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New York to London in an hour - by train

smartplanet.com

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Re: New York to London in an hour - by train

#21

Post by United857 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #11

Good luck holding a vacuum under the ocean. I read stuff like this and I think, "Gee, I don't think these people have actually built anything." because if they had they would realize that if it costs $1M a foot too build subways [1] in cities with moderately skilled labor, its going to cost $10 - 25M/ft to build something like this. That's half a quadrillion dollars (448 trillion dollars). What sort or rate of return…

Indeed, there's already a vacuum we already have above our heads that could be used for this purpose... i.e., suborbital space flight.

I can't imagine it'd be more expensive than tunneling 3000 miles under an ocean.

Re: New York to London in an hour - by train

#23

Post by ChuckMcM »

jsprinkles wrote: post #19
ChuckMcM wrote: post #11

Good luck holding a vacuum under the ocean. I read stuff like this and I think, "Gee, I don't think these people have actually built anything." because if they had they would realize that if it costs $1M a foot too build subways [1] in cities with moderately skilled labor, its going to cost $10 - 25M/ft to build something like this. That's half a quadrillion dollars (448 trillion dollars). What sort or rate of return…

Daryl Oster's company has submitted proposals to Florida, at least, on building and maintaining a system such as this. I think part of the requirement for submitting such a proposal is at least a cursory cost analysis. Wikipedia reads a bit like the company wrote it itself, but: The firm fixed bid for the 96-mile (154 km) Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) system was $253M, this was less than one tenth of the cost of the…

Would love to see how they costed that out. Given that I don't know of a single engineering company that can build straight up light rail track for at $2.5M/mile even if you give them the land for free.

Edit: add this update --

Interestingly this link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/843626/posts claims that the ET3 bid was 1.2B$ which is $12.5M/mile which is a lot more credible (still low though since the surrounding infrastructure to keep the tube evacuated, the mag lev stuff, etc all add cost over regular fused rail electrified service (which California is considering for its fast rail) and that is looking closer to $25M/mile in the current state of the art)

Re: New York to London in an hour - by train

#25

Post by jaysonelliot »

As a longtime gamer, this article really struck a chord with me. Dragon magazine used to print playable adventures, and in August 1981 (I just went and looked it up), there was a Gamma World adventure called "Cavern of the Sub-Train."

The player characters in their post-apocalyptic world come across a abandoned series of tunnels they can't explain, but which are described for the game master in the notes:

The system once spanned the North American continent and was used primarily as a method of high-speed transportation of freight. The sub-train system is something like a 20th-century subway system, in that it consists of a self-propelled train moving through an underground tunnel. Unlike the 20th- century system, however, the “trains” moved through a vacuum while being supported on super-conducting magnetic rails at very high speeds.

Re: New York to London in an hour - by train

#26

Post by corin_ »

tedunangst wrote: post #20
corin_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have underwater tunnels for trains, such as the one between England and France - water would come crashing in regardless of whether there is air or a vacuum in the tunnel. It's not actually Futurama, the tunnel won't be train-sized and made of glass.

The chunnel is technically under rock, not under water. It's not exposed to the ocean.

Surely any tunnel built will be surrounded with rock/concrete as its structure, ultimately it will still be a case of people surrounded by solid material surrounded by water.

Re: New York to London in an hour - by train

#27

Post by usaar333 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #11

Good luck holding a vacuum under the ocean. I read stuff like this and I think, "Gee, I don't think these people have actually built anything." because if they had they would realize that if it costs $1M a foot too build subways [1] in cities with moderately skilled labor, its going to cost $10 - 25M/ft to build something like this. That's half a quadrillion dollars (448 trillion dollars). What sort or rate of return…

It really shouldn't be that bad. The cost is mainly due to it being in a dense city and having to deal with endless environmental (broad sense) concern.

A better comparison is an actual underwater tube: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transbay_Tube

3.6 miles cost about $1 billion in 2012 dollars. Closer to $55k/foot.

Don't get me wrong. This is still impossibly expensive even at that lower rate: $22 trillion.

Even at using costs of the propsed high speed rail in California ($80M/mile), nyc-london would cost $280 billion.

Re: New York to London in an hour - by train

#28

Post by marquis »

moocow01 wrote: post #22

I never have understood people's fears about getting on an airplane... this though I'd be scared to death of. You have any unfortunate shift in the tectonic plates (which happens daily and unpredictably) and you could be dead in an instant.

I gather that the intent is to tether the tunnel. I've seen how cables are run in tectonic-active areas: they are provided a certain elasticity and I imagine it would be similar. Earthquakes don't move much more than a few meters at a time (for a very very large event). How would this be any different than the Chunnel?

My own comment on this article: "getting to, from and through airports is very time consuming"

I don't see how this would be any less time consuming. Security would be an equal nightmare - the only benefit would be that the citizens can utilize NYC/Londons existing transport infrastructure much like it's easier to get to the Chunnel departure station than it is to get to Gatwick.

Re: New York to London in an hour - by train

#29

Post by marvin »

United857 wrote: post #21
ChuckMcM wrote: post #11

Good luck holding a vacuum under the ocean. I read stuff like this and I think, "Gee, I don't think these people have actually built anything." because if they had they would realize that if it costs $1M a foot too build subways [1] in cities with moderately skilled labor, its going to cost $10 - 25M/ft to build something like this. That's half a quadrillion dollars (448 trillion dollars). What sort or rate of return…

Indeed, there's already a vacuum we already have above our heads that could be used for this purpose... i.e., suborbital space flight. I can't imagine it'd be more expensive than tunneling 3000 miles under an ocean.

That's what I've been thinking as well. This might be an unintended consequence if SpaceX is able to reliably deploy the reusable rockets they are drawing today. It might actually require less energy to launch a passenger vehicle above the atmosphere and let it glide/freefall all the way to the destination than it does to push the same vehicle through the atmosphere. I haven't actually done any calculations, though. It would be interesting to see how much energy it would require per passenger to get such a vehicle to a suitable altitude and speed for intercontinental flight. For instance an aircraft powered with combustion engines, with booster rockets attached.

Re: New York to London in an hour - by train

#30

Post by usaar333 »

United857 wrote: post #21
ChuckMcM wrote: post #11

Good luck holding a vacuum under the ocean. I read stuff like this and I think, "Gee, I don't think these people have actually built anything." because if they had they would realize that if it costs $1M a foot too build subways [1] in cities with moderately skilled labor, its going to cost $10 - 25M/ft to build something like this. That's half a quadrillion dollars (448 trillion dollars). What sort or rate of return…

Indeed, there's already a vacuum we already have above our heads that could be used for this purpose... i.e., suborbital space flight. I can't imagine it'd be more expensive than tunneling 3000 miles under an ocean.

I doubt it is a tunnel. I imagine it'd be more like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersed_tube

(San Francisco's rail connection across the bay uses this technique)

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