Hyperloop One Reveals Its Plans For Connecting Europe (engadget.com) 213
Hyperloop One has revealed its plans for connecting Europe via its Hyperloop transportation system that can move passengers/cargo at airlines speeds for a fraction of the cost of air travel. The company is currently considering nine potential routes in Europe, "running from a 90km hop to connect Estonia and Finland, through to a 1,991km pan-German route," reports Engadget. "The UK [...] gets three proposes routes: one to connect its Northern Cities, one to connect the North and South, and one to connect Scotland with Wales." From the report: Several of the routes, including ones between Estonia and Finland, Corsica to Sardinia and Spain -- Morocco, all cross bodies of water. The company has, on several occasions, spoke of its love of tunnels, and plans to use them extensively in construction. Although rather than using tunneling machines, which can be slow, submerged box tunnels or archimedes bridges may be cheaper and faster to build. CNBC notes that the proposals for Europe connect more than 75 million people in 44 cities, spanning 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles).
Sounds great (Score:3)
Re:Sounds great (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, as much as I like the idea of a hyperloop, and new ways to transport people, I think the main issue of hyperloop is right now that its an unproven technology. There isn't a single track in operation around the globe. No info about how expensive it all is, etc. Of course, operating one track is considerably more expensive per rail km than operating many tracks, due to economics of scale, but you can't just give a company that has nothing but concepts billions of dollars/euros to deploy a technology that hasn't even a working prototype. I mean I'm not saying that hyperloop is a bad idea and that it will never work, but I'm neither sure of hyperloop working so well that it should be deployed.
Re: (Score:2)
Except this happens all the time in software. Not surprising someone like Musk expects it to happen with every pet hardware project he tries.
Re: (Score:2)
Or just build a 50 mile test track from San Jose to Palo Alto, and then up the Peninsula to SF. That would be enough to test the concept, and if it works, there would be plenty of demand from people that can afford the fare.
Re: (Score:2)
But Europe already has right-of-ways for high speed trains, which could be used for the hyperloop. And Musk is just discovering that those right of ways are the hardest part (which seemed obvious a while ago.).
Now, Europe has those right of ways, because they already have high-speed trains, so they don't need the hyperloops....
Good luck in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
Cross rail, Channel Tunnel (Score:5, Informative)
It's a train in a tunnel but with air sucked out of it. So the difference between a high speed train tunnel and this is the air suckage.
So its put all the energy into keeping the air sucked out, instead of pushing the train against the air.
But the air is a known problem, in the Channel Tunnels it's handled with vents connecting the two direction tunnels, they open and close so the pressure wave from the front of one train pushed the train in the other direction from behind. Chunnel is not watertight let alone air tight.
So if you consider the costs of the Channel Tunnel GBP 9.5 billion for 31 miles of track, and the price.... the Chunnel competes with boats that are slow and expensive, a normal train has to compete with cars, coach, normal rail and flights.
So say low interest 3% government loan, so that 31 miles of track needs to return GBP 285 million profit. Eurotunnel makes only about 51 million, and that's competing only against ferries.
So hyperloop is basically hype. They cannot deliver on any of these ideas and their costings are comedically bad.
Re:Cross rail, Channel Tunnel (Score:5, Informative)
The fast trains between London and Paris (2hours city centre to city centre) has cut the number of flights dramatically between london and paris. More people are travelling between them now than ever before.
The tunnel (road traffic) competes against the ferries. The Passenger tail service from London to Paris, Brussels etc competes against the airlines.
I took the train from London to Avignon last year (a through service). Very much more civilised way of travelling than by air. Yes it took a bit longer but was far less stressful.
Re: (Score:2)
Not to mention the continued expansion of the Eurostar to Rotterdam and more importantly Amsterdam (European travel hub).
Once that's done I'm not flying to our head office again. I can spend the extra hour doing work on the train rather than standing in a line to take my shoes and belt off.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That's why the train has taken more than 50% of the market between London and Paris.
Taking the train is no big deal here in Europe unlike the USA. I don't even think about taking my car into Central London. 45 minutes on the train and the ticket includes Busses and tube. Simple really.
Re: (Score:2)
Hyperloop requires loading vehicles into a tra
Re: (Score:2)
A better model would be Japanese high speed rail. For a start, a lot of the profit comes form the stations which are basically big shopping centres. The station is a destination in itself, with shops, supermarkets, restaurants, daycare and more. The revenue from that subsidises the trains, which bring people to the shops.
