high speed vacuum tube travel

Virgin Hyperloop hits an important milestone: the first human passenger test

For the first time, two people rode a hyperloop pod through a nearly airless tube at 100 mph.

By Andrew J. Hawkins , transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.

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Virgin Hyperloop announced that for the first time it has conducted a test of its ultra-fast transportation system with human passengers.

The test took place on Sunday afternoon at the company’s DevLoop test track in the desert outside Las Vegas, Nevada. The first two passengers were Virgin Hyperloop’s chief technology officer and co-founder, Josh Giegel, and head of passenger experience, Sara Luchian. After strapping into their seats in the company’s gleaming white and red hyperloop pod, dubbed Pegasus, they were transferred into an airlock as the air inside the enclosed vacuum tube was removed. The pod then accelerated to a brisk 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) down the length of the track, before slowing down to a stop.

It’s an important achievement for Virgin Hyperloop, which was founded in 2014 on the premise of making Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s vision of a futuristic transportation system of magnetically levitating pods traveling through nearly airless tubes at speeds of up to 760 mph (1,223 km/h) a reality.

“No one has done anything close to what we’re talking about right now.”

The DevLoop test track is 500 meters long and 3.3 meters in diameter. The track is located about 30 minutes from Las Vegas, out in the kind of desert that hyperloop pods could one day traverse in minutes. The company says it has conducted over 400 tests on that track, but never before with human passengers — until today. 

“No one has done anything close to what we’re talking about right now,” Jay Walder, CEO of Virgin Hyperloop, told The Verge . “This is a full scale, working hyperloop that is not just going to run in a vacuum environment, but is going to have a person in it. No one has come close to doing it.”

The Pegasus pod used for the first passenger test, also called XP-2, was designed with help from famed Danish architect Bjarke Ingels’ design firm. It represents a scaled-down version of what Virgin Hyperloop hopes will eventually be a full-sized pod capable of carrying up to 23 passengers. It weighs 2.5 tons and measures about 15-18 feet long, according to Giegel. Inside, its lush white interior is meant to be familiar to passengers, who may not be immediately comfortable with the idea of slingshotting through a vacuum-sealed tube at the speed of a commercial jet.

“This is not like some crazy, newfangled science fiction invention,” Luchian said in an interview several days before the test. “This is something that reminds me of a place that I’ve been and I’ve used many times, that I would feel comfortable putting grandma in and sending her on a visit somewhere.”

“This is not like some crazy, newfangled science fiction invention.”

Prior to the test, Luchian said she was eager to experience the acceleration, as well as monitor the temperature inside the pod and the ventilation system. Giegel said he wanted to see the system’s safety procedures in action, and would be keeping track of whether they’re able to maintain communication with operators during the test. “If it’s not safe enough for me, it’s not safe enough for anyone,” he said.

Giegel said the acceleration will feel similar to a plane taking off. The pod is propelled by magnetic levitation — the same technology used for bullet trains. The top speed of the fastest commercial bullet train, the Shanghai Maglev, hovers around 300 mph. 

To be sure, the pod didn’t reach the hyperloop’s theoretical maximum speed of 760 mph. Virgin Hyperloop projects that with enough track it can eventually get up to 670 mph — but the company’s record to date is 240 mph, which it hit in 2017 .

“It’ll be a bit short,” Giegel said before the test. “We’ll get up to probably about 100 miles an hour, a little over, and we’ll accelerate, decelerate, and it’ll be smooth. We’re not astronauts, we’re just there — we’re sitting in it.”

In 2013, Musk published his  “alpha paper”  which theorized that aerodynamic aluminum capsules filled with passengers or cargo could be propelled through a nearly airless tube at airliner-speeds of up to 760 mph. These tubes, either raised on pylons or sunk beneath the earth, could be built either within or between cities. He called it a “fifth mode of transportation” and argued it could help change the way we live, work, trade, and travel. The most eye-catching scenario he proposed was a trip from LA to San Francisco in only 30 minutes. The idea captured the imaginations of engineers and investors across the world.

Virgin Hyperloop was originally founded as Hyperloop Technologies before changing its name to Hyperloop One in 2016 and then again to Virgin Hyperloop One after being acquired by Richard Branson’s company . The company came out of the gate strong with tens of millions of dollars of funding and a bold vision of hyperloop systems all around the globe.

• SpaceX’s hyperloop race was all about ‘maximum speed’ (and celebrating Elon Musk)

But it wasn’t always smooth traveling for Virgin Hyperloop. In 2017, the company settled a lawsuit with one of its co-founders over competing claims of harassment and sabotage. A year later, another co-founder was ousted amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.

The company was also strapped for cash for a notable stretch of time. Branson helped secure a new $50 million investment from two existing investors, which helped meet payroll obligations. More recently, Virgin Hyperloop raised  $172 million in new funding in 2019, $90 million of which came from Dubai port operator DP World, which has previously invested $25 million in the company and already has two seats on the startup’s board of directors.

After that, things settled down, with Giegel and his team working diligently to validate the technology with a series of tests. On the regulatory front, things are looking brighter. The company recently announced its plan to build a $500 million certification center to advance its vision of the future of high-speed transportation in West Virginia. And the federal government has  recently laid out the framework  for regulating the hyperloop, giving hope to companies like Virgin Hyperloop that it may eventually break ground on a full-sized operational hyperloop system.

There are still a host of technical, financial, and regulatory challenges ahead

Critics say the hyperloop may be technically feasible, but still only amounts to vaporware. It’s been called a “utopian vision” that would be financially impossible to achieve. It’s one of those technologies that is also “just around the corner” according to its boosters — despite outwardly appearing to still being years away from completion. In 2017, Virgin Hyperloop’s top executives told  The Verge   they expect to see “working hyperloops around the world... by 2020.” That deadline was later pushed to 2021, the year they believe the hyperloop will be ready for human passengers.

There are still a lot of safety questions that need to be answered, said Constantine Samaras, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “A hyperloop vehicle will travel much faster than high-speed rail, maybe even reaching 760 mph,” Samaras said in an email. “Maintaining safety at such high speeds is very important, and all of the unforeseen disasters need to be engineered into the system. An earthquake? The vacuum tube breaks? The train somehow punches through the tube? At such high speeds, these events amplify the danger, and so safety has to be paramount.”

No government in the world has awarded a contract or approved the building of a hyperloop system yet. It’s unclear how much it would cost to build a hyperloop, but surely it would be in the billions of dollars. Leaked financial documents in 2016 suggested the hyperloop would cost between $9 billion and $13 billion, or between $84 million and $121 million per mile — significantly more than high-speed rail. Even with public funding, any company would need to raise millions of dollars in funding, acquire the enormous tracks of land, and certify that the hyperloop can be operated safely. Which is all to say, the hyperloop is still very far off.

The ability to maintain a vacuum in the tube, especially one hundreds of miles long, is another enormous challenge. Every time a pod arrives at a station, it has to decelerate and stop. Then the airlock will have to close, pressurize, and open again. Then the pod has to clear the airlock before the next pod arrives. The speed at which this occurs will determine the distance between pods. Turning will also be extremely difficult. A hyperloop would need approximately six miles to execute a 90-degree turn at 600 mph, a Virgin Hyperloop engineer once  told the New York Times . 

“At such high speeds, these events amplify the danger, and so safety has to be paramount”

Another potential hurdle is headways. The longer the headway, the less capacity these pods will have, which may determine how useful a mass transit system the hyperloop can be. Operators can try to compensate by building larger pods, but then they’ll need stronger steel for their tubes to accommodate the added weight, and that spells higher costs.

Walder, who has run public transportation systems in China and the US and most recently was head of Citi Bike in New York City, said that headways would be “a few seconds apart” in a full-scale, commercially operational hyperloop, compared to 2 minutes or more for most trains.

Luchian said she was excited, if a little nervous. “A little bit of nervous energy,” she said, “only because I can appreciate the gravitas of the moment.”

She said it was important the experience of riding in the hyperloop feel comfortable and familiar, like riding in a train, other normal people would reject it as a feasible and safe mode of transportation. She noted that neither Giegel nor herself received special training beforehand or wore protective clothing like astronauts.

“Even for such a momentous occasion, for a technology that was literally a pipe dream like six, seven years ago, we don’t have to do all of these iterations with specialists,” she said. “We’re getting right in.”

For Giegel, this test was the culmination of years of labor. It takes place almost six years after he quit his job as a systems propulsion lead at Virgin Galactic to start a hyperloop company in his garage.

