# Musk Hyperloop New York-DC?



## Philly Amtrak Fan (Jul 20, 2017)

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/elon-musk-hyperloop-philly-newyork-dc-20170720.html


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## Acela150 (Jul 20, 2017)




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## Green Maned Lion (Jul 23, 2017)

And I don't think Elon Musk is on it. People said similar things about Steve Jobs before the iPod and iPhone. I ignored them and bought Apple at a split adjusted equivlant of .70 cents a share.


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## bretton88 (Jul 23, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> And I don't think Elon Musk is on it. People said similar things about Steve Jobs before the iPod and iPhone. I ignored them and bought Apple at a split adjusted equivlant of .70 cents a share.


I don't think Musk is crazy at all. I'm just not sure what kind of timeline he can do this in, but if there's someone who has the drive and the ability to grease enough palms to make it happen, it's Musk.
Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk


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## Ryan (Jul 23, 2017)

I heard it was actually going to go PHL-CHI.


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## SarahZ (Jul 23, 2017)

The Willy Wonka .gif in the linked tweets is gold.


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## John Bredin (Jul 24, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> And I don't think Elon Musk is on it. People said similar things about Steve Jobs before the iPod and iPhone. I ignored them and bought Apple at a split adjusted equivlant of .70 cents a share.


The difference is that Mr. Jobs was not relying upon verbal government approval as Mr. Musk is. :blink: :giggle:

Government doesn't do anything that isn't in writing  and which governments (the Feds, the states the tunnels will run under, the station cities where large holes in the ground will be needed to bring passengers to/from the tunnels) gave this verbal approval?


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## jis (Jul 24, 2017)

Some Trumpeter told him over a beer, if you know what I mean


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## RSG (Jul 31, 2017)

John Bredin said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > And I don't think Elon Musk is on it. People said similar things about Steve Jobs before the iPod and iPhone. I ignored them and bought Apple at a split adjusted equivlant of .70 cents a share.
> ...


Add to that the technology isn't even proven yet, nor has it received any approval from any government anywhere. Doing stuff in the most congested part of the country is far different from doing it elsewhere in the US, and that isn't easy at all. The timelines mentioned were laughable as well. Elon Musk may be able to create payment systems and automobiles, but he has no idea what it is like to build infrastructure and no clue to elements such as rights-of-way.


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## Green Maned Lion (Jul 31, 2017)

Add spaceships to your list of things he can do. SpaceX and Tesla were both considered nuts- by myself included. When somebody consistently tackles the impossible and pulls it off, I don't assume he can't do it again.


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## Anderson (Aug 1, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Add spaceships to your list of things he can do. SpaceX and Tesla were both considered nuts- by myself included. When somebody consistently tackles the impossible and pulls it off, I don't assume he can't do it again.


Yes, but both also very much built on existing technology in incremental (if substantial) ways (SpaceX also took advantage of inefficiencies on the part of NASA's operations to find a profit center while Tesla benefitted from a frak-load of tax credits). Hyperloop is much more of a break from existing technology than either of those efforts.


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## jis (Aug 1, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Add spaceships to your list of things he can do. SpaceX and Tesla were both considered nuts- by myself included. When somebody consistently tackles the impossible and pulls it off, I don't assume he can't do it again.


Actually, I never considered either of those two nuts at all, since at least I understood how the technology, engineering and physics of it could be made to work out given proper allocation of resources. Neither of those two were ever considered to be impossible by anyone that looked into the physics and engineering of it. Yeah, for others such things can look like magic from time to time. Same was true of Steve Jobs and his adventures and misadventures. I don't think Hyperloop falls in the same category at all. but of course time will tell.

My speculation is that finally they will deploy a run of the mill Maglev system somewhere with a few extra bells and whistles and declare victory. They might even stick it in a tunnel bored by the Boring company and perhaps even reduce the iar pressure a bit in the tunnel, but not really enough to matter a heck of a lot in terms of dealing with consequences of a breach. But as I said, we will see. Declarations like the recent one regarding "Permission" is just plain stupid and misguided and misguiding, suggesting things are not otherwise going well at the ranch.


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## Green Maned Lion (Aug 2, 2017)

SpaceX's insanity was smoke and mirrors to some extent, because nobody had successfully done this sort of thing before, besides perhaps Richard Branson who is also viewed in the same realm.

