DailyDirt: Faster Than A Locomotive...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, May 12th 2016 5:00pm — Michael Ho

The hyperloop idea that Elon Musk announced to the public is making some baby steps towards becoming a reality. Okay, so no one is talking about how any kind of new train system still needs to get land use rights and political approval, but the technology is inching its way towards becoming more than just an idea on paper.

Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop Technologies) has tested an open air demo of its prototype train that could someday travel hundreds of miles per hour in an evacuated tube. It's not a very impressive demo since high speed trains already exist, but it's a first step towards much more advanced train systems. [url]
The 'hyperloop' concept was popularized by Elon Musk, but similar transport ideas have been tried (and failed) before. The Swissmetro vactrain project fell apart in 2009, and there are no plans to restart it. [url]
Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (not to be confused with Hyperloop One) is working with passive magnetic levitation technology to get its version of a hyperloop working. This levitation technology seems to be related to Inductrack tech that inspired the Hendo hoverboards. [url]
The US Air Force set a maglev speed record at 633mph using superconducting magnets and liquid helium to cool it all down. Faster test sleds propelled by rockets didn't use magnetic levitation, but this is still cool, right? [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

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Filed Under: elon musk, high speed rail, hyperloop, inductrack, magnetic levitation, magnets, transportation, vactrain
Companies: hendo, hyperloop one, hyperloop transportation technologies

20 Comments

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Reader Comments

The First Word

“

Faster Than A Locomotive!

More powerful than tall buildings!
Able to leap speeding bullets in a single bound!

—Vinquus

”

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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2016 @ 5:53pm

Sounds like a waste of time & money when you could get the same performance by rubbing an old diesel-electric with cheetah blood.
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 12 May 2016 @ 6:38pm

I Should Hope ...
... that all the engineers working on these projects are using standard SI units like metres and kilometres rather than miles for their measurements. After all, you wouldn’t want a repeat of the Mars Climate Orbiter fiasco, would you? Only with people in the vehicles, the consequences would be worse than merely expensive and embarrassing...
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TRX (profile), 12 May 2016 @ 7:22pm

Vacuum isn't cheap, and it's hard to maintain. You'd be pumping all the time, which is a continuous expense, and if the vacuum was breached it would take a *long* time to lower the pressure to something practical.

The vehicle part is trivial; the vacuum tunnel... it's *possible*, but I'd be very surprised if they could deliver passengers for the same price the Concorde used to charge.
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Roger Strong (profile), 12 May 2016 @ 7:29pm

> has tested an open air demo of its prototype train

They tested a linear induction motor. These have been around for over a century and have been used in maglev trains since the mid-1980s.

NOT in the demo: The train, and the evacuated tubes it runs in. The test was one step beyond a PowerPoint presentation to wow investors.

A serious test will include not just an actual train running in an actual evacuated tube, but a demonstration of the pressure doors that let the train move at high speed between non-pressurized (passenger loading) sections and pressurized sections of the tube. And the emergency braking system used at 700mph when a door doesn't open.
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Roger Strong (profile), 12 May 2016 @ 7:35pm

People by Pipeline
Wikipedia: List of pipeline accidents in the United States in the 21st century
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2016 @ 8:13pm

Re: I Should Hope ...
If there are any computer systems involved, it will behoove the programmers to validate the code and make sure that these errors aren't there.

I have met too many programmers who don't have a clue about unit transformations or even numerical analysis or even understanding the concept of significant digits.
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JoeCool (profile), 12 May 2016 @ 8:15pm

Re: People by Pipeline
So, only a handful every year? Not bad! Much better than accidents in current transportation methods.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2016 @ 8:17pm

Re:
These things are easy to do as long as the marketing types don't have a say. Dead man switches are the norm today or at least should be, in any sensible country that is (the USA would probably be the exception, but we all know that they are cowboys by letting the marketing zombies get involved).
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2016 @ 8:18pm

Re: People by Pipeline
Well I did say above that the USA are cowboys (in the negative sense, nothing against actual cowboys or cowgirls who have some real skills).
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2016 @ 10:52pm

Re:
Not only is nothing ever truly free, nothing is never truly free, either.
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orbitalinsertion (profile), 12 May 2016 @ 10:53pm

Re:
I imagine the security will be crazy expensive if they go with that nifty elevated concept they always display.
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Lawrence D’Oliveiro, 12 May 2016 @ 11:38pm

Re: The vehicle part is trivial
And no-one seems to have mentioned the ... ummm ... “security” implications. What would the TSA queues be like?
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 7:26am

Okay, so no one is talking about how any kind of new train system still needs to get land use rights and political approval

It always surprises me, and depresses me just a little, to see people say things like this. "Yeah, the Hyperloop sounds like a good idea, except for how they aren't considering [insert incredibly obvious thing here]."

