Hyperloop One Reveals Its Plans For Connecting Europe (engadget.com)

Hyperloop One has revealed its plans for connecting Europe via its Hyperloop transportation system that can move passengers/cargo at airlines speeds for a fraction of the cost of air travel. The company is currently considering nine potential routes in Europe, "running from a 90km hop to connect Estonia and Finland, through to a 1,991km pan-German route," reports Engadget. "The UK [...] gets three proposes routes: one to connect its Northern Cities, one to connect the North and South, and one to connect Scotland with Wales." From the report: Several of the routes, including ones between Estonia and Finland, Corsica to Sardinia and Spain -- Morocco, all cross bodies of water. The company has, on several occasions, spoke of its love of tunnels, and plans to use them extensively in construction. Although rather than using tunneling machines, which can be slow, submerged box tunnels or archimedes bridges may be cheaper and faster to build. CNBC notes that the proposals for Europe connect more than 75 million people in 44 cities, spanning 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles).

Comments

Is it really practical

[labnet]

As an Engineer, I see always see the problems....

- Thousands of sliding expansion joints that need to remain vacuum tight.
- The psychology of being subjected to movement with no visual reference (vomit tube)
- The problem of escaping people from a vacuum tube when something breaks. This would probably require uuuuge isolation valves every few km, and escape points closer than this, with emergency air infiltration systems, which then has to emergency break other pods who are then stuck in long queues with limited air, in battery powered coffins.
- Long term maintenance: esp of underground parts requiring building a tunnel in a tunnel.
- High capital cost of a complex pod requiring compressors, life support (aircon and air), batteries, recharging systems.
- Being not much faster than a bullet train of much higher capacity, and slower than an aircraft.
- Energy is becoming cheaper, so the main advantage of hyperloop is somewhat dulled.

I'm sure other can add more