But Tesla is an entirely different kettle of fish. The electric part of the equation is not the difficulty, particularly. Its not a great engineering achievement to figure out how to wire hi-po cellphone batteries in large quantity to move a lightweight aluminum body long distances with an electric motor. It is much more impressive that Tesla managed to produce a price-market-performance competitive entry to the luxury sedan segment- forgetting the electric part for a moment, but mighty Toyota has failed to consistently do that, Nissan failed completely, Honda has never tried, it took Audi 20 years of hard work to get there, and the domestic companies engaged in a 30 year hiatus from that. Tesla nailed it on its first shot. That is astonishingly impressive. That they further managed to do this while having the vehicle powered by the first seriously practical electric powertrain, and turning a per unit profit on the machines, that is incredible. On top of that the machines are cutting edge in various ways that have nothing to do with their powertrain. Without knowing further history, it is fair to call this a near impossible achievement.

Now for the history. 1995- that is the last time an automobile manufacturer successfully entered our market independently (albeit with lots of engineering help from Mazda) in the form of Kia. They didn't achieve success until Hyundai bought them and taught them how to build cars, though- which in 1986 is the previous successful entry of a manufacturer (Acura/Lexus/Infiniti/Scion/Saturn are brands, not manufacturers). And frankly, the Korean's launch was unsuccessful initially. But let us hold success as selling vehicles in volume for at least 10 years.

The last successful startup automaker in the US was possibly Kaiser-Frazier, and that is arguable, since they stopped producing their own products within that 10 year time frame, although they continued making products from Willys-Overland, that they bought. This failure was the work of no lesser a man than Henry J. Kaiser, a Steve Jobs like man in his day.

If we discount that- and perhaps we should- we'd have to go back nearly 100 years to find a successful American automobile manufacturing start up. And of course, the three surviving American (or Italian-American) automakers have their roots in automobile manufacturing even further back- Maxwell (Chrysler) in 1904, Buick (General Motors) in 1899 (becoming General Motors in 1908), and more complexly Ford. Ford's first car company (The Henry Ford Company) was founded in 1901, but is basically Cadillac. Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903. All over 100 years ago.

Tesla is a full fledged start up, the first serious attempt in nearly 70 years, and the first truly successful in 110. While receiving some help from Lotus for their first model, and some guidance from Daimler for their second, they designed their own car on their own platform with their own running gear that is competitive in its class, and in fact has become the best selling car in that class. On top of that the Model S was the first practical long range electric car.

So yes, when this little Elon Musk PayPal nebbish (against all of that history outlined before you) said he was going to successfully build a volume, practical, long-range, electric luxury sedan that could compete in performance, price, and quality with a Mercedes-Benz S-class (a company who has been building its reputation and refining its exceptional product for 131 years), and then build a equally practical long range electric car that would sell for the average transaction price of a new car ($35k) or even close to it, yeah I considered that impossible. With a lot of good reason.

It isn't the electric powertrain that does all that- its the business acumen of a man who thinks he is unstoppable and is therefore willing to launch massive resources at things other men think are impossible. Since he is willing to do that, and he has a lot of investors who believe that he can, he really does have a shot at doing it. Because the first prerequisite for accomplishing nearly impossible feats is to convince other people to invest in them by convincing them they are very possible indeed.


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## cirdan (Aug 3, 2017)

I agree with the thrust of waht you're saying. The auto industry has become too self-obsessed, too static, and too sure of its hegemony that they didn't take Musk seriously. They could have introduced competitive models of their own that could quite easily have bankrupted Musk within months. It's the classic case of disruptive innovation making waves in a market that doesn't really want change.

On the other hand, there are different types of people who get ahead in this game.

There are the Steve Jobs types who have a very detailed understanding of the market, of the customer's psychology, of the shortcxoming of the competitors, of how much seemingly insignificant details matter, and can pull off kill after kill - even if to be honest, Jobs also presided over a large number of phenomenal failures. He didn't exactly get fired from Apple for being too succesful.