“I think a long time from now, this moment, this thing in the desert that wouldn’t have existed unless we put it here, is going to be that spot where people can look and say, ‘that was a really big idea, it was a really risky idea,’” he said, “‘but they came, they did it, and they made it successful.’”

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​What is Hyperloop? Everything you need to know about the race for super-fast travel

What is Hyperloop?

Special report

Tech and the future of transportation (free pdf).

This ebook looks at emerging autonomous transport technologies and how they will affect society and the future of business.

Hyperloop is a new form of ground transport currently in development by a number of companies, It could see passengers travelling at over 700 miles an hour in floating pod which races along inside giant low-pressure tubes, either above or below ground.

What makes Hyperloop different?

There are two big differences between Hyperloop and traditional rail. Firstly, the pods carrying passengers travel through tubes or tunnels from which most of the air has been removed to reduce friction. This should allow the pods to travel at up to 750 miles per hour .

Secondly, rather than using wheels like a train or car, the pods are designed to float on air skis, using the same basic idea as an air hockey table, or use magnetic levitation to reduce friction. 

What are the benefits of Hyperloop?

Supporters argue that Hyperloop could be cheaper and faster than train or car travel, and cheaper and less polluting than air travel. They claim that it's also quicker and cheaper to build than traditional high-speed rail. Hyperloop could therefore be used to take the pressure off gridlocked roads, making travel between cities easier, and potentially unlocking major economic benefits as a result.

When are the first Hyperloops going to be available?

A number of different companies are working to turn the idea into  a functioning commercial system .

Hyperloop technology is still in development even though the basic concept has been around for many years. At the moment, the earliest any Hyperloop is likely to be up and running is 2020 but most services are expected to be later, as trials of the technology are still in their early stages.

Where will Hyperloop services run?

It's still not clear where Hyperloops will actually be established but a number of companies have sketched out routes in the US, Europe, and elsewhere . Potential routes include New York to Washington DC, Pune to Mumbai, Kansas City to St Louis, Bratislava to Brno, Vijaywada and Amaravati, and many more.

What is the history of Hyperloop?

Russia taps Hyperloop for domestic transport

A proposed project to bring Musk's Hyperloop to Russia would cost between $12 and $13 billion.

The idea of using low-pressure or vacuum tubes as part of a transport system has a long heritage. The Crystal Palace pneumatic railway used air pressure to push a wagon uphill (and a vacuum to drag it back down) way back in Victorian south London in 1864. Similar systems using pneumatic tubes to send mail and packages between buildings have been in use since the late nineteenth century, and can still be seen in supermarkets and banks to move money around today.

One clear predecessor of the Hyperloop is the 'vactrain' concept developed by Robert Goddard early in the twentieth century; since then, many similar ideas have been proposed without much success.

However, it was entrepreneur Elon Musk who really reignited interest in the concept with his 'Hyperloop Alpha' paper in August 2013, which set out how a modern system would work -- and how much it would cost.

What is Hyperloop Alpha?

In his Hyperloop Alpha paper, Musk set out the case for a service running between Los Angeles and San Francisco, which would be cheaper and faster than a proposed high-speed rail link. He argued that his Hyperloop could be safer, faster, more affordable, weather-proof, self-powering -- and less disruptive to people living along the route.

Musk said that a Hyperloop service could be the answer to travel between cities less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart; beyond that, supersonic air travel would be more efficient, he said.

"Short of figuring out real teleportation, which would of course be awesome (someone please do this), the only option for super fast travel is to build a tube over or under the ground that contains a special environment," Musk wrote. Nobody has got very far with the teleportation idea, alas, but a number of companies have seized at the potential of Hyperloop.

How does a Hyperloop tube work?

The basic idea of Hyperloop as envisioned by Musk is that the passenger pods or capsules travel through a tube, either above or below ground. To reduce friction, most -- but not all -- of the air is removed from the tubes by pumps.

Overcoming air resistance is one of the biggest uses of energy in high speed travel. Airliners climb to high altitudes to travel through less dense air; in order to create a similar effect at ground level, Hyperloop encloses the capsules in a reduced-pressure tube, effectively allowing the trains to travel at airplane speeds while still on the ground.

In Musk's model, the pressure of the air inside the Hyperloop tube is about one-sixth the pressure of the atmosphere on Mars (a notable comparison as Mars is another of Musk's interests ). This means an operating pressure of 100 pascals, which reduces the drag force of the air by 1,000 times relative to sea level conditions, and would be equivalent to flying above 150,000 feet.

How do Hyperloop capsules work?

The Hyperloop capsules in Musk's model float above the tube's surface on a set of 28 air-bearing skis, similar to the way that the puck floats just above the table on an air hockey game. One major difference is that it is the pod, not the track, that generates the air cushion in order to keep the tube as simple and cheap as possible. Other versions of Hyperloop use magnetic levitation rather than air skis to keep the passenger pods above the tracks.

The pod would get its initial velocity from an external linear electric motor, which would accelerate it to 'high subsonic velocity' and then give it a boost every 70 miles or so; in between, the pod would coast along in near vacuum. Each capsule could carry 28 passengers (other versions aim to carry up to 40) plus some luggage; another version of the pods could carry cargo and vehicles. Pods would depart every two minutes (or every 30 seconds at peak usage).

How would Hyperloop be powered?

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The pods will get their velocity from an external linear electric motor -- effectively a round induction motor (like the one in the Tesla Model S ) rolled flat. Under Musk's model, the Hyperloop would be powered by solar panels placed on the top of the tube which would allow the system to generate more energy than it needs to run.

How is Hyperloop different from high-speed trains?

Supporters argue that Hyperloop is significantly better than high-speed rail. It is lower cost and more energy efficient because, among other things, the track doesn't need to provide power to the pods continuously and, because the pods can leave every 30 seconds, it's more like an on-demand service. It's also potentially two or three times faster than even high-speed rail (and ten times the speed of regular rail services).

How much would a Hyperloop cost to build?

For the LA to San Francisco Hyperloop that Musk envisaged , he came up with a price tag of under $6bn. Musk envisioned an LA to San Francisco journey time of half an hour with pod departures every 30 seconds, each carrying 28 passengers.

Spreading the capital cost over 20 years and adding in operational costs, Musk came up with the figure of $20 plus operating costs for a one-way ticket on the passenger Hyperloop.

The costs of a Hyperloop according to Elon Musk's Hyperloop Alpha paper.

Most of the cost of the system lies in building the tube network: the overall cost of the tube, pillars, vacuum pumps, and stations was calculated at just over $4bn for the passenger version of Hyperloop ($7bn for a slightly larger version that could also take freight). The cost of the capsules was put at around $1.35m a piece; with 40 needed for the service, the cost of these is around $54m (or $70m for a mix of passenger and cargo capsules). That's less than 9% of the cost of the proposed passenger-only high-speed rail system.

What will it feel like to travel in a Hyperloop?

Critics of Hyperloop have warned that travelling in the tube might be an uncomfortable experience, due to nausea-inducing acceleration, plus lateral G-force on bends in the route. However, Virgin Hyperloop One says that a journey via Hyperloop will feel about the same as riding in an elevator or a passenger plane.

Virgin Hyperloop One's XP-1 passenger capsule.

"Although Hyperloop will be fast, the systems we are building will accelerate with the same tolerable G-forces as that of taking off in a Boeing 747," it said. Acceleration and deceleration will be gradual, it added, with no G-forces and turbulence.

Travelling in a concrete pipe in a windowless pod means there isn't going to be much to look at; Musk's original vision said that "beautiful landscape will be displayed in the cabin" and each passenger will have access their own personal entertainment system.

What a Hyperloop Transportation Technologies capsule might look like from inside.

How much will Hyperloop tickets cost?

Musk's LA to San Francisco version offered tickets at just $20 but Virgin Hyperloop One is more vague on its plans: "Difficult to say as it will depend greatly on the route, but the goal is to make it affordable for everyone," it said, while Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) said it expects "a profitable system with low ticket price projections".

Will Hyperloop be a success?

That's the huge, multibillion dollar -- and, as yet, unanswered -- question around Hyperloop. The concept has been around for a long time, but until now the technology has been lacking. This time around, it's possible that the technology may have just caught up with the concept. 

