Transport Expert Insists 'Don't Dismiss Wacky Hyperloop'

DavidGilbert99 writes "Since Elon Musk announced the details of Hyperloop earlier this week, we've seen a number of experts debunking the technology involved, but at least one is more upbeat about the possibility of 600MPH train travel. Speaking to Alistair Charlton at IBTimes UK, professor Phil Blythe from the Institute of Engineering and Technology said: 'My gut feeling is, don't dismiss it out of hand just because it sounds a bit wacky,' adding 'You're always going to have long distance travel, and if there was something that could replace air travel between cities and hubs, and is low carbon [with] low energy requirements, it make sense to explore it, it really does.'"

Comments

Sure it's a loopy idea

[serviscope_minor]

It is a loopy idea, but not fundementally unsound in any way.

Every aspect of it, from the induction motors, to the earthquake proofing to the aerodynamics to the solar power is all well understood.

The difficult bit is really the engineering on a large project and developing all the parts and actually building the thing. I wouldn't trust most people with it and the usual suspects for government contacting would surely make a massice hash of it and cause a 50x budget overrun.

But that's nothing to do with the project per-se. Musk does have the kind of track record showing he can pull off big, complex engineering projects which are generally regarded as difficult and expensive applications of existing tech. Not only pull them off but do them well, quickly and cheaply.

So please, don't bring up arichair engineer objections to the design without first reading that big, long document which covers most of them and actually providing some reasoning.

Re:Sure it's a loopy idea

[gweilo8888]

Land is going to be what kills this project, before it even gets as far as anything technical. How do you acquire the land for the route as a private entity, without eminent domain?

Every time you buy a parcel of land the neighboring parcels know they're suddenly worth a fortune to you, because you can't just go around them at 800 mph. You have to stay within safe and comfortable G-force maxima for your passengers, which means no more than gentle changes in routing -- and that means you'll have hundreds of hold-out roadblocks in the midst of your route, refusing to sell unless you can provide them with an instant and very comfortable retirement. And if you can't persuade them to sell... well, somehow you have to find a route around them, and buy even more property to make your new route happen.

And then there's the neighbors whose property you aren't buying who will mire you in lawsuits because they don't want an ugly Hyperloop system at the end of their property.

Re:Sure it's a loopy idea

[beelsebob]

Land is going to be what kills this project, before it even gets as far as anything technical. How do you acquire the land for the route as a private entity, without eminent domain?

If you had even read the basic media coverage of this, you would know that he is proposing mounting this over the central reservation on freeways, so no land purchasing would be necessary.

Re:Sure it's a loopy idea

[beelsebob]

A quick look at the freeways between LA and SF shows that they are mostly straight, with only very minor turns occasionally. A quick look shows that there's only two places where the route curves more tightly than the 14km radius turn required to keep under 1g acceleration at 800mph. Both of these locations are close to the end points, where the thing would still be under acceleration anyway, and if you really wanted to run at 800mph through them, there are 14km radius turns available in the area.

Re:Sure it's a loopy idea

[nojayuk]

The Japanese maglev testbed runs at 500km/h regularly, with record speeds of over 550km/h in open running, not in a vacuum tube. Most TGV/HSR/shinkansen fast rail tops out at about 320km/h -- I think there's some Chinese HSR that goes a bit faster on scheduled runs. The planned Tokyo-Nagoya maglev will start operating at 500km/h but they're laying out the track to go faster in the future as the engineering improves. That's not "slightly faster" than TGV.

Freight doesn't run on LGV, or if it does then the operators are crazy. Heavy freight cars would destroy the track which is optimised for high-speed passenger transport and slower freights would collapse the passenger scheduling to the point where delays and cancellations would be frequent, not a good selling point for HSR. I've made a lot of shinkansen trips over the past few years, only once did I end up on a delayed train. The rest arrived and departed on schedule to the second (and I mean that, the second-hand on the platform clock reaches "12" and the train starts moving.)