Then there are also people who don't have that understanding. I'm putting Richard Bransom there. Jobs did many things but all within a rather narrow spectrum. It was a spectrum that he understood very well. But if you hop from airlines to sugary drinks to trains to music, you don't really understand the details of all those markets and industries. You're more a big picture type guy. Bransom got rich, there is no doubt about it. But a lot of what is said about him is more hype than reality. Virgin Cola never displaced Coke from its market leadership. The Coca Cola company never felt it needed to imiatte Virgin Cola to remain relevant, in the way that the Nokia's and Samsungs' of the world felt they needed to clone iPhones to remain relevant. He wasn't the threat to them that he was pretending to be. Virgin Trains were not that particularly good and they definitely didn't bring back the golden age of train travel in the way they were hyped to do. In many respects Branson's penny pinching actually made train travel more miserable. I guess his airlines are passably good, but they have also stagnated. I',m not seeing the massive growth of the early years. So at the end of the day, the Branson personality has huge value, and a lot of legend gets woven around him. He made enough money too, and good for him. But so did many others, just less visibly. I think there was and is a lot of over-hyping going on. End of the day Bransom had a good gut feeling and maybe also got lucky a couple of times. But somehow his aura is such that people think he was succesful even when he underperformed.

And where is Musk in that? Is he a Jobs or a Branson? Was Tesla his one lucky shot that people will remember him for? Or is he going to turn everything he touches into gold?


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## VentureForth (Aug 3, 2017)

Anderson said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > Add spaceships to your list of things he can do. SpaceX and Tesla were both considered nuts- by myself included. When somebody consistently tackles the impossible and pulls it off, I don't assume he can't do it again.
> ...


Nuh uh. Hyperloop is just a crossbreed of the drive through bank teller and MagLev.


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## Green Maned Lion (Aug 3, 2017)

PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Solar are all successful with good products. I'm gonna say it isn't a one hit wonder.

And I wouldn't call the Model S a lucky shot. It sits in a lofty circle of three cars: the Benz Patent Motorwagen, and the Citroen DS. The cars that redefined the future of road travel the moment they were launched, bringing the future 50 or so years closer. In 2009 it was inconceivable that the internal combustion engine was going away in road cars. Now it is nearly a cetainty that their volume manufacture will end within 30 years or so.


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## cirdan (Aug 3, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> And I wouldn't call the Model S a lucky shot. It sits in a lofty circle of three cars: the Benz Patent Motorwagen, and the Citroen DS. The cars that redefined the future of road travel the moment they were launched, bringing the future 50 or so years closer. In 2009 it was inconceivable that the internal combustion engine was going away in road cars. Now it is nearly a cetainty that their volume manufacture will end within 30 years or so.


Yes, the DS was a phenomenally good car. It transformed the industry, It transformed thinking. But it didn't catapult Citroen into leadership for very long. Today much more conservative companies such as Mercdes are worth more than Citroen and make better cars. From an engineering point of view the DS was great, financially less so.


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## Green Maned Lion (Aug 3, 2017)

I wouldn't particularly call Mercedes conservative, although more so than Citroen in its hayday. And the DS was successful- Citroen's issues came later.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Oct 21, 2017)

Maryland's DOT has given their support.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-hyperloop-in-baltimore-20171019-story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/tunnel-for-elon-musks-east-coast-hyperloop-promised-in-maryland/2017/10/20/2016e3b6-b5cc-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.7d47fa4d356c


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## me_little_me (Oct 21, 2017)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> Maryland's DOT has given their support.


I give my support. I am not paying for it either.

When and if the project is abandoned because he doesn't get funding or approval for the important portion (i.e. under D.C. and Baltimore stations which will be needed), I hope someone finds some use for a large diameter tunnel that goes nowhere. Wish he started the tunnel from the city so that if his plan fails, someone could run a standard train through the tunnel to some useful point.

I hope for the best but I still don't see any real progress as a practical people mover. A better test case would be from some city to its airport 10 or so miles away where no mass transit exists. Then even if more than 10 miles turned out to be impractical or too expensive or ..., it would make a working mass transit for that city.


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## MARC Rider (Oct 24, 2017)

I highly recommend this article by Alon Levy:

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2013/08/13/loopy-ideas-are-fine-if-youre-an-entrepreneur/

Some choice quotes:

"The barf ride that is as expensive as California HSR and takes as long door-to-door is also very low-capacity. The capsules are inexplicably very short, with 28 passengers per capsule. The proposed headway is 30 seconds, for 3,360 passengers per direction per hour. A freeway lane can do better: about 2,000 vehicles, with an average intercity car occupancy of 2. HSR can do 12,000 passengers per direction per hour: 12 trains per hour is possible, and each train can easily fit 1,000 people (the Tokaido Shinkansen tops at 14 tph and 1,323 passengers per train).

