need lots of really good pressure seals that will stand up to many thousands of cycles with passengers doing all sorts of wacky things to them, and lots of elaborate procedures carefully followed. Getting trains into pressure for service (or do we have service techs in space suits?), loading and unloading passengers and cargo though some kind of airlock/jetbridge thing. Make a mistake anywhere, and you either pressurize the tube, destroying any trains travelling in it at the time, or suffocate all of the passengers in a train. Hope you never have a train break down in the middle of the line either.

Re:It's a no-go

[Anonymous Coward]

Could there ever be enough people willing to pay enough money to get, say, from NY to LA, faster than anything else to justify it?
Yes. It's the busiest route in the country. Plenty of Asians and Europeans use it to avoid going the other way around the world. Many domestic flyers use it simply because its the fastest route; e.g., if you're traveling from Baltimore to Phoenix, it might well make sense to bus or train to JFK or Newark, fly to LA, and rent a car to drive to Phoenix. Yes, its inefficient, but blame the carriers, or the FAA (as your politics dictate) not the travelers.

And it isn't very flexible either compared to air travel. If some other part of, say, NY, gets much more popular, then you can just build a new airport and reroute flights as needed
Terminus in Newark. Mass transit to NYC, Philly, Baltimore, D.C., and Boston from existing lines.
Adding lines out west would be a problem with the mountainous geography. How about a Sacramento terminus, with high-speed trunks to LA, SF and a Phoenix-via-Las Vegas line? Portland, Seattle and Vancouver could build their lines off of the SF terminus.

Re:It's a no-go

[Anonymous Coward]

haven't all the same been said about Concorde as well ?

-D1

Why not...

[Twisted64]

Why not install big fans at the front of the train that suck in practically ALL the air in front of the train before it hits, compress it into narrow pipes that run the length of the train and then exhaust at the rear? You'd still run it in a tube, but the train itself would effectively feel like it was passing through a vacuum.

Perhaps the simple answer is that it would cost too much, but I'd like to hear it, because this has actually been playing on my mind a bit lately.

Re:Why not...

[Ogi_UnixNut]

Why not install big fans at the front of the train that suck in practically ALL the air in front of the train before it hits, compress it into narrow pipes that run the length of the train and then exhaust at the rear?

You mean, something like, say, a jet engine? =)

Remember, a jet engine does not really need to have a heat engine at its core. You can build an electric jet engine as well, just that it is less efficient and harder to do.

Great...

[Hamsterdan]

I can't wait 'til some jerk pulls the emergency brake while at ludicrous speeds

why?

[slew]

640mph ought to be enough speed for anyone... ;^)

Swissmetro

[jcdr]

A concept like this has be studied since 1970 in Switzerland. The subject was more warm in the early 1990, with an idea of real experimentation, but cooled down when faced the complexity of the project and his hazardous profitability. There is still some trace of it on the web:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissmetro

http://www.swissmetro.ch/en/home

Mod this AC up

[MickLinux]

Yeah, it looks like a flame, but the parent post probably is legit. Vacuums do not hold seals do break down. Airlocks are intermittent seals that are subject to regular mechanical abuse. If your car's AC, with something like 10 inches of seal, cannot hold a lowVacuum for 3 months under a normal aging of ten years, then what makes you think that a 500 mile idealized high vacuum tube, with 40' of seal spaced every 100 yards, and at least 4 airlocks, will hold its vacuum sufficiently well?
Now add in the fact that atoms tunnel into vacuum, and explode off the walls to fill a vacuum. That's why atomic physicists have to bake their vacuum chambers each time they use them.
Now also consider that superconductor magnets will not work for the application, because the first time you use it, you break the field, and the electron superhighway jams up with phonons, turning your superconductor into a normal resistive conductor.

this tube thing doesn't resonate with people

[k6mfw]

There was proposal to build "internet tubes" (and Sen. Stevens would have been right) but they later did it with wires.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/08/12/16/1920201/100-years-ago-no-free-broadband-pneumatic-tubes

The Reality Check is in the Mail

[pubwvj]

And now I would like you to meet Miss Jello, Mr. Pancake & Ms. Crispy. They will demonstrate what happens when you accelerate too fast, stop too quickly or lose vacuum.