Does anyone really believe that? Does any rational person truly think that you can get together hundreds of very smart engineers to solve a specific problem, and they'll somehow all overlook something so obvious than John Q. Random Outsider notices it in an instant?

Simply because they're not discussing land use deals and political approval in public--because the relevant negotiations are still underway--doesn't mean it's not happening.

Also, some people actually are talking about it publicly.

For example, HTT (the company that didn't just waste a bunch of time and money on a publicity stunt sending a pod up to an astounding 100 MPH--which my car could match without breaking a sweat--out in the middle of nowhere) is working on building an actual, functioning Hyperloop in Quay Valley, CA, with construction expected to begin later this year and opening for business by 2018.

They've also announced a major deal to build Hyperloops to connect several major European cities. This is something that's really happening, a lot faster than most people realize!
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Vinquus (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 7:44am

Faster Than A Locomotive!
More powerful than tall buildings!
Able to leap speeding bullets in a single bound!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Roger Strong (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 9:22am

Re:
> is working on building an actual, functioning Hyperloop in Quay Valley, CA, with construction expected to begin later this year

But almost certainly won't. The plan depends on finding someone to fund it. In a futuristic town that has also yet to - and may not - start construction.

> They've also announced a major deal to build Hyperloops to connect several major European cities. This is something that's really happening,

Nope. They've announced a deal to **study** building Hyperloops to connect several major European cities. Meaning that the Slovakian government has committed to read their PowerPoint presentation, nothing more.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2016 @ 10:24am

Re: People by Pipeline
So you're picturing something more like Futurama, where a pipeline rupture results in people being spewed all over the landscape until the pipe is shut down?
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Roger Strong (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 11:08am

Re: Re: People by Pipeline
No, I'm thinking of - if not a backhoe since these are to be above-ground - then a truck with insufficient overhead clearance denting the tube. Or the vacuum denting a weak tube. Or a wash-out taking out a supporting post and bending a tube.

All of which will be best viewed from a distance when a train - with no real wiggle-room inside the tube - hits it at 700mph.

Also that train is designed to NOT touch the rails at 700M but instead float above them. If there's a mere air leak, the train unexpectedly hitting full air pressure at 700mph, chanced are it's going to experience some uneven forces pushing it into the rails or the walls of the tube. Wear eye protection.

None of this is at all insurmountable. But a commercial hyperloop system is no more "a couple years off" than Virgin Galactic's passenger flights were "a couple years off" after SpaceShipOne's flights in 2004.

Less even, since we haven't had a SpaceShipOne-equivalent hyperloop test yet. This week's Hyperloop One demo was the equivalent of a bench-test of a sub-scale engine with no spaceship.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 11:57am

Re: Re:
Yeah. When I said this is really happening a lot faster than most people realize... apparently you're "most people".
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JoeCool (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 1:36pm

Re:
It always surprises me, and depresses me just a little, to see people say things like this. "Yeah, the Hyperloop sounds like a good idea, except for how they aren't considering [insert incredibly obvious thing here]."

Does anyone really believe that? Does any rational person truly think that you can get together hundreds of very smart engineers to solve a specific problem, and they'll somehow all overlook something so obvious than John Q. Random Outsider notices it in an instant?

Simply because they're not discussing land use deals and political approval in public--because the relevant negotiations are still underway--doesn't mean it's not happening.

Yes, we do believe it because we've seen it over and over and over and over and over...

For example, when Houston started on their light rail project, they forgot completely about land rights. Buying said rights was done at the last second, and therefore at a HUGE markup - to the tune of several BILLION dollars. If they had thought ahead like us John Q. Random Outsiders, they'd have bought the land rights quietly on the side WAY ahead of time, not the day before work was supposed to start.
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Roger Strong (profile), 13 May 2016 @ 3:17pm

Re: Re: Re:
"Most people" being those who don't believe fantasy claims used to con gullible investors.

Not only are they not building that hyperloop in Quay Valley - it's just a proposal looking for funding at this point - but Quay Valley itself doesn't exist. It too is just a proposal looking for funding.

Likewise your "major deal to build Hyperloops to connect several major European cities" just doesn't exist. All that's been announced is a plan to study the idea.

No-one has built even the most rudimentary hyperloop system - not even a scale working model with loading/unloading/etc.
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