But even 30 seconds appears well beyond the limit of emergency braking. It’s common in gadgetbahn to propose extremely tight headways, presuming computerized control allowing vehicles to behave as if they’re connected by a rod. Personal rapid transit proponents argue the same. In reality, such systems have been a subject of research for train control for quite a while now, with no positive results so far. Safety today still means safe stopping distances."

"There is no redeeming feature of Hyperloop. Small things can possibly be fixed; the cost problems, the locations of the stations, and the passenger comfort issues given cost constraints can’t. Industry insiders with ties to other speculative proposals meant to replace conventional rail, such as maglev, are in fact skeptical of Hyperloop’s promises of perfect safety."

"There already exists a mode of transportation that involves security theater, travel at 1,000 km/h, poor comfort, and motion sickness."

Levy actually has some more recent posts that moderate some of the criticism, but don't totally eliminate it. His most recent conclusions seem to be that unconventional modes like Hperloop are really nost practical for 1,000 km corridors, but that the costs are still pretty high for a newly developed technology.

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2017/07/24/faster-than-conventional-rail-where-could-it-work/

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2017/05/30/i-almost-worked-for-hyperloop-one/

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2016/10/29/hyperloop-freight-is-a-joke/

https://pedestrianobservations.com/category/transportation/high-speed-rail/

". I for one will keep putting vactrains in my 22nd-century science fiction, but not in my near-future science fiction.."


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## Green Maned Lion (Oct 24, 2017)

That certainly seems like a scientifically researched article free of bias and bile. It also ignores that Amtraks capacity is what, maximum 1500 or so an hour on the corridor each way? So a 3300 capacity would allow for more than doubled ridership, and one minute headways would handle current ridership.

The vehicles need to be short to handle relatively tight curve radii, naturally. As for braking, the braking limit is not the machine, its the human body- reverse the polarity of the magnet and your car will stop cold. The occupants will be straberry jam, but the pod will be stopped.

Thirty seconds for stopping would be more than enough to stop the pod without injury to the passengers. I once stopped a friends Rhentech E7.2 (a W210 with a 7.2 liter V12) from 165 to zero in... I think it was a touch over 10 seconds. While it is an excellent demonstration of both the power of enormous twin caliper Brembo brakes and why one should never go that fast on the open road, it didnt even hurt. And that was a three point inertia reel, not a four point harness.

These objections, while sounding impressive, are just bloviation.


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## XHRTSP (Oct 25, 2017)

Even if we assume no technical complications arise as hyperloop is developed, and we assume it hits the same operating metrics as high speed rail, I still don't see it ever being built. If it were that easy, we'd have had conventional high speed rail for decades now.


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Oct 25, 2017)

We've never had a billionaire offer his own money to finance it before. It's similar to the situation with the NFL in Los Angeles. For over 20 years the NFL didn't have a team in Los Angeles because while everyone in the NFL thought it was a great idea to have a team in LA no one in LA was willing to pay a penny in taxes to pay for it. Then the owner of one of the teams was so rich he decided to buy some land and buy a stadium with his own money without any taxpayer support and now the Los Angeles Rams! You get Stan Kroenke and Elon Musk and things get done and the NFL and Maryland say go right ahead!


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## Green Maned Lion (Oct 25, 2017)

To paraphrase Stanley Kubricks Dr. Strangelove: it is not technically difficult- it requires only the will to do so.

Hyper loops are more easily constructed in the BosWas because the biggest issue with HSR is acquiring adequate amounts of continuous relatively straight rights of way above ground in such a dense area. Hyperloops operate primarily with underground tunnels. Go sufficiently far beneath the ground and easements become easy.


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## Green Maned Lion (Oct 25, 2017)

Why the heck does this forum delete quotation marks?


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## Devil's Advocate (Oct 25, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Why the heck does this forum delete quotation marks?


Were they so called "smart" (directional) punctuation? If so they will be lost in the posting process. I believe they're not actually deleted and will show up again if you try to edit the post. They just won't be visible after posting. Seems to be some sort of bug or technical limitation of IP.Board forum software.


