Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 83 posts

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#71

Post by soyiuz »

JPKab wrote: post #31
timerol wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Northeast Corridor is wildly profitable for Amtrak (based on operating costs), despite being significantly worse than flying, and often slower than driving. (It's faster than rush-hour driving, but that's about it.) Making fast-enough rail that connects useful places, and upgrading the speed of existing rail that meets the same criteria, is a much better strategy IMO than trying to do "better than flying" rail ba…

America lacks the population density, even in the northeastern corridor (which I have ridden by the way, DC to Boston) to make the investment make sense. By the way, the price was too high, and it kept having to slow down near every city. Tokyo to Osaka, for instance, is a relatively short distance (300 miles), and both cities are larger than any city in the US, with Nagoya at the half-way point. The quantity of huma…

> The dramatically reduced costs of infrastructure for constructing mounted tubes on pylons, with each section being a fungible, mass produced item, makes rail obsolete.

This makes no sense. The "mounted tubes on pylons" contain rails inside and therefore are MORE not less expensive than just "rails mounted on pylons," which we already have. A more complex rail does not make simple rail obsolete. Nor does it beat it on fungibility, cost, or mass production. Where are you getting these "dramatically reduced costs"?

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#72

Post by soyiuz »

JPKab wrote: post #22
soyiuz wrote: post #2

Hyperloop sounds like a bunch of hype. High speed trains are a thing already, as are MagLev trains, as are trains that go through tunnels, called the subway. The lack of their success in the US market has little to do with the technology itself and more to do with politics. The addition of vacuum tunnels does little to alleviate the administrative / financial challenges of our struggling train systems. Vacuum has few…

You're focused too much on the vacuum aspect of the tube, and not nearly enough on the fact that it's a tube, with enough self-support to be elevated on pylons and is an order of magnitude easier to build than pouring a foundation for maglev tracks. High speed rail track is dramatically more difficult and expensive to build than a hyperloop tube system. This was, from the beginning, the huge differentiator between th…

See my comment above. An elevated (or submerged) tube with rails (or a track) inside cannot be less expensive than those rails or track elevated (or submerged) alone. I get the pipeline metaphor, but a pipeline with infrastructure inside is just infrastructure + pipeline. So instead of a train system the proposal has always been to build a train system inside a pipeline, which has to be more expensive than either. We have no indication of cost savings here.

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#73

Post by NoSorryCannot »

dangus wrote: post #28
soyiuz wrote: post #2

Hyperloop sounds like a bunch of hype. High speed trains are a thing already, as are MagLev trains, as are trains that go through tunnels, called the subway. The lack of their success in the US market has little to do with the technology itself and more to do with politics. The addition of vacuum tunnels does little to alleviate the administrative / financial challenges of our struggling train systems. Vacuum has few…

While I agree with your overall point, and I also think that hyperloop deployment is unrealistic, I think part of the idea of the concept of hyperloop is to make high speed rail fast enough for the expansive sizes of America. If you took a 300km/hr train from Orlando to New York City, you’d still be competing poorly with a $100 Spirit Airlines flight. That’s almost 6 hours on the train compared to a 2 hour flight. Ev…

Most of the spent flying short routes isn't spent in the air. The process of getting to and away from the gate is so unpleasant and inefficient that it makes me a little angry if I think about it too long.

And that's if everything goes well. Delays are frequent. Add on top of that the cramped cabin, luggage restrictions, and that they ask you to not get up or use the bathroom for so long while the plane is going up or coming down (most of the ride on these short hops).

And it's _expensive_.

Flying is awful and I hate it and will gladly choose the train if it's remotely competitive.

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#74

Post by soyiuz »

nickik wrote: post #36
soyiuz wrote: post #2

Hyperloop sounds like a bunch of hype. High speed trains are a thing already, as are MagLev trains, as are trains that go through tunnels, called the subway. The lack of their success in the US market has little to do with the technology itself and more to do with politics. The addition of vacuum tunnels does little to alleviate the administrative / financial challenges of our struggling train systems. Vacuum has few…

The original Hyperloop concept avoids the things you mentioned. It does not use vacuum: > The problem with this approach is that it is incredibly hard to maintain a near vacuum in a room, let alone 700 miles (round trip) of large tube with dozens of station gateways and thousands of pods entering and exiting every day. All it takes is one leaky seal or a small crack somewhere in the hundreds of miles of tube and the…

Fair enough. I'll use "low pressure" and "low friction" next time.