Reality can be a bit more disturbing than Sci-Fi.

Main Reason: Lack of Steam

[WillAffleckUW]

Face it, steam punk trains in vacuum tubes go too fast and would shock the brain.

Man was not made to go 4000 miles per hour, and if we went by train faster than by plane, we might have to admit wasting energy on planes is a very very bad idea.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a Zeppelin to catch. Let me just fire up my Jetpack and I'll fly up to it.

greyhound

[way2trivial]

$45.00

Shenanigans

[Anonymous Coward]

Calling Shenanigans here.

Car: 363 miles, 7+ hours each way with no traffic jams (good luck!)

363 mi x $0.555 per mile = $201.47. Double that to get back home.

You don't have to show up at the train 2 hours ahead of time, so I don't really understand your 8hrs + 2hrs estimate. (You do have to get to the train station, but, you also have to get to the freeway.)

If I have the choice of spending, basically, two days driving or save $150 and spend two days working on my laptop / reading / watching a movie / sleeping / grabbing a drink in the cafe car, I'd take the train every time. I find driving tedious and boring and I think that anyone who actually prefers it to anything else must have watched way too many car commercials.

Re:Shenanigans

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, (replying to my own post here), that 7+ hours drive time doesn't include any stops. Assuming that you 1. need to eat, 2. will need to fuel up, 3. aren't wearing adult sized diapers, you're probably looking at an extra stop or two.

There's only one thing to say about that...

[Minwee]

"I hear those things are awfully loud."
It glides as softly as a cloud.
"Is there a chance the track could bend?"
Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
"What about us brain-dead slobs?"
You'll be given cushy jobs.
"Were you sent here by the devil?"
No, good sir, I'm on the level.
"The ring came off my pudding can."
Take my pen knife, my good man.

Cost Prohibitive

[slugo]

The thing is cost prohibitive: Wide turning radius, maintaining a vacuum in a tube, built to withstand earthquakes, and the often overlooked but required inertial dampeners.

It's quite simple

[sunking2]

We now live in a can't do instead of a can do society.

Cracks

[bigsexyjoe]

"The thing about maintaining a total vacuum is that one hole in your structure compromises the vacuum almost immediately"

Did anyone really need to read the article to know that that was the problem?

California population growth

[Anonymous Coward]

California is projected to have a population of 55 million by the year 2050. Much of California's population lives in a bent north south line. That is comparable to the population of France, so HSR might become a good idea.

Two Words.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chunky Salsa.

Re:Simple? yes and no

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineering and tech aren't the problems here. The problems are:
1. # of stops between both ends of the line. If you've ever been on an Amtrak train, you know it stops every hour and 15 minutes +/- at the longest on average, with top speeds ballparking 60-85 mph. You'll never reach the theoretical speeds or get even remotely close without acceleration far greater than that of a space shuttle, which most people aren't going to physically be able to handle. Acceleration of 1G exerts close to 320 pounds of force on a 160 pound person. 10Gs or more will probably seriously injure, if not kill them. As is, a hard 70mph turn in a car is enough to put major strain on the average person
2. You're not going to reach a serious speed without the vacuum tube because of the required balance tolerances. a stiff wind at high speed will probably leave you with enough discernible human remains to fill a toothpaste tube.
3. Cost effectiveness..... It simply isn't there yet.
4. Demand.... nope.
5. Environmental issues, including violent weather (tornadoes, hurricanes, strong thunderstorms, straight line winds, etc), earthquakes, major and minor (more of a problem on the west coast as the ground is regularly shifting, which will play hell on rail alignment and vacuum tube seals), the land itself (its not exactly cheap to cut through a mountain) and the existing infrastructure which will have to be altered to accommodate for the new rail/tube infrastructure.

Simple just went out the window....

Effects of special relativity

[Anonymous Coward]

Would traveling on trains at this speed make you younger or older than your peers?