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## XHRTSP (Oct 25, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Hyperloops operate primarily with underground tunnels. Go sufficiently far beneath the ground and easements become easy.


If building tunnel were that easy, we'd have had subterranean HSR for decades now.


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## jis (Oct 25, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> To paraphrase Stanley Kubricks Dr. Strangelove: it is not technically difficult- it requires only the will to do so.
> 
> Hyper loops are more easily constructed in the BosWas because the biggest issue with HSR is acquiring adequate amounts of continuous relatively straight rights of way above ground in such a dense area. Hyperloops operate primarily with underground tunnels. Go sufficiently far beneath the ground and easements become easy.


What is keeping us from simply building HSR underground or elevated like is done almost everywhere else in the world? That is hardly an argument in favor of Hyperloop per se.


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## MARC Rider (Oct 26, 2017)

XHRTSP said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > Hyperloops operate primarily with underground tunnels. Go sufficiently far beneath the ground and easements become easy.
> ...


Heck, we'd have another crosstown Metro line, or at least express tracks on the Red Line.


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## MARC Rider (Oct 26, 2017)

Philly Amtrak Fan said:


> We've never had a billionaire offer his own money to finance it before.


http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop

*"SpaceX has no affiliation with any Hyperloop companies, including, but not limited to, those frequently referenced by the media."*

Seems to me like Mr. Musk isn't financing anything.


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## MARC Rider (Oct 26, 2017)

Seems to me that the only advantage of the vactrain ("hyperloop") is that you'd get airline-like speeds on the ground. But we already have technology that can give us airplane-like speed. They're called "airplanes." And airplanes only require complex infrastructure at the airports, they don't need to build hundreds and thousands of kilometers of vacuum tubing engineered to high tolerances, separate tube systems for intermediate stops, with very restricted grades and curvature. An airline system is completely flexible, the "airplanes" can fly between any two airports on the planet, so an airline company can change routes to meet changing demands immediately (as has happened to me several times during my travels when flights have been cancelled on me at the last minute.) If you want to travel thousands of kilometers across the continent, or across the oceans between continents, in a timescale of hours, there's really not need to develop any new technology.

For distances of less than 1,000 km, I can't see any intrinsic advantage of vactrains over high speed rail. For distances of less than 350 km, I don't even think high speed rail is needed, just something like the Northeast Regional can be competitive with airlines when you add travel time through airports, security, etc. to the time it takes to fly.. (My experience is that it takes a minimum of 4 hours to fly anywhere, even if the flight time is 30 minutes.) Rail technology is every well understood and backwards-compatible with existing infrastructure. Why re-invent the wheel, or rather, why invent a wheel substitute, when the wheel works perfectly well?


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## Devil's Advocate (Oct 26, 2017)

MARC Rider said:


> Seems to me that the only advantage of the vactrain ("hyperloop") is that you'd get airline-like speeds on the ground.


Compared to modern passenger aircraft hyperloops would likely be much more energy efficient and be able to interconnect with commercial scale renewable power sources. Even the very latest passenger aircraft designs are extremely inefficient compared to land and water based transportation and they still aren't designed to fulfill their operational objectives with the energy density and power-to-weight ratio of renewable fuels. Those are advantages worth investigating, probably not here in the land of fossil fuel fanatics, but perhaps in other countries where the idea of experimenting with something new and different isn't quite so confusing and infuriating to average citizens.



MARC Rider said:


> But we already have technology that can give us airplane-like speed. They're called "airplanes." And airplanes only require complex infrastructure at the airports, they don't need to build hundreds and thousands of kilometers of vacuum tubing engineered to high tolerances, separate tube systems for intermediate stops, with very restricted grades and curvature.


I can only imagine what your grandfather had to say about passenger aircraft or your great grandfather had to say about the horseless carriage. The early days of airline travel were extremely risky and dangerous. Irrational concepts and cowboy logic ruled the day and people like you refused to participate and ridiculed those who did. But other people still kept investigating and correcting and redesigning until they eventually started to get some of it right. Over time more and more flaws in design and operation were resolved and eventually we managed to build one of the safest and most dependable methods of transit available. It's entirely possible that this whole hyperloop idea will simply peter out and die, but it's also possible it will find and address a problem that it excels at resolving. Personally I'm willing to withhold critical judgement until more of the technology has been built and tested.


