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Hyperloop One to shut down

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Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#161

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #138
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of tunnels that do electric rail in Europe and China. Even that very long one in Switzerland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel I think it is using overhead wires.

Yes, and that tunnel has massive ventilation systems, not just for emergencies like fires too. Fun trivia: the tunnel is so deep that without ventilation the temperature in it would be 40 centigrade.

It does, but the ventilation is still not designed for diesels. I guess we are just discussing boring, in that case, electric something is required, maybe battery would work out better than overhead or below lines. Or maybe the only way to do this right without any ventilation is via supercooled magnets or air pressure.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#162

Post by [deleted] »

thechao wrote: post #12

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

[deleted]

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#163

Post by [deleted] »

thechao wrote: post #12

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

[deleted]

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#164

Post by anonporridge »

yuliyp wrote: post #126
thechao wrote: post #12

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

That sounds like railroads but worse. What's the advantage? Tunneling is incredibly expensive to do, yet you're proposing it in a situation where it'd need enough coverage so as to ban large freight transport over roads.

There's not.

Tunnels probably only make sense in cities, not wide open rural spaces.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#165

Post by MBCook »

yuliyp wrote: post #126
thechao wrote: post #12

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

That sounds like railroads but worse. What's the advantage? Tunneling is incredibly expensive to do, yet you're proposing it in a situation where it'd need enough coverage so as to ban large freight transport over roads.

The one advantage I can think of is no weather to deal with like snow/ice.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#166

Post by heads »

yuliyp wrote: post #126
thechao wrote: post #12

There is a world where we dig tunnels under federal highways, and stick freight trucks down there. They'd run on a monorail, at 120+ mph. Surface vehicles would be dramatically limited in terms of height, width, and length. Maybe people buses could go down there? In my imagination these tunnels are, like, 200' down. Like mole people.

That sounds like railroads but worse. What's the advantage? Tunneling is incredibly expensive to do, yet you're proposing it in a situation where it'd need enough coverage so as to ban large freight transport over roads.

I’m not arguing with you here but it would be interesting to know what about tunnelling is fundamentally expensive.

Things I can think of: it is slow, so you burn through a lot of wages. To compare with road building the only major road I can think of, built in my lifetime, was the M40. It is 90 miles long and took 4 years to build but I don’t know what the cost was. The channel tunnel is much smaller than a freeway — two train tunnels and an escape tunnel in between. It is 30 miles long, took 6 years to build, for £9bn at the time.

Tunnelling also must require a lot of energy. What it probably doesn’t lean heavily into, in terms of cost, is either compulsory purchasing of the majority of the route or the political consultation and planning process. Those were both a huge deal when building a motorway through the Oxfordshire countryside.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#167

Post by FredPret »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #78
renewiltord wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA HSR is going to spend $8b to connect 4th and King to the Transbay Terminal. That's 2 miles. At $4b/mi, the problem would be too much attention not too little https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/27/san-francisco-downtown-rai...

Well there is the plan to add a third runway to Heathrow. 1.5 miles of runway for $20B.

Do they have to physically extend the airport boundaries to fit the third runway? I imagine real estate is not abundant around there.

Else, maybe if the new runway interferes with existing infrastructure and retrofits are needed, it could make sense too.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#168

Post by MBCook »

stevehawk wrote: post #130
JohnFen wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has no passenger network. It's all freight rail. Passenger trains run on the freight network (and freight always get priority).

Amtrak in the northeast corridor is Amtrak owned track

Which is basically the only one in the entire country.

Everything else is freight. All the old passenger rail was converted (or abandoned/removed) long ago.

Re: Hyperloop One to shut down

#169

Post by Daz1 »

klodolph wrote: post #124
panick21_ wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah sure. That why their is constant derailment.

The constant derailment is because the operators are chasing profit above safety. Make the trains as long as possible, run them as fast as possible. At some point derailment is inevitable, if you operate the trains that way.

That makes no sense. One derailment erases any profit that would be gained from ignoring safety.
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