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Hyperloop Getting Closer To Reality, Groundbreaking Set For 2016

Posted by samzenpus on from the coming-soon dept.

An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) said it would break ground on the futuristic railway in May 2016. The company says it has signed agreements with Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum and engineering design firm Aecom to work on the project. "It's a validation of the fact that our model works," says Dirk Ahlborn, CEO of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. "It's the next step."

3 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. I want to ride on one some day by myid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I guess I feel like people felt when the train, car and airplane first came out. The hyperloop (like those earlier inventions) sounds like a wonderful idea, but it's a little dangerous. I want to ride on one eventually, but not on the first few runs. Let them work out any early problems with other, more daring riders.

  2. Re:Kind of serious? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "which one will have the Environmental Impact Study finished first?
    Then which one will be able to navigate the years of cease and desist lawsuits first?"

    My prediction: the Beijing-Shanghai corridor.

  3. Re:Vacuum? by vix86 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hyperloop's biggest problem will never be engineering. It'll be the concerted efforts of the airline industry, the dated train industry, and the trucking industry; all coming down on any attempt to build a real life version connecting any two cities spanning 100s of miles. Even if the most conservative costs of freighting for the hyperloop were to double (from what I've read in the Hyperloop Org's huge PDF), it'd still be faster and cheaper than all the current means of transportation of goods. Nothing like the Hyperloop would get built easily if it stands to destabilize or even destroy these other industries.