Hyperloop. Realistic or fantasy?

[Jeff V.]

I can't believe people are sinking real money into this nonsense. Now they're saying they could try to build a test corridor along I-70 between Kansas City and St Louis.

https://www.kmbc.com/article/hyperloop- ... t/23876572

Here it is in a nutshell. They want to build vacuum trains. The trains run inside a sealed tube, in a vacuum, on magnetic lift rails, at speeds over 600 mph.

Sounds cool. But it's shockingly expensive. The article puts it at $25M per mile, not counting land acquisition costs. So that's over $6.2B to build a fancy train between KC and STL.

The trains for this are going to be smaller than an airplane. How much will they need to charge for seats to recoup investment on a 6-7 billion dollar project? I don't see there being that much demand for high speed travel between those two cities. It's 3.5-4 hours by car, and the only times I've ever seen it congested is during accidents or construction.

In the places where it would actually be useful, like say between Boston and DC, the costs would be dramatically higher.

The idea is fun, but the realities of it just don't make any sense to me at all. We can't even justify construction of high speed rail using proven propulsion technologies through open air. And now people want to build low capacity maglev vacuum trains? WTF.

[aaronatstate]

It said in the article that it could go in the median, or along side the I-70. If that is the case, would there be much land to acquire, since it's already owned by the Gov't?

[Jeff V.]

They would probably need some real estate near the cities for stations, parking, maintenance and infrastructure. Vacuum pumps that can suck the air out of a 250 mile tube probably take up a fair amount of space and power

[Duck Vader]

I can see it making sense in going between densely populated areas such as the coasts. It would be cheaper to travel and take less time than flying. I just don't see the point in central USA though.

They are currently doing a study to figure out if doing a high speed rail from Vancouver BC through Seattle and down to Portland is worth it. Already putting a shit ton of money into the study.

https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/planning/studi ... tion-study

I think that is a better option than the hyperloop right now.

[Jeff V.]

I get using the I-70 corridor as a test location. It's cheap. KC to Denver would be pretty good too. There's nothing in the middle of Kansas. I just don't get using it for this particular project. It's the concept that doesn't make sense to me. It's less practical and more expensive than an Japanese or European style high speed train. We already know exactly how to build those, along with the economics of the concept. It's a proven system, and we still can't get it built.

So we're going to take something that's more expensive, less practical, and utterly unproven, and somehow make that work instead? Even if they somehow can make the technology work, we'll just end up with a wildly expensive, gimmicky train that nobody will use.

[Chris GTO TT]

I love the idea of the hyperloop, but don't think it's all that practical cost wise.

Highspeed rail on the other hand has no reason for not existing in the US. I was a big fan of the project they are trying to do here in CA. However the fortune that has been wasted in defending the project from countless lawsuits is mind boggling. Also the route they are now using is not what was initially promised. Now it's just wasted money.

Really though there's no reason I shouldn't be able to get on a train in Sacramento and be in LA in 3-4 hours.

[aaronatstate]

[quote=""Duck Vader""]I can see it making sense in going between densely populated areas such as the coasts. It would be cheaper to travel and take less time than flying. I just don't see the point in central USA though.[/quote]

I doubt it would be cheaper than flying. At $25 million per mile, you're talking a cost of at least $72.5 BILLION dollars, and that's if it were to follow I-80 from NJ to San Fran. At $400/ticket, it would take 181.25 MILLION riders to pay back just the construction costs, not to mention the ongoing costs.

Travel times wouldn't be much less I don't think either. Let's just assume that security on the trans-con hyperloop would be equivalent to airport security, it only travels approximately 100 mph faster than your average 737. Going the 2900 mile trip would save you just under 1 hour. And that's assuming the hyperloop train is non-stop, which I highly doubt it would be.

[aaronatstate]

Just to take it a step further, there are approximately 40 non-stop flights per day between the New York City area and San Fran. If we say there are an average of 200 people on each flight, that's 8,000 per day. At that rate, it would take 62 years for 181.25 million people to travel that route (assume less cause travel continues to rise).

That goes down to 46 years if you look at NYC to LA (54 non-stop flights per day, approximately same mileage).

[Jeff V.]

I could fly from KC to STL non stop on Southwest for less than $500, round trip. That's a one hour flight, plus all the pre and post nonsense. Parking, security, etc. Let's assume hyperloop has at least some of the same hassles. We can conservatively put it at 2 hours vs 90 minutes?

At $500/ticket they'd need fourteen million riders just to recoup a $7B initial investment.

Or you could spend 3.5-4 hours and $35 in gas to have the convenience of taking your own car.

You could make the argument that business execs would rather spend their time working than driving, which is fine. But then I'd have to ask, are there enough of those people that have a need to get from one side of MO to the other RIGHTFUCKINGNOWWW.

I hope they're not using my tax dollars for this bullshit.