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#75

Post by carabiner »

bigbubba wrote: post #38
nickik wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Virgin system but Elon Musk original Hyperloop paper clearly stated: > The problem with this approach is that it is incredibly hard to maintain a near vacuum in a room, let alone 700 miles (round trip) of large tube with dozens of station gateways and thousands of pods entering and exiting every day. All it takes is one leaky seal or a small crack somewhere in the hundreds of miles of tube and the…

A modest low pressure in the tube would become high pressure in the tube when you start pushing a piston (Hyperloop car/capsule) down the tube. Where would all the air piling up in front go? This is why the original concept drawings had large fans on the front of the cars, however this concept seems to have been abandoned, leaving this problem unsolved.

The air flows around the train, same as a subway. The low-pressure tube still maintains an lower net pressure and corresponding reduction in a drag vs. a tunnel with standard temperature and pressure, even if there are variations in static pressure along the length of the tube.

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#76

Post by Zach_the_Lizard »

rockostrich wrote: post #66
dragontamer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Northeast Corridor is wildly profitable for Amtrak (based on operating costs), despite being significantly worse than flying, and often slower than driving. (It's faster than rush-hour driving, but that's about it.) Worse than flying? I can take the train from Wash. DC to New York City Penn Station, visit my friends who live in the city by walking alone, and then come back home in time for dinner. (Broadway, Ti…

> Broadway, Times Square, and Wall Street are all walking-distance from Penn Station Wall Street is a 3+ mile walk from Penn Station. Sure, it's walkable just like everything in NYC is walkable, but I don't know why you wouldn't just pick another landmark in NYC like Central Park or Grand Central Terminal. Or just say that all are less than a 20 minutes subway ride away. Also, saying there's a direct subway line to B…

This. I live in Queens and it's not hard to get to Penn Station, but it's also not hard for me to get to LaGuardia, either.

I can get to LaGuardia in a little less time than it takes to get to Penn Station, especially if I don't go during peak rush hour. I have TSA Pre-check, so I typically don't have to deal with 1 hour+ security lines.

When I head to DC, I take the train simply because it's more comfortable, the trip is typically more consistent, and I don't have to worry about bringing "bad" items like a normal sized tube of toothpaste.

When I visit the DC suburbs and exurbs, as I have family and friends there, flying and particularly driving tend to ultimately come out ahead in terms of convenience and time.

Worth noting that more people live in Queens than Manhattan or Fairfax County, Virginia than DC.

Manhattan is definitely the center of the NY metro area, and virtually all business is conducted there, but that is much less true for DC. The DC suburbs actually have a ton of jobs.

It's an imperfect analogy, but the DC area is perhaps closer to the Bay Area in terms of having multiple employment centers. Maybe more extreme.

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#77

Post by rsynnott »

peterwoerner wrote: post #8
soyiuz wrote: post #2

Hyperloop sounds like a bunch of hype. High speed trains are a thing already, as are MagLev trains, as are trains that go through tunnels, called the subway. The lack of their success in the US market has little to do with the technology itself and more to do with politics. The addition of vacuum tunnels does little to alleviate the administrative / financial challenges of our struggling train systems. Vacuum has few…

I think the goal with the vacuum is to get to even higher speed rail which can compete with airplanes for speed and convenience. The thought being, rail has to be clearly better than flying for it work. That said vacuum comes with many technical issues.

> I think the goal with the vacuum is to get to even higher speed rail which can compete with airplanes for speed and convenience.

But... they already do, at least for short flights. LA to SF is about 600km, or a little under two hours by a 'normal' (ICE or similar) high speed system (1.5 hours by maglev). It's about 1 hour 20 minutes by plane, so by the time you check in, get through security, get on and off, get to and from the airport, the train definitely wins.

Something like this might theoretically compete with long distance flight, I suppose.

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#78

Post by jcranmer »

Communitivity wrote: post #67
jcranmer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh... West Virginia is nowhere near the NYC-DC axis. It is potentially on the route between DC and Chicago, but most crayon maps would rather hook the Midwest into the Northeast Corridor by going via Pittsburgh, the Juniata water gaps, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia instead of picking a more southerly route that hits Baltimore or DC.