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## Green Maned Lion (Oct 26, 2017)

jis said:


> Green Maned Lion said:
> 
> 
> > To paraphrase Stanley Kubricks Dr. Strangelove: it is not technically difficult- it requires only the will to do so.
> ...


Above ground still requires difficult easements and mobilizes NIMBYS in a way a deep small bore tunnel doesnt.

And obviously, HSR has a much larger loading gauge than these hyperloops. And I wont really go into the major issue in the form of PBQD and related corruption.


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## jis (Oct 28, 2017)

None of that has anything to do with Hyperloop. One could build smaller loading gauge stuff using whatever guide and propulsion technology one wishes. So I still call BS on that reasoning






Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum


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## Philly Amtrak Fan (Oct 28, 2017)

MARC Rider said:


> Philly Amtrak Fan said:
> 
> 
> > We've never had a billionaire offer his own money to finance it before.
> ...


As long as Maryland or its taxpayers aren't paying a dime, they don't care who is, Musk can do whatever he wants.


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## Ryan (Oct 28, 2017)

All that means is that SpaceX isn’t funding anything. It makes no statement about what he is doing with his personal funds.


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## me_little_me (Oct 29, 2017)

Ryan said:


> All that means is that SpaceX isn’t funding anything. It makes no statement about what he is doing with his personal funds.


I get to use most of my personal funds to take the train once in a while. Poor Mr. Musk; he has to spend his on building one.


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## Anderson (Nov 3, 2017)

Also, consider that loading gauge and capacity are closely-related. The big issue with Hyperloop is that you either need big vehicles (lots of energy) or lots of little ones (which runs into spacing/safety issues).

On the other hand, the big problem with airports is that after a certain point they need lots and lots of space (witness how much land IAD/JFK take up; LGA/DCA are smaller, but they also have infamous capacity issues, and outside of something as sprawling as the LA basin having more than one "main" airport seems to cause consternation.


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## neroden (Nov 9, 2017)

MARC Rider said:


> Seems to me like Mr. Musk isn't financing anything.


Ding ding ding. We have a winner here. Don't listen to the bloviation: follow the money.

If "Hyperloop", which has now been redefined repeatedly due to the ridiculosities of the original napkin sketch, ever turns into anything practical, it'll end up being a train. Conical steel wheels, steel rails, comfortably sized vehicles, long trains. If it's underground and has a novel propulsion system, fine, whatever. But you can't beat conical wheels on rails.

Oh. Also, Musk idiotically claims that he's going to save money on digging tunnels by making them "smaller diameter", following which he specified a diameter six inches *larger* than standard London Underground diameter. Which is not by any definition "smaller". He simply has not done his research here. But I think he's smart enough that he's not going to commit serious money without doing his research.

Once he actually does his research, which he hasn't done yet, it'll turn into a train. Conical steel wheels on steel rails.


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## Devil's Advocate (Nov 9, 2017)

In my view the Hyperloop concept was always a distant side project compared Musk's core interests (space transport, electric vehicles, antonymous driving, energy storage). More of a vague hobby really. Something to seed to other groups that they could take and run (or fail) with.


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## Anderson (Nov 11, 2017)

Green Maned Lion said:


> That certainly seems like a scientifically researched article free of bias and bile. It also ignores that Amtraks capacity is what, maximum 1500 or so an hour on the corridor each way? So a 3300 capacity would allow for more than doubled ridership, and one minute headways would handle current ridership.
> 
> The vehicles need to be short to handle relatively tight curve radii, naturally. As for braking, the braking limit is not the machine, its the human body- reverse the polarity of the magnet and your car will stop cold. The occupants will be straberry jam, but the pod will be stopped.
> 
> ...


Yes, but presuming a certain specific bottleneck were resolved (the Hudson tunnels) Amtrak's capacity becomes a _lot_ higher. Even on the current setup Amtrak were using all four of its slots at the Hudson and running 12-car trains for the Regionals and 400-seaters for the Acelas they could push capacity to about 2300 without that.

If you open it up to 10x hourly trains (I know a some bullet trains run 10-12/hour) then your capacity falls between 4000-4800/hour (for 400-seat trains) and 13-16k pax (for an N700 Series Shinkansen).


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## Green Maned Lion (Nov 11, 2017)

The Hudson tunnels are not the only bottleneck. Politics are a much bigger one.


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