There are well-funded companies racing to be the first to deliver a working service but, despite their optimistic timescales, these projects are still very much in the pilot and experimental stages. Going from short test routes to hundreds of kilometres of track is a big jump that none of these firms has made yet. 

If the technology is still in development, that's also very true of the business models to support it. The success of Hyperloop will vary depending on the destinations, local economics, and geography. Trying to build a new line overland across England, for example, can prove an expensive and complicated business which can take many years (as the ongoing HS2 controversy has shown).  In other countries where land is cheaper or where routes can travel through less populated areas, it may be easier to get services up and running faster.  

Capacity is another issue. It's not clear that Hyperloop can do a better job of moving a large number of people than other mass transit options. Critics argue that lots of pods will be required to achieve the same passenger numbers as more traditional rail, which uses much bigger carriages. And there are many engineering hurdles to overcome, like building the tubes strong enough to deal with the stresses of carrying the high-speed pods, and finding energy- and cost-efficient ways to keep them operating at low pressure. 

Moving from a successful test to a full commercial deployment is a big jump, and passenger trials are still to come. Assuming that consumers are happy being zoomed around in these tubes, finding the right price for the service will be vital, too.

Right now Hyperloop is at an experimental stage, even if the companies involved are very keen to talk about its potential.

Can Hyperloop make a profit?

Why hyperloop is poised to transform commutes, commerce, and communities

Elon Musk may have popularized the concept, but multiple teams are racing to deploy hyperloop routes at key spots across the globe.

The companies building Hyperloop services argue that they are significantly cheaper to build than high-speed rail services. Musk's Hyperloop Alpha paper claimed his LA to San Francisco route could be built for one-tenth of the price of a high-speed rail alternative. Other companies have said their services could be one-third to half the price of rail services and much faster. Being cheaper to build should mean these services can become profitable quickly. 

However, there are plenty of engineering challenges to be tackled which could push the costs up, and how these services will be funded in the first place is not clear; many of the feasibility studies under way are looking at how to finance them, likely through a combination of public and private investment.

How is Hyperloop like Linux?

Rather than keeping the Hyperloop to himself, Musk threw the idea open to anyone who wanted to develop it, comparing it to the Linux operating system: an open-source design built by a community of developers in order to bring it from concept to reality.

Indeed, in his Hyperloop Alpha paper, Musk noted that a number of areas still remained to be resolved including the control mechanism for Hyperloop capsules; station designs with loading and unloading of both passenger and passenger-plus-vehicle versions of the Hyperloop capsules; comparisons of Hyperloop with more conventional magnetic levitation systems; and testing to demonstrate the physics of Hyperloop.

Who is building Hyperloop services?

Despite doing much to lay the groundwork for Hyperloop services, Musk initially said he was too busy to develop his own service. There are now a number of companies working to turn the idea into reality, including startups and others that have been working on the idea for some time already. Among them are Virgin Hyperloop One , HTT, TransPod, Arrivo, and others. Each is developing a slightly different set of technologies, but the fundamental underlying idea remains the same.

Is Elon Musk building a Hyperloop service?

Despite saying he was too busy, it looks like Musk remains intrigued by the idea of Hyperloop: last year he said that he had received 'verbal approval' for a New York to Philadelphia to Baltimore to Washington DC Hyperloop, which would cut the New York to Washington DC travel time to just 29 minutes. "Still a lot of work needed to receive formal approval, but am optimistic that will occur rapidly," he added.

In February, the Washington Post reported that Musk's Boring Company had received a permit for some preparatory and excavation work in New York.

In October 2017, Maryland's Department of Transportation also gave conditional approval to the construction of a Boring Company tunnel from Baltimore to Washington , allowing it to dig under state roads.

In April 2019, the company provided more details on its plans for the Washington DC to Baltimore section -- it aims to build a high-speed Loop underground transportation system that transports passengers in autonomous electric vehicles, or AEVs, at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.

It adds that the Loop tunnels could potentially serve as Hyperloop corridors, which could potentially transport passengers at speeds of up to 700 miles per hour. However, it warned: "The potential future use of Hyperloop technology is currently unknown ."

What is the Boring Company?

Musk set up the Boring Company with the aim of making it easier and faster to dig the tunnels under, and between, cities in order to make Hyperloop projects viable. Tunnels can cost as much as $1bn a mile to dig; The Boring Company wants to dig tunnels at one-tenth of the price. The company says it can do this by digging smaller tunnels, making faster and more efficient digging machines, and replacing diesel-powered machines with electric ones.

A Boring Company tunnel.

As well as building more efficient digging machines, the Boring Company also offered a line of caps and more unusually flame throwers, both of which sold out rapidly after they were released.

In May, the Boring Company won a $48.6m contract to design and build the city of Las Vegas' planned loop of underground tunnels for moving people in autonomous electric vehicles. The tunnel is expected to be operational by the end of the year. 

What is Loop?

The Boring Company hopes that one use for these tunnels, as well as Hyperloops, will be Loop. This is a high-speed underground public transportation system which sees passengers carried on autonomous electric 'skates' travelling at 125 to 150 miles per hour. Electric skates will carry between eight and 16 passengers or a single passenger vehicle. Passengers (and vehicles) would enter the pods at street level and then elevators would drop them down to the level of the Loop to continue the journey underground, bypassing street traffic (with pedestrians and cyclists getting priority over cars).

The company is currently working on an initial test tunnel in Hawthorne (near the SpaceX and the Boring Company HQ) and has submitted plans for a 6.5-mile proof-of-process tunnel which would run within the City of Los Angeles and Culver City.

The company said that unlike a subway, there is no practical upper limit to the number of stations that can be built along the tunnel route, as stations can be as small as a single parking space because the service is accessed via lifts.

Each Loop 'station' is made up of a bank of elevators to transport the skates to and from ground level. "Since stations require such a small footprint, they can be easily integrated in busy city-centers, residential communities, or any location along the tunnel route that can accommodate a single parking space," the company said. It has published a map showing a potential set of routes for the service.

What is the Hyperloop Pod Competition?

Musk's SpaceX has its own Hyperloop test track at its headquarters in Hawthorne, California -- about one mile long and with a six-foot outer diameter.

In order to accelerate the development of functional prototypes and encourage student innovation, SpaceX announced the Hyperloop Pod Competition in 2015, which challenges university teams to design and build the best transport pod, judged by different criteria each time. In 2018, the focus was the maximum speed for a self-propelled pod on the test track, or as the competition puts it: "Fastest time without crashing wins!". In 2019 it was judged on maximum speed with successful deceleration .

What is Virgin Hyperloop One?

Virgin Hyperloop One is one of the leading contenders attempting to create a commercially viable Hyperloop system. It was founded in June 2014 and has over 300 staff. It has raised $295m with the aim of building an operational system by 2021. The company currently has projects underway in Missouri, Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, the Midwest, India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Virgin Hyperloop One's DevLoop in North Las Vegas.

In February, the company announced plans for the Indian state of Maharashtra to build a Hyperloop between Pune and Mumbai beginning with an operational demonstration track. The project will start with a six-month feasibility study looking at the route, environmental impact, the economic and commercial aspects of the route, the regulatory framework, and cost and funding model recommendations.

Assuming all goes well, an operational demonstration track will be built between two points on the route two to three years from the signing of the agreement and serve as a platform for testing. The company said the construction of the full Pune-Mumbai route -- a 25-minute journey -- would take place in five to seven years. It added the high-capacity passenger and cargo Hyperloop route could eventually see 150 million passenger trips annually.

"I believe Virgin Hyperloop One could have the same impact upon India in the 21st century as trains did in the 20th century," said Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin group.

The company is also working on a feasibility study into a Hyperloop route linking Kansas City, Columbia, and St Louis running along the I-70 in Missouri, and is looking at high-level cost estimate and funding model recommendations.

The company has a 500 meter-long DevLoop, which has a diameter of 3.3m and is located 30 minutes from Las Vegas in the Nevada desert. In December, the company said it had completed its third phase of testing, achieving test speeds of 387 kilometers per hour.

"The tests were conducted in a tube depressurized down to the equivalent air pressure experienced at 200,000 feet above sea level. A Virgin Hyperloop One pod quickly lifts above the track using magnetic levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances due to ultra-low aerodynamic drag," the company said.

It has identified 11 potential routes in the US , from the short -- a Boston-Somerset-Providence route of just 64 miles -- to the epic -- the Cheyenne-Houston route which would run 1,152 miles across four states, potentially reducing to 1 hour and 45 minutes a journey that currently takes 17 hours by car or truck. The company has also identified nine routes across Europe , potentially connecting over 75 million people in 44 cities, and spanning 5,000 kilometers. 