There's another corridor that might make sense as their first one DC WV NC Research Triangle. At 4h by car, with a marketed Hyperloop speed (emphasis on marketed) of 670mph, you could theoretically cut the time to 30m. Meaning you could live in WV and commit to Durham,NC. WV is also somewhat equidistant to Pittsburgh,PA and Philadelphia,PA as well. If you managed to create a commuting hub that allowed 30 minute (plus…

West Virginia isn't well placed for that either. The good North-South corridors in the VA/NC area are going to be the Great Appalachian Valley (i.e., the I-81 corridor) or further east as far as the Fall Line (i.e., I-95 corridor). West Virginia doesn't expand that far east, excepting the area around Martinsburg.

WV is a really crappy state to build any sort of hub in. Geographically, it's dominated by a desiccated plateau: every watercourse carves a gorge, with the depth of gorge largely determined by how big the watercourse is. The population of WV is really spread out with no concentrated urban areas. The most concentrated regions are along the major river courses of the Ohio, Kanawha, and Monongahela Rivers, along with the population in the small sliver of the Great Appalachian Valley within its borders.

> with a marketed Hyperloop speed (emphasis on marketed) of 670mph

That is the targeted top speed, AIUI. However, geography hits your butt hard here: it's a simple consequence of physics that higher speeds make your engineering headaches grow more than linearly. Your curve radii grows quadratically with speed, and curve transition length is cubic. Trying to reach max speed in the environment of the Appalachian Plateau will be extremely expensive in terms of viaducts or tunneling, and making up the height difference between the Plateau and the valleys to the east is also going to be challenging.

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#79

Post by dragontamer »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #76
rockostrich wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Broadway, Times Square, and Wall Street are all walking-distance from Penn Station Wall Street is a 3+ mile walk from Penn Station. Sure, it's walkable just like everything in NYC is walkable, but I don't know why you wouldn't just pick another landmark in NYC like Central Park or Grand Central Terminal. Or just say that all are less than a 20 minutes subway ride away. Also, saying there's a direct subway line to B…

This. I live in Queens and it's not hard to get to Penn Station, but it's also not hard for me to get to LaGuardia, either. I can get to LaGuardia in a little less time than it takes to get to Penn Station, especially if I don't go during peak rush hour. I have TSA Pre-check, so I typically don't have to deal with 1 hour+ security lines. When I head to DC, I take the train simply because it's more comfortable, the tr…

LaGuardia is in Queens. Of course its convenient for people who live there!

Hmm, I guess a lot of this comes down to where you're going, where you're coming from, and what you're planning to do.

My friends live in Brooklyn and Manhattan. They pay high rent prices by they sold their cars (100% car free). So if I visit NYC, I have to figure out transportation on my own to meet them at whatever location. (Broadway, or various talk-shows like Colbert etc. etc.), which are typically on Manhattan proper.

----

I'll say this: from the perspective of Wash DC -> NYC, I have the choice of either Planes or Trains. The Trains run along-side the Airports (in fact, there are more Train stops). Trains seem like the more convenient option.

From your perspective: NYC -> Wash DC, I think the airport makes more sense. There's less to do in Wash DC than NYC. Union Station is cool and all, but most of what to do in the area is in the suburbs, which inevitably means you need a car. If you're getting a car, might as well land at an airport.

The Wash DC -> NYC trip however is accomplished without ever renting a car, and just staying on the subway lines to get wherever you need.

Re: Virgin Hyperloop picks West Virginia to test high-speed transport system

#80

Post by sroussey »

soyiuz wrote: post #72
JPKab wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're focused too much on the vacuum aspect of the tube, and not nearly enough on the fact that it's a tube, with enough self-support to be elevated on pylons and is an order of magnitude easier to build than pouring a foundation for maglev tracks. High speed rail track is dramatically more difficult and expensive to build than a hyperloop tube system. This was, from the beginning, the huge differentiator between th…

See my comment above. An elevated (or submerged) tube with rails (or a track) inside cannot be less expensive than those rails or track elevated (or submerged) alone. I get the pipeline metaphor, but a pipeline with infrastructure inside is just infrastructure + pipeline. So instead of a train system the proposal has always been to build a train system inside a pipeline, which has to be more expensive than either. We…

I agree, though in city, it would be cheaper to use air rights than on the ground or underground.
Post reply on HN