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

What Will the Federal Government do with Hyperloop?

consumersresearch.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–46 of 46 posts

Re: What Will the Federal Government do with Hyperloop?

#41

Post by tzs »

Aloisius wrote: post #38
anigbrowl wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be more likely to be approved with only 2 endpoints, since the logical thing then would be to make the route as short as possible. OTOH HSR's route through the Central Valley is partly dictated by the availability of funding from the federal government for development in that part of the state; if it was purely up to CA I think it would just run along the coastline.

> if it was purely up to CA I think it would just run along the coastline. Actually, the only two cities it connects to in the Central Valley are among the largest population centers in California: Fresno (#5 largest city in CA) and Bakersfield (#9 largest city). By comparison, there aren't any large population centers southwest of San Jose until you're almost to LA with maybe the exception of Salinas. Plus, if you w…

I see Merced on all the maps on the state's HSR site, and Modesto and Stockton on maps for later phases of the project. Where did you see it would only connect to Fresno and Bakersfield?

Re: What Will the Federal Government do with Hyperloop?

#42

Post by free652 »

travisp wrote: post #33
acqq wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people have orders of magnitude better comfort in metros and buses. You can exit the city metro or the city bus every minute. You can sit, stand up and walk in them. The buses for longer distances have the toilets and can stop whenever somebody really needs it. Here you'd be locked in the slanted chair for half an hour where you wouldn't be even able to stand up or stretch the hands! Sounds awful and has real im…

>Yes, people have orders of magnitude better comfort in metros and buses. You can exit the city metro or the city bus every minute. You can sit, stand up and walk in them. The buses for longer distances have the toilets and can stop whenever somebody really needs it. This is not universally true. For example, here in New York, the express bus from Staten Island has at least 45 minutes of no stops and has no bathroom…

It's totally true about NYC, you picked an extreme case of the SI express bus. And if you're sick the bus driver will drop you off.

> (and you're a long trek from a bathroom at either end).

And that's total BS. The long trek is less than 5 minutes on either side.

Re: What Will the Federal Government do with Hyperloop?

#43

Post by cma »

anologwintermut wrote: post #17
cma wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed and energy usage. The idea as I understood it was to compete with commuter flights; if i understand your idea correctly you are proposing a slow, lightweight trolley on elevated rails?

That was the hypothetical to break down where the cost savings come from. It would not be as fast, no, but you might be able to get up to high speed train speed's with it. Energy savings are mostly moot if you power things from overhead wire/ third rail. Electricity is cheap(I'm actually curious why this isn't part of the proposal). So it's benefit is speed. It's a very big benefit, but the tolerances for the air bar…

Grid power is in the proposal as a backup source for cloudy days. I think the main point of covering it with solar aside from his stake in the solar sector was to show that you could do so and still come out cheaper than the high-speed rail proposal.

I agree about the air bearing tolerances seeming like a big problem.

Re: What Will the Federal Government do with Hyperloop?

#44

Post by Aloisius »

tzs wrote: post #41
Aloisius wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if it was purely up to CA I think it would just run along the coastline. Actually, the only two cities it connects to in the Central Valley are among the largest population centers in California: Fresno (#5 largest city in CA) and Bakersfield (#9 largest city). By comparison, there aren't any large population centers southwest of San Jose until you're almost to LA with maybe the exception of Salinas. Plus, if you w…

I see Merced on all the maps on the state's HSR site, and Modesto and Stockton on maps for later phases of the project. Where did you see it would only connect to Fresno and Bakersfield?

Woops. I didn't see Merced.

Re: What Will the Federal Government do with Hyperloop?

#45

Post by anologwintermut »

ricardobeat wrote: post #39
anologwintermut wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree about the weight. If you took the proposed capsule, added wheels, replaced the 1,500kg batteries with a motor and powered the thing from a third rail, you'd get something rather light with enough power to move at i'd guess 200 or 300 mph(think what you could get out of a Tesla if it had extra motors instead of batteries). This and the route would get you most of the cost savings. The speed is the huge bene…

That's what high-speed rail is. Wheels can't get you to 300mph, so you need maglev. The added weight would mean massive pylons, huge energy consumption. There is nothing new about that. It's more expensive, slower and less secure. Can you imagine the result of the recent spanish crash if the rails were elevated? There is no easy formula for magic fast, light, cheap rail transport. Sorry - there is, it's called the Hy…

High-speed rail trains hold way more than 20 people, so they weigh more. Plus in the US, high speed trains that run on "freight lines" (which include the Acela) have to be very heavy do to some idiotic crash worthiness requirments. https://www.ebbc.org/rail/fra.html

Re: What Will the Federal Government do with Hyperloop?

#46

Post by cma »

acqq wrote: post #15
cma wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said there could be branch stations, and he also gave the example of someone having an emergency right at takeoff in a normal plane, and it taking just as long to get clearance to land, turn around, land, and taxi to a gate.

In the plane people can stand up, help the one being sick ("is there a doctor on the plane? please come to the seat 34E" -- the steward is already there etc) bring him water, take him to the toilet. It's a big space. Nothing like that here -- everybody is trapped in the tube not able to leave the chair. Imagine even worse case: fire in the pod. People burn having to remain unmovable in the seats. Again imagine the pu…

Now compare it to a car.
Post reply on HN