In June 2019, the Indian project took a step forward with the government of Maharashtra giving Hyperloop the green light and preparing to start the public procurement process. This project will be a partnership between the DP World-Virgin Hyperloop One consortia and the state government, with DP World expected to invest $500m to complete the first phase of the project which will certify the new technology for passenger operations.

In July, Virgin Hyperloop One announced a development partnership with Saudi Arabia's Economic City Authority (ECA) to conduct a study to build a 35-kilometer test and certification Hyperloop track -- the longest so far -- as well as a research and development center and Hyperloop manufacturing facility north of Jeddah. In the future, traveling from Riyadh to Jeddah would take 76 minutes (instead of over 10 hours) using Hyperloop technologies, the company said. 

What is Hyperloop Transportation Technologies?

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Founded in 2013, Hyperloop Transport Technologies (HyperloopTT or HTT) is another company looking to turn Hyperloop into reality. It has a team of 800 engineers and headquartered in Los Angeles. It wants to build a transport system built on a passive magnetic levitation system and says its 30-meter capsules will be able to carry 28 to 40 passengers and travel at a maximum speed of 1,223 kilometers per hour, moving 164,000 passengers a day on one line at full efficiency. The company points to reinsurance company Munich Re deeming its system to be "feasible and insurable" as a reflection of its progress so far.

In September, HyperloopTT said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board to build a Hyperloop between the city centers of Vijaywada and Amaravati, potentially turning a trip of more than one hour into a six-minute ride. The project will use a public-private partnership, with funding primarily coming from private investors and starting with a six-month feasibility study. The company is also working on the development of a route from Bratislava, Slovakia to Brno, Czech Republic .

The company has a 320-meter test track system in Toulouse, France. "With tubes assembled and pumps installed, HyperloopTT is now beginning the process of integrating their full-scale passenger capsule for human trials in 2020," the company said in June this year.

Last year, the company said it also planned a second full-scale system, spanning one kilometer and elevated by pylons at a height of 5.8 meters. It's expected to be completed in 2019 .

Another route identified as having Hyperloop potential would see the 313-mile journey from Chicago to Cleveland completed in 28 minutes -- at a speed of 730 miles an hour. A $1.2m feasibility study for developing a Hyperloop corridor route is due to be completed by the fall of this year.

HTT's first commercial Hyperloop project is a 10-kilometer length of track due to go live next year in the United Arab Emirates. Bibop Gresta, chairman of HyperloopTT said when the deal was announced in April 2018 that "with regulatory support" the first section will be operational in time for Expo 2020, which opens in October of that year . Construction work on the project is due to start in Abu Dhabi in the third quarter of this year.

In February, HyperloopTT told Australian politicians its technology could transport people from Sydney to Canberra in 22 minutes .

Who else is building Hyperloop services?

TransPod is another contender, and released a study that predicted that a TransPod Hyperloop system would cost 30 percent less than high-speed rail lines in Europe -- and be more efficient for passengers and freight, at more than three times the speed. It also said a Hyperloop will cost 50% less and travel four times faster than high-speed rail between Toronto and Windsor in Canada. In November 2016, TransPod announced the closing of a first $15m round of funding from Angelo Investments.

In January this year, TransPod said it was building a new three-kilometer-long test track in Limoges, France. Construction of the test track will begin in 2019, and the company plans to start high-speed testing in 2020. The results of the program will inform the construction of a working prototype of the TransPod's Hyperloop vacuum train , also to be built in Limoges.

Another company looking to build Hyperloop-style systems, Arrivo, shut down at the end of 2018.

What's next for Hyperloop?

Hyperloop is a technology that, for its supporters at least, could have a huge impact. It could reduce air travel between big cities, boost economies and trade, and reduce the pressure on housing in cities by allowing commuters to live further away. But none of this is anywhere near proven -- yet. There are major technical and business hurdles that Hyperloop technologies will need to surmount before they can carry passengers in comfort through a pneumatic tube, let alone change the world.

The next stage for Hyperloop is to move beyond initial testing and feasibility studies, start longer distance trials of the technology and, even more importantly, testing the service with passengers. Another challenge will be to find commercial models that work around the world. Only when all this is done will it become clear whether Hyperloop can really become a success.

Additional resources

• Hyperloop's 240 mph speed record puts us one step closer to sci-fi tube travel (TechRepublic)
• Virgin Hyperloop One hits new top speed (ZDNet)
• Elon Musk's Hyperloop: Here's the Dutch team with designs on supersonic train concept (ZDNet)
• Moscow wants a Hyperloop (CNET)
• Hyperloop could cart ya to Jakarta someday (CNET)

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A Real Tube Carrying Dreams of 600-M.P.H. Transit

Virgin Hyperloop One is testing a system that would put passengers in pods hurtling through vacuum tubes. Other companies are moving ahead with similar plans.

The tube used for unmanned testing by Virgin Hyperloop One north of Las Vegas. The system aims to move people and cargo through tubes in wheel-less pods. Credit... Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times

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By Eric A. Taub

• Feb. 18, 2019

MOAPA, Nev. — California just decided to sharply scale back its plans for a high-speed rail artery meant to transform travel up and down the state. But in the desert outside Las Vegas, the transportation ambitions still seem limitless.

Here, engineers working for Virgin Hyperloop One are testing a radically different type of mass transit: one that aims to move people and cargo in small wheel-less pods in a vacuum tube at speeds that could exceed 600 miles per hour. Today’s swiftest rail travel, at top speeds less than half as fast, would become a quaint anachronism.

The company, which counts Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group as a minority investor , is one of several in the United States, Canada and other countries developing hyperloop technology. The concept was promoted by Elon Musk, of electric-car and private-rocket renown, and then offered by one of his companies as open-source technology available to all. It works by propelling pods using magnetic levitation through a low-pressure, near-vacuum tube.

The low pressure minimizes friction and air resistance, greatly reducing the power needed. And because the pods travel in a tube, they’re not subject to shutdowns due to harsh weather, like snow or polar vortexes.

We’ve seen this concept before. Libraries used to send book requests to the stacks in pneumatic tubes. Until 1984, a similar network whisked messages around Paris. And a series of underground tubes once dispatched mail between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The concept was even tried with people for three years in New York’s subway. Beginning in 1870, Beach Pneumatic Transit, named for its developer, ran a passenger capsule moved by pneumatic power under Broadway in Manhattan, from Warren Street to Murray Street.

Virgin Hyperloop One, based in Los Angeles, began testing here in 2017 and is now doing so with a full-scale test track; its main competitors, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, also in Los Angeles, and TransPod, with headquarters in Toronto, expect to build their own test tracks this year. So far both are working with computer simulations.

In the barren desert 35 miles north of the Las Vegas Strip, Virgin’s 1,640-foot-long, 11-foot-high tube has been used for hundreds of runs, with an empty pod that in one test accelerated to 240 m.p.h.

Plans call for the commercialized system to reach a continuous 510 m.p.h., with 670 m.p.h. possible.

To avoid making anyone sick, the system would take three minutes to accelerate to that speed, and the train would need to travel six miles to turn 90 degrees, said Ismaeel Babur, one of the company’s senior civil engineers.

Because of its slow takeoff rate, “you’ll feel 30 to 40 percent of the acceleration compared to an airplane,” Mr. Babur said. The trip will be so smooth, he added, that “coffee won’t slide even at 600 miles per hour.”

Each of the three companies has raised tens to hundreds of millions of dollars and developed its own patented approach to long-distance mass transit. TransPod, with $52 million in capital, has preliminary agreements to build a six-mile test track for a route that would eventually span the 180 miles between Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, as well as a shorter track near Limoges, France, for one of several French routes under consideration.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, which has raised $42 million, is in the design phase for a 1,100-yard test track in Abu Dhabi and is preparing to build a 350-yard test track in Toulouse, France.

Virgin, which has raised $295 million, is in the developmental stage with projects in India and Ohio. Last month, the Indian state of Maharashtra declared the company’s proposed hyperloop system between Pune and Mumbai as an official infrastructure project. Construction on a seven-mile test track could start this year, said Jay Walder, the company’s chief executive.

Passenger operations could begin by the middle of the next decade, cutting travel time between the cities to 30 minutes, one-fifth the current duration.