Two Comments

[AB3A]

First, Low Earth Orbit speeds are about 17000 MPH. Launching a sub-orbital spacecraft toward a destination is actually just as fat and also orders of magnitude less expensive to build. The technology to do that is much more within reach than a vacuum tube train and it requires far less infrastructure.

Second, who says the tube that has the train car has to be a vacuum? If the train car were shaped like a dart, one could accelerate it with a rocket motor to get it to speed, and then as it breaks through a membrane to get in to the tunnel, it would compress a mixture of natural gas and air where the tunnel meets the edge of the dart. The burn of this fuel would then accelerate the car/dart further in to the tunnel. This is roughly the method that the SHARP gun used to accelerate projectiles to 3 km/sec. I'm not exactly sure how one could keep the acceleration to something that wouldn't turn everyone in to goo, but I am certain that a bit of propellant selection might make this practical.

Net kinetic energy != work

[Anonymous Coward]

Net kinetic energy does indeed vary proportionally with the square of velocity. However, the amount of energy required to accelerate the train from a velocity of 3000 to 3050 mph is only proportional to the difference in initial and final velocities of the train. The train only needs enough energy imparted to it to change it's net kinetic energy from what it has at 3000 mph to what it has at 3500mph.

The change in the train's kinetic energy from 0 to 550 mph is actually 121 times greater than the change in the train's kinetic energy from 3000 to 3050 mph.

Re:Simple? yes and no

[AK Marc]

As is, a hard 70mph turn in a car is enough to put major strain on the average person

A hard turn in a car, 7 mph or 70 mph, will put about 1g of extra force on them (for a total of about 1.4g). The trigger of "unconfortable" is about 0.2g. There is no significant "strain" on a person in a hard turn, unless you count when I was driving a '67 bug as a teen (not equipped with seatbelts - too old) and slid out of the driver's seat in a turn and was steering while sitting on the passenger floorboard. But that would have been more like the 0.2g range.

Acceleration of 1G exerts close to 320 pounds of force on a 160 pound person.

Acceleration of 1g exerts close to 160 lbs on a 160 lb person. When you add gravitational force, you get a total force of 320 iff you are accelerating straight up, and I would expect the trains to accelerate perpendicularly to gravity, for a total force of about 224 lbs. An extra 64 lbs would make walking while accelerating difficult for some, but most would be able to walk the length of a car at 1g of acceleration.

You're not going to reach a serious speed without the vacuum tube because of the required balance tolerances. a stiff wind at high speed will probably leave you with enough discernible human remains to fill a toothpaste tube.

No wind necessary at speed. Just look at the flat-bottom Mercedes race cars from Le Mans a few years ago (takes flight and crashes). A tiny issue with aerodynamics and at speed on the hill, the car crashed, no wind necessary. Pointing out the obvious "hard stuff is hard" isn't insightful or useful and just highlights your inability to solve, just whine.

Again, the argument is "I think it's hard, and I can't solve it all by myself in the time it takes me to post this, so it must be impossible."

Single point of failure

[tarpitcod]

Tracks Suck. Tubes Suck. They are one massive long single point of failure.

One day I was riding on the Acela and I realized the fatal flaw with high speed land transports. Your moving fast and there's no buffer. Now imagine doing 4000 mph. One part of that tube is bad - or there's an earthquake or a cave-in and guess what? Your doing 4000 mph straight towards a large piece of earth that moved into your path. Even a tornado doesn't compare to that. You could fly your 2000 mph aircraft right through the eye-wall of a hurricane and it's almost certainly more survivable than that 4000 transit-pod.

Oh, and in an aircraft you wouldn't have to fly right into the hurricane because you can divert. We know where hurricanes are. We know where thunderstorms are so we can avoid them too. How would you avoid an earthquake?

I'd much rather have a nice buffer of air which even in it's most turbulent state is infinitely more forgiving than solid earth.

In case of emergency...

[marciot]

...DO NOT break a window.

