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Transportation Businesses United States

Hyperloop One Announces 11 Possible US Routes, Completes Vegas Test Track (theverge.com) 270

An anonymous reader writes: Thursday Hyperloop One executives announced that they've finished constructing their 1,640-foot-long "DevLoop" test track in the desert outside Las Vegas. But they also revealed possible U.S. routes for their high-speed transportation solution "to initiate a nationwide conversation about the future of American transportation" -- five of them suggested by state transportation department officials from Texas, Florida, Colorado, Nevada and Missouri.

Last May the company invited pitches for routes to various cities, and Thursday's 11 pitches were chosen from 2,600 participants. These 11 pitches will compete with 24 other pitches from around the globe to be one of the three chosen to "work closely with Hyperloop One engineering and business development teams to explore project development and financing." And Thursday they also announced that "by year's end the company will have a team of 500 engineers, fabricators, scientists and other employees dedicated to bringing the technology to life."

Click through for more information, and the list of the 11 U.S. cities being suggested for hyperloop destinations.
  • Boston-Somerset-Providence
  • Cheyenne-Houston
  • Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh
  • Denver-Colorado Springs
  • Denver-Vail
  • Kansas City-St. Louis
  • Los Angeles-San Diego
  • Miami-Orlando
  • Reno-Las Vegas
  • Seattle-Portland
  • Dallas/Fort Worth-Austin-San Antonio-Houston

"The event in the nation's capital is being billed as the company's official US launch," writes The Verge, noting the company's current feasiblity studies have been looking at the United Arab Emirates, Finland and Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Moscow, and the U.K. "Meanwhile, Hyperloop One's main competitor, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (also LA-based), is currently exploring building hyperloops in a half-dozen countries in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East." But the senior VP of global operations for Hyperloop One said this week that "We always thought that North America is going to be our biggest market globally."

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Hyperloop One Announces 11 Possible US Routes, Completes Vegas Test Track

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  • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Saturday April 08, 2017 @05:40PM (#54199661) Journal

    Elon ought to build the first one down here. It would be great to take a train to New Orleans for lunch, maybe hear a band in Jackson Square, have BBQ at the Broken Spoke in Austin for dinner, catch maybe a Joe Ely show and sleep in my own bed in Houston that same night.

    Plus, there ain't shit in between Houston, New Orleans and Austin, so nobody will be inconvenienced.

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      Unfortunately they better stay away from Texas. The Lege is currently working on legislation meant to restrict the ability of transportation projects, specifically high speed rail, to use state funds and emminent domain to complete the projects. If they were building an pipeline, that would be great. The state government has not problem in stealing peoples land and giving it to a foreign government. But if these bills get passed, it is going to be pretty easy for a land owner, or a municipality, to go to
      • The Lege is currently working on legislation meant to restrict the ability of transportation projects, specifically high speed rail, to use state funds and emminent domain to complete the projects.

        And why do you need state funds to build something so obviously profitable? Private companies are going into space now, why not the ground.

        If they were building an pipeline, that would be great.

        And what is the Hyperloop but the ultimate pipeline?

        Austin you are stuck on unreliable busses.

        Not when self driving taxi

      • When you put in the permit for hyperloop in Texas, tell them it's an oil pipeline. The Trump supporters won't know the difference and nobody else will object.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • A train, yeah. A small, cramped, windowless, probably noisy capsule in a tube, however, is another story, even if the journey time is substantially lower.

        Have you been on an airplane lately?

      • Why would a capsule flying through a vacuum floating on magnetic fields be noisy?
        Obviously it is most likely windowless. You would need to have windows in the pipes, too. No idea if that makes sense or is a weakness for the structure.
        However when I use a subway I'm reading most of the time, and don't care about windows.

        • You don't want windows on hyperloop. The shadows from the buildings flashing past at 700 mph would be like having a strobe light in your face.
          • Well, would depend on the route. I guess if it goes a big deal over empty land, why not. I was more wondering if the pipeline can made with windows, especially if that dramatically increases the cost or not.

    • Wouldn't it be cheaper to have Gumbo and BBQ flown into Houston, if you do it on May 11th Joe Ely will be in town. Save the trip to NOLA until you have the time to take the bus - there's plenty to see on the way, I've done the drive.
      • if you do it on May 11th Joe Ely will be in town.

        Brother, I will be there. It's going to be at the Discovery Green, right? I can ride my bike up there.

        Save the trip to NOLA until you have the time to take the bus

        I've taken that bus ride a bunch of times. In fact, I'll be taking it for the New Orleans Heritage Festival at the end of the month. I stay in the Garden District, so once I get there, I don't really need a car for anything.

        there's plenty to see on the way, I've done the drive.