“The more we see, the more we find the technology to be compelling,” said William Murdock, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, a nonprofit governmental transportation agency. Virgin Hyperloop One is working on a proposed system to connect Chicago, Columbus and Pittsburgh.

“Columbus is a freight logistics hub,” said Mr. Murdock, who hopes that the entire hyperloop route could be built in the next 10 years. “To commute quickly between Chicago and Pittsburgh would be fantastic.”

All three companies contend that because of energy cost advantages over other forms of transportation, a system will be able to break even in a decade after full-scale operations begin. Not only will commuters be able to get from place to place faster, but doing so will allow people to comfortably live far from their work, giving access to educational, cultural and health services normally out of reach.

Hyperloop developers expect pods to carry not only people but also high-value, low-weight cargo, offering an alternative to carriers using high-cost air transport, like FedEx and Amazon. In addition, they say, automobile manufacturers and others relying on just-in-time delivery of parts to keep inventory costs down would be able to get parts from distant locations.

While such visions are a distant dream, hyperloop companies have attracted key talent and enthusiastic municipalities.

Mr. Walder, Virgin Hyperloop One’s chief executive, is a former head of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and managing director at Transport for London. Before taking the job in November, he said, he asked Mr. Branson — who stepped down as Virgin Hyperloop One’s chairman last year — whether he was “still fully committed to this.”

“Not only was he committed, but he thought it was one of the most exciting things he’s ever done,” Mr. Walder said.

Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is taking a more holistic approach, looking to reinvent not only transport but also the way companies work and the way such a venture can be sustainably funded.

The company has only 50 full-time employees, but they’re augmented by 800 people around the world who work strictly for stock options, in exchange for putting in at least 10 hours per week on the project.

“This model gives us a fairly low burn rate,” said Dirk Ahlborn, the company’s founder and chief executive. “But there are communication challenges. Some teams work amazingly, and others do not perform at all. You’re competing with their free time, their wives and their babies. It’s definitely a different way to do things.”

Another difference from other transit systems will be the passenger experience. To keep the structural integrity of the near-vacuum tube, there will be no windows.

“People would get sick looking at trees passing by at 600 miles per hour,” said Sébastien Gendron, TransPod’s chief executive.

Instead, developers are looking at various exterior simulations that could be projected on large screens throughout the pod. “We could create a depth effect through video projection,” Mr. Gendron said. Even movies could be shown.

Mr. Ahlborn believes that showing advertisements and providing other services to travelers could provide additional income that would hold down fares.

“My vision is that the ticket model is not the best model,” he said. “We can enable a marketplace of services and generate a lot of money.”

But before such musings turn into reality, hyperloop proponents must prove that their systems work, that they’re safe for people and cargo and that they’re affordable.

“From the point of view of physics, hyperloop is doable,” said Garrett Reisman, professor of astronautical engineering at the University of Southern California and a former astronaut on the International Space Station.

The experience will be no different from riding in an airplane with the shades drawn, and technical issues around maintaining the vacuum within the tube will be solved, he believes.

Instead, hyperloop projects will face more mundane challenges.

“Getting innovative things through the regulatory and certification environments is very difficult,” Mr. Reisman said. “This could face an uphill battle in the U.S.”

Which companies will succeed, if any, is anyone’s guess. Yet each main player is rooting for the others, knowing that one failure will put a pall over the technology as a whole.

“The worst thing that would happen to us is if Virgin Hyperloop One is not successful,” Mr. Ahlborn said.

Whether any company can garner the necessary finance is still an open question, leading Mr. Ahlborn to wonder if any one can ultimately go it alone. “Maybe there could be a consolidation between our companies,” he said.

Rick Geddes, professor in the department of policy analysis and management at Cornell University, sees a different challenge. “The biggest problems for hyperloop will be securing rights of way and permitting,” he said.

Still, Professor Geddes believes that hyperloop systems will become a reality, as the time is ripe.

“There’s a sense that things are stale; we’re just adding to existing modes of transport,” he said. “Time is more and more a valuable commodity. The transportation industry is ready for a new way of thinking.”

An earlier version of this article misstated the time needed for a Virgin Hyperloop One train to accelerate to 600 miles per hour and the distance of a 90-degree turn at that speed. According to the company, the acceleration would require three minutes, not 30, and the turn would cover six miles, not 42.

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Hyperloop revealed: Elon Musk foresees rapid transit in a tube

Electromagnetic acceleration: That's the high technology behind the high-speed transit concept that billionaire Elon Musk calls the Hyperloop.

Musk — who already plays leading roles in the SpaceX rocket venture, the Tesla electric car company and the SolarCity solar-energy company — unveiled his vision of the Hyperloop on Monday.

The plan is aimed at cutting the travel time between San Francisco and Los Angeles to 35 minutes, at a price of $20 for a one-way trip.

"It would actually feel a lot like being on an airplane," Musk said.

Musk said the Hyperloop arrangement could be implemented between any pair of cities situated up to, say, 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) apart. For longer distances, air travel would probably be more efficient, he said.

In a blog posting and a  57-page PDF file about the Hyperloop , Musk said he came up with the plan out of frustration with the shortcomings of California's $68 billion high-speed rail project, which is just getting started. Musk estimated that about a dozen engineers from SpaceX and Tesla worked on the Hyperloop concept over the past year or so as a "background task."

How the Hyperloop would work The Hyperloop would send travelers through low-pressure steel tubes in specialized pods that zoom at high subsonic speeds, reaching about 760 mph (1,220 kilometers per hour). That compares with typical speeds of 110 mph ( for U.S. systems ) to 300 mph ( in China ) for high-speed rail travel.

Musk's plan would rev up the pods from their stations using magnetic linear accelerators — and once they're in the main travel tubes, they'd be given periodic boosts by a  linear induction motor  built into the tube and the pods. "The moving motor element (rotor) will be located on the vehicle for weight savings and power requirements, while the tube will incorporate the stationary motor element (stator) which powers the vehicle," Musk wrote.

The pods would have electric compressor fans mounted on their noses to transfer high-pressure air from the front to the rear, getting around an aerodynamic limitation that would otherwise stymie near-supersonic travel in a tube. "We can make it work" with the current technology for electric motors and batteries, as implemented in the Tesla Model S sedan, Musk said.

The journey would be nearly frictionless, thanks to a cushion of compressed air between the cars and the tube's inner surface. Musk said the system could be scaled up to hold three full-size automobiles per pod, with passengers inside.

The whole system would be powered by solar panels installed onto the tubes. "By placing solar panels on top of the tube, the Hyperloop can generate far in excess of the energy needed to operate," Musk wrote.

The tubes would be elevated on pylons, and generally follow Interstate 5 between San Francisco and L.A. Musk said that would cut down on the cost of land acquisition and rights of way. He estimated that the whole system would cost around $6 billion to build. "Even several billion is a low number when compared with several tens of billion proposed for the track of the California rail project," he wrote.

This combination of technologies is what led Musk to describe the Hyperloop last month as a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun and an air hockey table." The hints that he dropped along the way sparked a flurry of speculation, about schemes ranging from  "Jetsons"-like people-movers to  underground vacuum tunnels .

One of the closest guesses came from a self-described "tinker" named John Gardi, who laid out a plan for a turbine-driven pneumatic system. Gardi said Musk's system was even better. "Beautiful, elegant, efficient!" Gardi wrote in a  Twitter update after Monday's big reveal. "The aerodynamic solution is brilliant, brings me to tears ... I can see why I missed it."

Who'll build the Hyperloop? Musk has said he wouldn't be able to build the Hyperloop himself, due to his duties at SpaceX and Tesla. But he changed his tune slightly on Monday, during a news conference to discuss the idea. "I'm somewhat tempted to at least make a demonstration prototype," he told reporters. "I've sort of come around a little bit on my thinking here, that maybe I should do the beginning bit, create a subscale version that's operating, and then hand it over to somebody else."

However, Musk cautioned that such a demonstration wouldn't be immediate, and that it would serve as a technological test bed rather than a practical transit system. He compared the project to a rocket demonstration on SpaceX's test range in Texas.

Musk estimated that it could take seven to 10 years to build a working Hyperloop between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The Hyperloop could be held back by technical as well as political and economic issues. Transportation policy experts say that high-speed transit in the United States has been stymied not so much by technological challenges as by the challenges of acquiring rights of way and getting enough money to build the required infrastructure. Despite the hurdles, high-speed transit projects are beginning to gain traction. California, for example, is continuing with its  next-generation rail system , and other states are proceeding with their own high-speed rail initiatives .