Simple solution to vacuum problem

[DishpanMan]

If we just boil off the Earth atmosphere and have the train stations be on top of mountains, then we could have a perpetual motion train. This would work perfect on a Moon colony also. We would just have to get used to wearing space suits and growing our food in habitats, it's really a small price to pay for efficient transport.

What a stupid question.

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is building much with vacuum tubes anymore because they're obsolete. Transistors are the way to go, man!

Just let people sit in the holes where electrons could be, (based on the Pauli Exclusion Principle,) and apply biasing voltage. The passengers shoot along to their destinations in less time than it would take for the cathode to heat up in an old-style vacuum tube, and produce much less heat in the process. You could even micro-miniaturize them as long as people don't mind fitting themselves into a space less than a cubic millimeter. But with sufficient financial incentive, some will do it.

The biggest trouble will be for people wearing clothes made of synthetic materials, that they may be rumpled and static-y when they arrive.

Berlin is a small city?

[gurubert]

Berlin/Germany had a tube based system for letters and postcards that extended to 400km in 1940.
It connected 79 post offices in the city and transported 8 million mailings yearly.

Destroyed in WW2 it was partly reconstructed and used up until 1986.

Article in German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohrpost_in_Berlin

Step 0

[khipu]

Here's the plan – for step one, Terraspan would like to build a backbone network of underground vacuum tube train tunnels linking eastern Canada to western Mexico through the United States. Embedded in the train tunnel network would be a series of thick, superconducting energy cables that would form the heart of the first true continental power grid.

Here is Step 0: request massive subsidies from the government, because even if you can't build the thing, you'll still profit.

Look at the financial black hole that even proven and mature technology, like California's high speed rail, is turning into. And even for that kind of much simpler and cheaper train system, there isn't much of an economic argument.

Japan != China

[scsirob]

Looking at the numbers, I must assume you meant China, not Japan?? If you think those are one and the same, the inhabitants beg to differ..

maintaining a vacuum like that is not trivial....

[Anonymous Coward]

yikes! biggest hurtle i can imagine is creating and maintaining a vacuum that gi-freaking-normous.

someone on the article site mentioned it and i think it's absolutely dead on - it would be a helluva lot easier to just use hypersonic transport/orbital space planes.

Maglev can't go that fast

[Neil Boekend]

There are some problems with getting maglev to high speeds. Due to the lack of dampening any force will throw it off track quickly. These forces can occur due to inductions, due to imperfectly wound coils (no coil is perfect), due to the rest pressure of air or a lot of other things. The effect of these forces increases greatly with increased speed.

This idea's been knocking around for years

[jimicus]

This was suggested by Black & Gass in their 2001 work, "City Hall":

"(...) From now on, we will travel in tubes!"

Wouldn't it be safer, smarter, and efficient

[Anonymous Coward]

To just use the concept that simple concept that air driven mail systems use.

Simply create a directional airflow in the tube, thus the air is driving the train it self. That would consume about the same amount of power as running vacume pumps 24x7 to maintain a vacume in a realistic tunnel system, which will have leaks.

Advantage - no engine in the train, thus much lighter - by many tonnes - use magnetic rails to reduce friction with the walls.. No need to have heavy pressure proof walls, which adds weight and energy requirements for moving.

OFC there is friction - air against the sides of the tubes... Should be viable to operate at near airplane speed ( 800 - 1200km/hour).

safety - while there is negative presssure (airflow from high to low pressure, creates a gradient) , however there is still near 1 atmosphere pressure in the tube, thus a fractured window will make it drafty as hell, but you can still breathe. As most city trains already operate in tubes/tunnels, this could be fairly cheap to implement in underground systems, and cross country, you'd have to construct/tunnel through to create the "tubes" - the view would be boring, but then again watching things fly by at 800km/hour, will make it blurry at the best of times.

The mod up to +4 Insightful.

[westlake]

We have free health care. It's called WebMD. Remove prescription requirements for non-narcotics and you eliminate 80-90% of health care demand.

The geek has gone off his meds again, I see.