[Chris GTO TT]

The thing that makes a hyperloop more interesting is in theory with enough time to accelerate and decelerate you can get speeds over 1000mph. The only real limit is the amount of G's the human body can sustain for the start and end of the trip. It makes no sense now especially given the cost, but it has some interesting possibilities for truly rapid transit.

[Jeff V.]

There's a little more detail here. They're really reaching with some of those tourism numbers.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/17/hyp ... ly-viable/

Oh, and it looks like the Saudis might be behind this whole scheme. Ask Chicago how well that worked out when they sold their public parking infrastructure to Middle Eastern investors.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/p ... nues-rise/

[Chris95RT]

So playing the devil's advocate to this....

That 500 dollar plane ticket is subsidized dollars.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/c ... /29518427/

That article puts it at 20% something? I dont care to do the research here to figure out how much for gas/roads as well:

https://www.faa.gov/about/budget/aatf/

So assuming that 500 dollar ticket would be closer to 6-800 dollars, and even then I could see dropping of convenience routes/times to maximize profits I can begin to see how this would compete in an unsubsidized world.

And I'm not talking about building it, I'm talking about the year to year budget.

Trains don't get shit in comparison to air and roads, for what it's worth.

[mjannusch]

Hyperloop over any real distance seems like a total fantasy due to the costs. What you've pointed out already are just the construction costs. Can you imagine what the long-term maintenance costs would be for a system like this? And any time maintenance is required on the track somewhere for a leaky tube or whatever, you have to shut down the whole system and pressurize the tube, and then pull a vacuum on it again when done.

And you still have to get to the Hyperloop station. And hope the destination end is close to where you want to be, or you have to still find a way to where you are going.

[Chris95RT]

[quote=""mjannusch""]Hyperloop over any real distance seems like a total fantasy due to the costs. What you've pointed out already are just the construction costs. Can you imagine what the long-term maintenance costs would be for a system like this? And any time maintenance is required on the track somewhere for a leaky tube or whatever, you have to shut down the whole system and pressurize the tube, and then pull a vacuum on it again when done.

And you still have to get to the Hyperloop station. And hope the destination end is close to where you want to be, or you have to still find a way to where you are going.[/quote]

Like a giant interconnected network of roads and airways?

The horror!

[Jeff V.]

The roads and airways are already bought and paid for.

[DCIV]

[quote=""Jeff V.""]The roads and airways are already bought and paid for.[/quote]

Yeah. We have to have an army bigger than everyone else combined!


In all seriousness this is cool. But the initial expense, the cost of tickets, the repair...makes this just not feasible. But this country badly needs some high speed, lower cost transportation.


Coop

[aaronatstate]

[quote=""Chris95RT""]So playing the devil's advocate to this....

That 500 dollar plane ticket is subsidized dollars.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/c ... /29518427/

That article puts it at 20% something? I dont care to do the research here to figure out how much for gas/roads as well:

https://www.faa.gov/about/budget/aatf/

So assuming that 500 dollar ticket would be closer to 6-800 dollars, and even then I could see dropping of convenience routes/times to maximize profits I can begin to see how this would compete in an unsubsidized world.

And I'm not talking about building it, I'm talking about the year to year budget.

Trains don't get shit in comparison to air and roads, for what it's worth.[/quote]

Yeah so at $400 a ticket (half of unsubsidized airline ticket), you need 181.25 million riders to recoup construction costs. That’s 40-50 years of daily ridership at current demand based on current flights. Not feasible.

[mjannusch]

Conventional or maglev high speed rail could at least pay for itself over time. Unless they can bring the construction and maintenance costs way down per mile, this just seems like a fantasy.

Then there's the lawsuits when a hypertrain vehicle loses pressurization and the occupants die when exposed to vacuum.

[aaronatstate]

What really needs to happen is figure out how to make supersonic air travel over land possible, without all the side effects. SR71 did it in 64 minutes and Concorde did it 3 hours 55 minutes and it had to fly way out of the way.

[Chris95RT]

[quote=""aaronatstate""]Yeah so at $400 a ticket (half of unsubsidized airline ticket), you need 181.25 million riders to recoup construction costs. That’s 40-50 years of daily ridership at current demand based on current flights. Not feasible.[/quote]

My point was more towards not turning a profit, I don't think the roads turn a profit for example- and yes while they were already bought and paid for, that was an initial investment and requires (should required, anyway) upkeep.

Just part of that crazy social experiment we call a society where we all pay into something to get use out of it.

The final estimate of the cost of the Interstate System was issued in 1991. It estimated that the total cost would be $128.9 billion, with a Federal share of $114.3 billion. This estimate covered only the mileage (42,795 miles) built under the Interstate Construction Program.

+ Each person having to pay a percentage of their gas in upkeep (let's say 50/week per eligible driver)
+ Each person having to buy a car to use it (let's say on average 20k)

Is this a better alternative, no probably not again I'm just playing advocate but infrastructure spending is rarely lucrative in my opinion.