Musk said he thought the California project should be put on hold, considering that the construction cost could balloon well past the current $68 billion estimate, and is likely to result in a rail system that's slower than taking an airplane. "That just doesn't seem wise for a state that was facing bankruptcy not that long ago," he said.

Emil Frankel, a former transportation official who is now a visiting scholar at the  Bipartisan Policy Center , said he didn't know enough about Musk's freshly revealed concept to comment on its pluses and minuses. But he said anything that gave a boost to the debate over the future of transportation was a good thing.

"I think that the best way for us to spend our money on infrastructure, given scarce resources, is with incremental improvements, restoration of our existing systems and appropriate expansions," he told NBC News. "The analyses that have been done suggest that these kinds of incremental improvements to the efficiency and reliability of our existing systems provide the best benefits."

Correction for 7:15 p.m. ET: At one point I had a wildly high figure for the number of people working on the Hyperloop concept, based on something I misheard during Musk's news conference. It's a little over a "dozen," not a "thousand."

More about the Hyperloop:

• CNBC: Reactions to the Hyperloop unveiling
• NBC News archive on the Hyperloop hype

Elon Musk and the rest of the team behind the Hyperloop proposal say they would welcome feedback on their concept. Such feedback can be emailed to  [email protected] or [email protected] .

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the  NBC News Science Facebook page , following  @b0yle on Twitter and adding  +Alan Boyle to your Google+ circles. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the  Tech & Science newsletter , delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out  "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

China successfully tests maglev trains in vacuum tube, eyeing future speeds of 4,000 kph

China's new high-speed train doesn't roll along railways, it flies through tubes.

There are hopes it will one day connect cities and villages across the country, running at speeds of up to 4,000 kilometres per hour.

The magnetic-levitation (or maglev) train can clock speeds of 623 kph in tests — almost 200 kph quicker than the fastest train in service.  

It is yet to be rolled out, but in February it went even faster, during a test of technology crucial to the train's high speed. 

For the first time it travelled stably through the 2-kilometre low-vacuum tube, according to China's state run Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC).

CASIC is yet to reveal the speed it reached, but said it was faster than its previous record of 623 kph. 

How does the train go so fast?

The train is moved and suspended above the ground using magnetic-levitation technology — basically using the push and pull forces of magnets to guide, speed or slow the train.

This means the maglev train is much lighter, as it doesn't need wheels and brakes and other heavy bits of engineered steel to keep it safely on a railway.

To help keep friction down, China's latest superconducting maglev train is suspended, using three types of magnets, in a low-vacuum pipeline to "fly".

This generation is designed to reach up to 1,000 kph — faster than most people will ever travel on an airplane.

Unless you're Taylor Swift, whose private jet can still outpace the maglev train … just.

What are the main challenges?

UK high-speed rail expert Professor Andrew McNaughton told the ABC there were several difficulties in building large maglev networks.

Firstly, all new infrastructure, like the low-vacuum tunnel in China, has to be built and no older trains or railways are compatible. 

Secondly, the energy requirement is "very substantial", Professor McNaughton said.

"The third is that the volume of people between just two destinations is insufficient to justify the cost — unless it is two mega cities," he explained.

"Various studies have suggested that the construction and operational cost of maglev is probably four to five times that of a conventional high-speed railway."

Because of the velocities involved, noise is a big problem and means additional measures, like expensive tunnels and sound barriers, would need to be installed around communities.

"Lastly, whilst a maglev can operate around 500 kph compared with a conventional high-speed train at 350kph, the time saved — unless over a very long distance — is not huge and certainly not enough to justify the cost," Professor McNaughton said.

How will a train this fast change things?

Commuters can come into cities from further away, and the increased speed of logistics will be a boon for most businesses.

Because the train is capable of going up to 1,000 kph, there are other positives too.

When that kind of speed can be reached, trains can basically compete with planes.

A train capable of the high-speeds China is aiming for would likely have a big impact for a large country, said associate professor Jonathan Couldrick from the ANU College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics.

"Imagine commuting 400 kilometres in around half an hour — that would be a game changer for the population centres," he told the ABC.

"And so you can actually have growth areas away from the capital cities, and people commute in in the morning."

Mr Couldrick said the fast trains could also be better for the environment.

He has estimated that completely replacing regional passenger aircraft with ultra-high-speed trains in some countries where people have to travel vast distances could reduce carbon emissions by 3 or 4 per cent.

Designers want to push the limits of the train and Mao Kai, the technical chief of the project, told Chinese media it could ultimately reach a blistering 4,000 kph.

That's even faster than the record 3,529.6 kph reached in 1976 by the almighty SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft — the fastest manned aircraft in history.

How does it compare to other high-speed trains?

In places like Japan and France, high-speed trains have been around for decades.

Since 2010, about 10 countries have developed high-speed trains — ones that can travel more than 250 kph.

But they run on railways and can't achieve speeds much beyond 350 kph, railway expert Associate Professor Philip Laird from the University of Wollongong told the ABC.

Except for the TGV in France, which holds the record for the fastest commercial train on steel wheels .

In special test conditions, a modified version can race along at 574.8 kph, but with passengers aboard it usually operates at speeds of about 320 kph.

The Shanghai maglev currently holds the record for the fastest train in service.

At 460 kph, the 30-kilometre journey between Shanghai's Pudong airport and Longyang Road station takes only about seven and a half minutes.

Japan's fastest bullet train can hit a maximum speed of about 320 kph,   Dr Laird said.

But Japan also has a 42-kilometre test track on which it has run a maglev train at 503 kph, but that train is not expected to be in service until 2030 at the earliest, according to Dr Laird.

When Japan's new generation of maglev trains rolls out, they are expected to run at maximum speeds of 500 kph between Tokyo and Nagoya.

In October, Indonesia unveiled a high-speed railway that runs for about 150 kilometres between Jakarta and Bandung.

With maximum speeds of 350kph, the Whoosh is the fastest railway line in South-East Asia and was built by China at a cost of about $7.65 billion.

India has also been hard at work building a high-speed train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

It is due to be opened by 2027, Dr Laird said. 

Could maglev connect Australia's distant cities?

Australia has been looking at connecting cities with high-speed rail for about 40 years.

Despite the huge costs involved with acquiring land and building the network, the  High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) was created last June to take the idea from paper to reality.

The federal government has also committed almost $80 million to the greatly anticipated high-speed rail line from Sydney to Newcastle .

Whether they would be keen to take it a step further and build a maglev rail remains to be seen, but Dr Couldrick is sceptical.

He estimated the cost to construct a maglev system in Australia would be, conservatively, about $1,000 per metre — for the magnets alone.

"That's $1 million per kilometre, on top of all the other infrastructure costs" he said.

"The cost–benefit may not be there"

Dr Laird said he was optimistic Australia would one day have a high-speed rail network, but it would take a while to construct.

He also was unsure about the likelihood of a maglev system but believes a high-speed rail network could be built incrementally.

"This has been the case in Japan —  it started off with just over 500 kilometres (of high-speed railway lines) in 1964," he said.

"Now they have about 3,000 kilometres."

Professor McNaughton said the only place where a maglev would make sense would be between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

But, because maglev needs entirely new infrastructure and cannot run on existing lines while its dedicated track is built, the whole network would have to be completed before the first train could run.

"That's one heck of an infrastructure project," he said.

"If there are barely enough people travelling to justify high-speed rail — four planes an hour is one high-speed train, really — then justifying maglev at several times the cost isn't going to be remotely likely."

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Ultra-Fast 'Hyperloop' Train Gets Test Track in California

The "Hyperloop," a hypothetical high-speed transportation system that could shuttle people between Los Angeles and San Francisco in only 30 minutes, just sped a bit closer to reality.

First proposed in 2013 by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk , CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, the Hyperloop would transport passengers in floating pods inside low-pressure tubes at speeds of more than 750 mph (1,200 km/h).

Now, the company Hyperloop Transportation Technologies Inc. (which is not affiliated with Musk or Tesla) has inked a deal with landowners in central California to build the world's first Hyperloop test track, according to market research firm Navigant Research . The 5-mile (8 km) test track will be built along California's Interstate 5. [ Photos: Elon Musk's Superfast 'Hyperloop' Transit System of the Future ]

Separately, Musk has said he plans to build his own 5-mile test track, likely in Texas, for companies and students to test out potential Hyperloop designs .