That, or he has never learned how to read the fine print.

The [WebMD] Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the WebMD Site!

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. WebMD does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on the Site.

Reliance on any information provided by WebMD, WebMD employees, others appearing on the Site at the invitation of WebMD, or other visitors to the Site is solely at your own risk.

You will find this under the bland head Addtitional Information on the back pages of the WebMD site and not on the front page, which is where it belongs. I have bolded and parsed it for emphasis here.

I am a rather complex prescription drug regime myself, only one of which is on the restricted list, and not a narcotic by legal definition but does require clinical monitoring.

The term is, today, imprecisely defined and typically has negative connotations. When used in a legal context in the US, a narcotic drug is simply one that is totally prohibited, or one that is used in violation of strict governmental regulation, such as heroin or morphine.

Narcotic

The interactions among prescription and non-prescription drugs can be subtle and dangerous.

They can mask the symptoms of other diseases, like pnemonia. It is so very easy and tempting to go off the prescribed regime. You feel good.

But you cannot always trust your own judgement.

Next week you may find yourself in the ER or in-patient under Intensive Care.

I've been down that road and the lessons it teaches come hard.

Re:The mod up to +4 Insightful.

[tmosley]

Congratulations, you are the 10%. Everyone else who has a cold can use WebMD.

The last two times I have been to a doctor, they have put my symptoms into a smartphone which kicked out a diagnosis, and they wrote me a prescription. It's such an utter waste. But they have an oligopoly. Can't have a medic with 6 months of training set a kid's broken bone. Can't even buy strong athlete's foot medication without giving them money.

If YOU have a severe condition, then YOU can go to the doctor. You gain nothing but higher bills by making everyone else go to the doctor for their piddly little conditions or straightforward procedures.

Too Dangerous To Carry Passengers

[rally2xs]

A sudden depressurization on the train doesn't just require oxygen, it requires space suits for the passengers to survive. Since accidents _will_ happen, such as some material failure that allows a leak in the train pressurization, or a window blowing out, this thing would be a death trap.

Why People

[Anonymous Coward]

Could this not just be done for Parcels? Leave the "people" part of the equation out of it for now? Once the technology has been up and running for parcels for a few years and had any kinks or upgrades done to it THEN think about transporting people?

Somebody warn the Japanese

[luis_a_espinal]

You know of all the places to build a bullet train California seems one of the worst places to do it. Forgetting for a moment that the state already has crippling debt, lets think about Earthquakes, which happens to be one of the natural disasters that strike with little to no warning. I can't imagine any sort of high speed mag lev line will have any sort of real earth quake tolerance, but maybe I'm wrong and some physics or engineering major can come on here and tell me why traveling at a huge speed, on a systems that requires a contiguous track in an earthquake prone region is a good idea.

Somebody tell the Japanese about this. They have been building the impossible in terms of mass transit for the last few decades.

Amtrak IS the most subsidized

[sirwired]

For the number of passengers Amtrak carries every year, it's subsidy surpasses pretty much every other form of transportation besides space travel. I think it's easy to see we get a bit more "bang for our buck" spending 3.5B on airports vs 2.6B on Amtrak.

Why? Everybody know vacuum sucks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing known to man sucks more than vacuum.

Swissmetro was a similar idea

[Robb]

There were quite a few studies about the feasibility of doing something like this in Switzerland although the top speed they were looking at was about 500 kph and they wanted to connect the major Swiss cities so it would be about 15 minutes from one city to the next. It would require such a huge investment that really only the government could do it and even though it appears to make longterm financial sense there isn't enough political support to start the ball rolling.

Two Kings

[cycleflight]

Get the scientists working on the tube technology immediately.

Moooo .... flop flop dead fish.

[niftymitch]

Today it is not the time spent in an aircraft it is the time spent in a cramped ill served aircraft.

A high speed system would suffer the same fate as airlines and
optimize the return on investment by mushing folk in tight as
dead fish in a tin after herding and corralling them like cattle
off to the arbitour.