        Too many refineri

        • I enjoyed the drive, but then I was as stressed out as all hell and the drive calmed me down, also I agree that the best part of the drive was on the LA side of the border, through airboat country, past Jimmy Swaggart's place. As it turned out I drove past Houston and wound up in Hempstead - that was an adventure too. I wound up in the "wrong" pizza hut, met some great people. Good times, I should wildly underestimate the distance between places when looking at rental car company maps and get lost more ofte
  • Vacuum Tube Train Transportation

    "Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) is a new kind of transportation system that requires less than two percent of the energy of current transportation methods. It is also much safer, and can be faster. [...]"

    https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
  • If you talk to Vail locals who knew the original founders (there's plenty still around), they will tell you that Vail's site was chosen in part because it's on the opposite side of Vail Pass from Denver, thus making it hard for large numbers of people to get in after a big snow dump. I don't think Vail would want this tunnel thing.
    • Denver to Vail also seems like the hardest, by far, to physically construct. I genuinely don't think the US has it in them to construct hard infrastructure projects like that anymore. If it's not profitable by next quarter, it's not going to get built.

      • denver2vail is actually EASIEST. The reason is that plenty of public lands to go through. And if done elevated, the supports can have protection against avalanches, slides, etc. IOW, this would be better than I-70.
        • Right. Building infrastructure from the plains to the mountains is super easy because some stretches are public land. Hint: There is a reason those stretches are public land. Because it's incredibly difficult to build anything there.

    • you would be wrong.
      ALL of the ski resorts want this. In fact, NEED this. So does the gambling towns.
      More importantly, a hyperloop is ideal for this. The ability to stop at point and having a bussing system in place is IMPORTANT.
    • by slew ( 2918 )

      If you talk to Vail locals who knew the original founders (there's plenty still around), they will tell you that Vail's site was chosen in part because it's on the opposite side of Vail Pass from Denver, thus making it hard for large numbers of people to get in after a big snow dump. I don't think Vail would want this tunnel thing.

      Have you read the book The Inventors of Vail [amazon.com]?

      As I recall, Vail was basically born to be a resort that was between Aspen and Winter Park on US hwy 6 (now I-70). They were banking on the fact that I-70 would take the US-6 path rather than the US-40 path (this I-70 decision was made in 1960 before Vail got off the ground in the mid '60's even though I-70 didn't start construction for another decade).

      FWIW, the California Zephyr train takes a track that goes from Denver to Winterpark ski area, and then to Granb

  • The investment needed for hyperloop is so high I am not sure there is enough traffic in USA to support it. May be Japan, may be Europe. But even in Japan the next generation of maglev bullet trains with speeds exceeding 500 kmph is forever in development and concept stage.

    Given the urban sprawl and ubiquitous cars there is no real point in connecting old city centers with other city centers.

    One of the suggested routes is Chicago-Pittsburgh. The distance between I76-I79 intersection north of Pittsburgh

    • There is a bit more to it than loading cars on a railcar and hauling people that way for even an hour or two.

      They will get restless. They will need to pee. They will need something to do since sitting in a sealed railcar underground with no windows is going to be very boring.

      And some idiot will start their car engine to do something and end up gassing a lot of people. So they can't be allowed to just sit in their cars with the keys ready to go. It will have to be like Amtrak's Autotrains, where the aut

      • "If it is possible to drive a car on to a flat bed car at I76-I79, park and sit inside the car for three hours while the train hauls you up to I80-I294 could be developed at reasonable cost. Add a few passenger cars for "first class" and let people sit in their own cars for "economy". Add concessionaires for food service for another line of revenue."

        This is done in Swizerland, especially with trucks. The Trucks are loaded on a train Freiburg, southern German, pretty much right next to my office in fact. The

      • So they can't be allowed to just sit in their cars with the keys ready to go.
        Strange that such trains work fine in Alps (Switzerland, Italy, France, Austria) ... they all have car carrying trains going through tunnels through the mountains where the people sit in the car.
        Albeit: the travel times are around an hour.

    • by swb ( 14022 )

      I always thought Amtrak should sort out carrying personal automobiles on their passenger trains, although I think riding in your car on the train is a bad idea for more than an hour.

  • So many people lost their lives when we undertook learning to fly, all the way through to rocketry and going to outer space. Every step of the way there were failures and we learned something new re engineered and now we take flying for granted. So maybe someday this kind of travel will be workable, but I dont see it anytime soon.

    I just can't get the idea out of my head that when this idea fails, its going to fail in a very catastrophic way, something that 'wasn't considered possible', or wasn't even cons

  • Surely you mean "Click through for more information, and the list of the 22 U.S. cities being suggested for hyperloop destinations."

    Unless of course they're makng a big star with a switch in the middle

  • They should try China instead. The USA is not even very interested in looking after the infrastructure already in place.
  • Thursday Hyperloop One executives announced

    When did Thursday become an adjective? Was it supposed to say thirty? Or thirsty?

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