How Hyperloop will work

Musk laid out his plans for the Hyperloop in a paper published on the SpaceX website . He has described the superspeedy mode of transport as a "cross between a Concorde, a rail gun and an air-hockey table."

The idea is, passenger pods will travel inside tubes under a partial vacuum, and will be accelerated to blistering speeds using magnets . A set of fans attached to the pods will allow the train to rest on a cushion of air. The system would be powered by solar panels along the length of the tube.

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The world's fastest magnetically levitated (maglev) train  travels at about 310 mph (500 km/h). Maglev trains work by using magnets to produce both lift and propulsion. By contrast, the hyperloop would only use magnets for propulsion, relying on compressed air for lift. Maglev trains are in operation in Shanghai and Tokyo, and South Korea plans to open one in June.

Hyperloop pods could theoretically travel very fast, because they wouldn't have to overcome friction between the wheels and track that a typical train uses, or the air resistance that conventional vehicles experience at high speeds.

"You can go a couple of hundred miles an hour with a wheel, as the French and Germans and Japanese have proven," said Marc Thompson, an engineering consultant at Thompson Consulting Inc. in Boston, who has worked on maglev systems. But, "as you go faster, the drag force on the train becomes a very high energy cost."

The design Musk proposed would travel at speeds of up to about 760 mph (1,220 km/h), but the test project, which aims to break ground in early 2016, would be tested at 200 mph (322 km/h) to prove it works and is safe, Navigant reported.

At that speed, the air drag is still possible to overcome, but beyond that, the power needed to exceed the drag increases as the speed cubed, said James Powell, a retired physicist and co-inventor of the superconducting maglev concept.

Is it feasible?

The Hyperloop has the potential to be a faster, cheaper and more energy-efficient  form of travel than planes, trains or buses, its proponents say. However, it's not yet known if the technology is feasible, or safe. [ Video: What on Earth Is a Hyperloop? ]

For one thing, the tubes have to be very straight, leaving very little room for error. "The guideway [track] has to be built to very fine tolerances, because if the position of the wall deviates from straightness by a few thousandths of an inch, you could crash," Powell told Live Science.

The tubes also have to maintain low-pressure air. "The problem with traveling in an evacuated tube is, if you lose the vacuum in the tube, everybody in the tube will crash," Powell said. In addition, the vehicle's compressor — which produces the air cushion on which the pods rest — can't fail, or the pods will crash into the walls, he added.

"The whole system is vulnerable to a single-point failure," Powell said. For example, somebody could blow a hole in the tube's side, or an earthquake (no rarity in California) could shift the tube by a fraction of an inch, both of which would cause the vehicles to crash. In superconducting maglev, by contrast, the magnets are very stable and operate reliably, Powell said. "It doesn’t require continuous control to keep it suspended."

What will it cost?

The 5-mile test track is estimated to cost about $100 million, which Hyperloop Transportation Technologies hopes to pay for with its initial public offering (IPO) later this year, according to Navigant's blog. Assuming building costs remain the same, a 400-mile (644 km) track between Los Angeles and San Francisco would cost about $8 billion (not including development costs), experts estimate. This price tag is still far less than that for California's planned high-speed rail project, which could cost $67.6 billion, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

But Powell questions whether the Hyperloopwould really be as cheap as promised. "The main cost of these high-speed systems is in the cost of the guideway," he said. And because the track must be built so precisely, it's going to be more expensive, he added.

Even if the Hyperloop is successful, Powell doesn't think it will fix the United States' transportation problems — namely, congested highways and airways. "A few isolated high-speed rail corridors in the United States really won't address our big problems," he said.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter . Follow us @livescience , Facebook  & Google+ . Original article on Live Science .

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Elon Musk has started the building revolution for a new train system.

Dubbed Hyperloop, it will allow you to get from London to Edinburgh or LA to San Francisco in under 30 minutes. But what is it and how does it work? Good questions. Musk has likened it to a vacuum tube system in a building used to move documents from place to place. Confused? No worries. Here's everything you need to know about the futuristic train coming from the founder of Tesla and SpaceX.

We also delve into competitor systems, like Virgin Hyperloop One.

• What is X.COM? Elon Musk's new website and project teased
• What is SolarCity and why is Tesla buying it?
• Tesla: Everything you need to know about its cars and more

What is Hyperloop?

Hyperloop is essentially a train system that Musk calls "a cross between a Concorde, a railgun, and an air hockey table". It's based on the very high-speed transit (VHST) system proposed in 1972, which combines a magnetic levitation train and a low pressure transit tube. It evolves some of the original ideas of VHST, but it still uses tunnels and pods or capsules to move from place to place.

Musk has likened it to a vacuum tube system in a building used to move documents from place to place.

What speeds have been proposed?

Hyperloop is being proposed as an alternative to short distance air travel, where the system will be much faster than existing rail networks and much cleaner that flight. Hyperloop isn't about going as fast as possible, because you'll have to deal with high G forces when it came to turns, which isn't ideal for passenger travel. Speeds of over 700mph are suggested for journeys.

But there are practical implications that have to be considered on a short stop-start journey, such as the acceleration and deceleration sensation that passengers would go through.

How does Elon Musk's Hyperloop work?

Air bearings or maglev.

One of the biggest problems with anything moving is friction, both against surfaces and the environment the pod is moving through. Hyperloop proposes to move away from traditional wheels by using air bearings for pods instead. This will have the pod floating on air. It's similar to maglev, in which the electromagnetic levitation of the train means there is no friction like a traditional train that runs on tracks.

This is how current maglev trains can achieve super speeds, like the 500km/h maglev train in Japan. One Hyperloop proposal, from Virgin Hyperloop One , uses passive magnetic levitation, meaning the magnets are on the trains and work with aluminium track. Current active maglev needs powered tracks with copper coiling, which can be expensive.

Musk's Hyperloop will take this to the next level by traveling through low pressure tubes.

Low pressure

Hyperloop will be built in tunnels that have had some of the air sucked out to lower the pressure. So, like high-altitude flying, there's less resistance against the pod moving through the tunnel, meaning it can be much more energy efficient, which is desirable in any transit system.

The original VHST proposed using a vacuum, but there's an inherent difficulty in creating and maintaining a vacuum in a tunnel that will have things like stations, and any break in the vacuum could potentially render the entire system useless. For Hyperloop, the idea is to lower the air pressure, a job that could be done by regularly placed air pumps.

Low pressure, however, means you still have some air in the tunnels.

The air bearing and passive maglev ideas are designed not only to levitate the pod, but also see the pod moving through the air, rather than pushing the air infront of it and dragging it along behind. The air cushion will see the air pumped from the front of the pod to the rear via these suspension cushions. The tunnels envisioned are metal tubes, elevated as an overground system.

Musk has suggested that solar panels running on the top of the tunnels could generate enough electricity to power the system. It could run as an underground system, too.

When will Elon Musk's Hyperloop arrive?

Hawthorne test track.

Musk hasn't yet given a date when we can expect to see Hyperloop up and running, he's merely announced that it will be made.

A one-mile test track built by SpaceX adjacent to Hawthorne, its California headquarters, has been built, and the first successful trial has been carried out. Virgin Hyperloop One plans to send an 8.5-metre long pod down a set of tracks in Nevada. In May 2017, a pod levitated on a separate test track in Nevada for 5.3-seconds and reached 70mph.

The first trial using one of the 8.7-metre passenger pods has now been carried out too. The pod travelled along the 500-metre test track, and reached a speed of 192mph before safely coming to a complete stop. 

LA to San Francisco

Planning documents currently propose a route between LA and San Francisco, a 354-mile journey, that would cost around $6 billion in construction. This is based on a passenger-only model, whereas one that can also transport vehicles would be $7.5 billion. This extra expenditure would be worth it since more people could use the system, offering potentially larger returns.

Shervin Pishevar, co-founder and chairman of Virgin Hyperloop One, aims to shuttle passengers and cargo in high-speed pods that are smaller than most planes and trains and designed to depart as often as every 10 seconds. He recently told CNBC : "Hyperloop will be operational, somewhere in the world, by 2020."

New York to DC

Must tweeted in July 2017 that his Boring Company tunnel project has received “verbal [government] approval” to build a Hyperloop that would connect the cities of New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. He also tweeted more details about the project. The new Hyperloop would only take 29 minutes to travel between New York City and DC, Musk claimed. 