Regional rail has to find ways to deliver service without
abusing the commuters. This includes local transportation
for the last mile of the commute.

There is a reason folk take big boats yet big boats also suffer
from the pack em in like dead fish problem.

Passive vacuum?

[cycleflight]

Float some lines up 10000 m on weather balloon-type contraptions and pipe them directly into your otherwise sealed tube. The atmosphere up there is 1/3rd of sea level, and that trend is linear enough that this would probably work over most land masses. If you're using maglev for propulsion and suspension, the only purpose the vacuum is serving is friction reduction, so any little bit would help.

Re:Passive vacuum?

[Anonymous Coward]

By that same logic, if you drop one end of a hose to the bottom of the ocean, keeping the other end at sea-level, a gusher of water should come flying out of it. It won't, even if the hose collapsing weren't a problem, it still wouldn't. Sorry cycleflight, physics just doesn't work that way. Gravity sucks, I know. I blame Newton, if not for him and his laws of motion and gravity, we'd all have flying cars by now.

That reminds me of something really stupid I heard once, where a fellow communications technician asked about an antenna's passive transmit gain. Passive. Transmit. Gain. For anyone who has no idea why this is funny, think about jacking the end of a garden hose into a hole cut in the bottom of a bucket, and imagining that the far wider diameter of the bucket's far end will somehow increase the amount of water that flows out when you turn on the spigot versus the hose alone. It just doesn't work that way. Really sorry. Your idea did make me laugh though, so it's not all bad. Did you intend it to be funny?

a solid marketing approach

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'all got it all wrong. The point isn't merely to arrive at the destination. The risk of death should be marketed as part of the attractiveness. Think of it like parachuting or bungee-jumping -- only in this case, the participant will probably end up at a destination that's not the origin.

Why not?

[Immerman]

0.2g isn't exactly terribly uncomfortable - a 200lb man would gain an extra 40lb - or a moderately loaded backpack worth of weight evenly distributed across his body. And in reality since the acceleration would be orthogonal to gravity it would be much less: sqrt (1^2 + 0.2^2) = 1.02 g's, or 2% increase in perceived weight. It would require a 0.7g acceleration to increase perceived weight by 22%, and at .7g it will take only 260 seconds to reach 4000mph so they wouldn't even be mildly uncomfortable for very long.

As for costs - since the train would basically be coasting except at the endpoints you really only need "track" capable of taking heavy accelerations at the endpoints - 145 miles for a 0.7 g acceleration, or only 59 miles for a 1.73g acceleration (2g perceived "gravity" for 105 seconds. Uncomfortable, but perfectly safe for most people). And if you synchronized the "catching" and "launching" of trains you could even efficiently transfer energy between them.

At those speeds you don't even need to worry about climbing over mountains except to make sure you can't lift off the tracks as you come over the top - the highest peak in the Rockies is 4400m, for a specific gravitational energy of 4400m*9.8m/s^2 = 43 kJ/kg versus the kinetic energy of 1/2*(1788m/s)^2 = 1598kJ/kg. You'd only slow down by about 1.4% as you coasted over the top

Also there's a problem in your math, assuming a constant acceleration with the maximum speed at the halfway point the distance versus time equation is
(d / 2) = 1/2 * a * ( t / 2 )^2
which means a one-hour trip would require an acceleration of
a = 4 * d / t^2 = 4 * 3.93e6m / (3600s)^2 = 1.21 m/s^2 = 0.124g

Not a vacuum. It needs to be a wind tunnel.

[wad4ever]

Forget the magnetic levitation, just put it on wheels, or on a track, and push air through the tube at 500 MpH. Wind resistance problem solved. You can generate the hurricane wherever you have a good source of kinetic energy, if you like. The tube doesn't have to be air-tight, or even powered. It just needs to hold in the wind. Stations would be places where the diameter of the tube becomes larger, and the train can dock outside of the main wind flow. When it's in the tube, it can put up little mini "sails" to help it keep up with the wind better.

4k maglev trains and earthquakes are a bad mix.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not enough technology exists to remediate that combination.