It would feature “up to a dozen or more” access points via elevator in each city. Keep in mind Musk released his Hyperloop concept as an open-source white paper in 2013. As a result, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies is looking into a setup that would link Slovakia, Austria and Hungary. This is the same company that plans to create the five-mile test loop in California by 2018.

Musk has continually talked about his agitation with surface-level transportation. His tunnel project, dubbed the Boring Company, which began as a joke, is Musk's attempt at digging more efficiently. He's working on tunnel-boring machines than can both dig and reinforce tunnels, simultaneously. He also recently announced the completion of the first section of tunnel under Los Angeles.

Back to the “verbal govt approval": apparently, Musk's Boring Company will dig up the tunnel used for the New York-to-DC route. We've contacted the US Department of Transportation for more information. But based on Musk's tweets, we know work on the New York-to-DC Hyperloop will happen alongside the LA tunnel that's already in progress.

• Elon Musk's Hyperloop able to do London to Edinburgh run in 30 minutes

What about Virgin Hyperloop One?

Virgin Hyperloop One is a three-year-old startup out of Los Angeles. It is trying to develop a hyperloop train in order to reinvent transportation. Hyperloop transportation was first introduced by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in 2013 as an open-sourced idea. Virgin Hyperloop One's co-founder, Shervin Pishevar, often credits Musk for the inspiration, though Musk is not involved with Virgin Hyperloop One at all. 

Virgin Hyperloop One was previously known as Hyperloop One or Virgin Hyperloop One. In October 2017, Hyperloop One and the Virgin Group announced a strategic partnership, in which Virgin Group had invested Hyperloop One and Richard Branson would join Hyperloop One's board of directors. As a result, Hyperloop One has been rebranded to Virgin Hyperloop One.

How will Virgin Hyperloop One work?

Virgin Hyperloop One's system will be built on columns or tunneled below ground.

It’s fully autonomous and enclosed, eliminating pilot error and weather hazards. It's also clean, with no carbon emissions. And the trains can depart up to several times per minute and can transport passengers and cargo direct to their destination. Many of the technologies Virgin Hyperloop One is currently using have been around for a while, such as linear electric motors, maglev, and vacuum pumps.

Here's how Virgin Hyperloop One describes its system:

"Passengers or cargo are loaded into the Hyperloop vehicle and accelerate gradually via electric propulsion through a low-pressure tube. The vehicle floats above the track using magnetic levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances due to ultra-low aerodynamic drag."

When will Virgin Hyperloop One be ready?

The company has developed a full-scale test track, otherwise called a proprietary electric propulsion system, in North Las Veas. The first open-air propulsion test happened in May 2016, followed by the first full-systems test in May 2017 and Phase 2 testing in July 2017. The company is focused on developing a passenger and mixed-use operational hyperloop transportation system by 2021.

How much will it cost to ride?

According to Virgin Hyperloop One CEO Dirk Ahlborn, the cost of a ticket should be around $30 mark to get a passenger from LA to San Francisco. That, he says, should allow the company to pay back its initial costs in eight years.

Whether this will actually be the price of a ticket remains to be seen.

What will it feel and sound like?

Virgin Hyperloop One said it will feel like you're riding in an elevator or a passenger plane. There will be tolerable G forces, as you will be accelerating and decelerating gradually, but there will be no turbulence. In terms of sound, people on the outside will only hear a "big whoosh". The tubes are constructed out of thick, strong steel and can handle 100 Pa of pressure or more.

HYPERLOOP: The future, reality of high-speed tube travel discussed in NYC

Imagine traveling between New York City and Washington, D.C., in 30 minutes instead of five hours. The technology exists to safely transport commuters in high-speed vacuum tubes. Ten companies are actively pursuing the literal pipe dream – but the development cost and need for public-private coordination is extremely high, according to a panel of experts who spoke at Cornell’s ILR Conference Center Dec. 1.

Journalists got a glimpse into the future of high-speed travel during an Inside Cornell talk in Manhattan that previewed an evening reception by members of the Hyperloop Advanced Research Partnership (HARP), founded about a year ago.

R. Richard Geddes , professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and director of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy, has a key role promoting and coordinating HARP’s goals. Geddes’ research focuses on funding and financing major infrastructure projects in the transportation and water sectors – including innovative public-private partnerships.

“We are ripe for a new mode of transportation to emerge,” he said.

An increasing number of companies and transit systems are reinventing transportation. Hyperloop is a bold but not new concept that is driving interest – domestically and internationally – in high- speed tube transit. In October, Maryland gave permission to begin a hyperloop project there.

Geddes explained that passenger jets need to climb to 30,000 feet for air resistance to be quite low. “The Hyperloop can achieve that at ground level or below ground level.”

Hyperloop travel does not burn as much energy, is safer and is not affected by weather conditions like traditional modes of travel, Geddes added. “Pods moving through tubes would be completely computer-controlled to avoid accidents,” he said.

HARP President Dane Egli, former White House National Security Council director for counterterrorism, said developing high-speed travel through tunnel vacuums will be costly but is inevitable: “It’s going to bring space travel to Earth.”

Clean, fast and cheaper over the long haul will win out over century-plus-old thinking about how to navigate antiquated, congested roads, runways, rivers and rails, Egli said.

“The technology is there. An element of this is absolutely exciting, like the ‘Jetsons,’” he said, referring to the futuristic 1960s cartoon series.

Egli predicted that so-called Hyperloop systems, already being tested outside Las Vegas and in Colorado, will emerge in key areas of the country in one to three years. “In five to 10 years we will start stringing together a network,” he said.

Given the high density of mass transit users in suburban New York City, Egli said, “Obviously, New York is an ideal location to do it. It begins to close the divides between the haves and have nots.”

Egli and other panelists said with higher-speed transit, the workforce will be able to find more job opportunities longer distances away from their homes and travel to and from work more efficiently. “We are talking about an expensive project,” he said. “We need to find public-private partnerships. In the next three to five years, you’re going to have people looking at this very seriously. All of the experiments have had some level of success.”

Chris Zahas, managing principal of Leland Consulting Group in Portland, Oregon, said there is a lot of secrecy surrounding Hyperloop technology because of competitive trade pressures. “The challenge is which technology wins out,” Zahas said. “The sooner collaboration happens ... the quicker it hits the ground.”

Geddes added, “It’s not really that big a departure from what we have now,” referring to advances in high-speed railroads.

The panelists also hosted an evening event to promote Hyperloop and reach out to new potential partners that attracted top transit visionaries and policy experts who are shaping the future of high- speed tube transportation through public, private and academic partnerships.

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First passengers travel in a hyperloop pod through vacuum tube

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The first passengers have travelled successfully aboard a hyperloop – exceeding 100mph inside a magnetic-levitation pod enclosed in a near-vacuum tube.

Josh Giegel, the chief technology officer and co-founder, and Sara Luchian, director of passenger experience, travelled just one-third of a mile at the Virgin Hyperloop One test track, known as DevLoop, in the Nevada desert just north of Las Vegas.

They occupied a special two-seater pod, though production vehicles are planned to carry up to 28 people. The journey lasted just 15 seconds and reached 107mph.

Mr Giegel described the experience as “one giant leap toward that ultimate dream, not only for me, but for all of us who are looking towards a moonshot right here on Earth”.

Ms Luchian said: “What better way to design the future than to actually experience it first-hand?”

Jay Walder, the chief executive of Virgin Hyperloop, said: “I can’t tell you how often I get asked ‘is hyperloop safe?

“With today’s passenger testing, we have successfully answered this question.”

Virgin Hyperloop tested more than 400 unmanned missions before the human trial. The speed reached was a fraction of the 670mph aim for the technology – faster than the cruising speed of jet aircraft.

The company is aiming to install a link connecting Abu Dhabi with Dubai in the UAE, and is working on a hyperloop connecting Mumbai and Pune in India.

In 2018, Sir Richard Branson laid out plans for a hyperloop network across Britain . 

After the trial in Nevada, the Virgin founder said: “With today’s successful test, we have shown that this spirit of innovation will in fact change the way people everywhere live, work, and travel in the years to come.”

Another billionaire, Elon Musk , is working on a rival system. The Tesla founder set up The Boring Company to construct “a high-speed underground public transportation system” based on a network of low-cost tunnels.

The plan is to transport passengers at up to 150mph in autonomous Tesla vehicles beneath and between cities.

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