As for land, the new maglev track is over 90% tunnel. Through hard rock and difficult terrain. 800km/h, rising to well over 1000km/h. Hyperloop is 1500km/h but the cars are much smaller and
Re: (Score:2)
The jap. MagLev trains have a speed of about 600km/h, far away from 1000km/h.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's not downplay the cost of the Chunnel. £9.5 billion in 1994 is probably more like £18 billion once adjusted for inflation.
Re:Good luck in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
I can't see this happening in the UK fortunately
FTFY
Whilst hyperloop may be orders of magnitude cheaper per route km ...
Lay off the Kool-aid if I were you. Why should a railway in a vacuum tunbe be cheaper to build than a railway not in a vacuum tube? (Yes, yes, I know Musk and his fans don't like it called a "railway". OK, "Guided public transport", whatever).
In fact it will involve far more expensive civil engineering because at its speed the curvature in both horizontal and vertical planes will need to be very very gentle - much more so than with conventional railways. So expect either mostly tunnels, or massive cuttings and viaducts. Those support pylons, that people keep glossing over as if it were a contour-hugging oil pipe, will need to be hundreds of feet high in some places.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously the tracks in curves would be tilted.
progress! (Score:5, Funny)
Unlike so many previous ripoffs, this one has the "hype" right in the name!
Is it really practical (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Engineer, I see always see the problems....
- Thousands of sliding expansion joints that need to remain vacuum tight.
- The psychology of being subjected to movement with no visual reference (vomit tube)
- The problem of escaping people from a vacuum tube when something breaks. This would probably require uuuuge isolation valves every few km, and escape points closer than this, with emergency air infiltration systems, which then has to emergency break other pods who are then stuck in long queues with limited air, in battery powered coffins.
- Long term maintenance: esp of underground parts requiring building a tunnel in a tunnel.
- High capital cost of a complex pod requiring compressors, life support (aircon and air), batteries, recharging systems.
- Being not much faster than a bullet train of much higher capacity, and slower than an aircraft.
- Energy is becoming cheaper, so the main advantage of hyperloop is somewhat dulled.
I'm sure other can add more
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
As an Engineer, I always see solutions to problems. I always thought that was the point of the job.
Sure, I solve problems all day: but before I take on a project, I like to know the risk/reward ratio and for Hyperloop it doesn't look like a great ratio.
Re: (Score:2)
As an Engineer, I always see solutions to problems. I always thought that was the point of the job.
So let's see your plans for a free-as-in-beer time machine then.
Oh no, wait, not everything is possible, either technically or economically.
Re: (Score:3)
As an Engineer, I always see solutions to problems. I always thought that was the point of the job.
As an engineer I also see solutions to problems, but I also see their costs. All options have problems, but it is part of an engineers job to rule out those options with costs outweighing the advantages. Hyperloop is one of those, but as long as a billionaire nutter is paying engineers to work on it come-what-may, they will do so.
Historical perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Engineer, I always see solutions to problems.
As a physicist, I know engineers are not smart enough realize how stupid they are.
The hyper loop will never be cheaper than air travel or rail.
I was watching some of the original Mission Impossible episodes recently, and recalling my thoughts on watching them when they were first aired.
Some of them required tiny TV cameras hidden in (for example) a brooch worn by the female lead, and I remember thinking at the time how preposterous that was. The technological problems of getting a videcon that small, the lenses necessary, the power supply to generate the HV necessary for the tube, all the tube or transistor amplifiers, and the dry-cell battery needed to power it for several hours - complete fantasy!
And of course nowadays these devices are on eBay for $10.
You may not see the solutions to the problems today, but you really can't predict what will be possible tomorrow.
There's a difference between physically impossible and technologically impossible.
it's mostly materials. (Score:3)
There's a difference between physically impossible and technologically impossible.
there's a long disconnect what physically makes sense to build and what hyperloop is proposing.
mostly materials. you see. if hyperloop could develop the materials they need, they would be better off selling them for other uses than their tube.
they don't have what their idea needs.
their idea itself is 100+ years old. seriously, the idea is as old as balls and they don't have the technology to make it as of now.
conceptually it's the same as having a flying car company that depends on some sound dampening and battery technology that doesn't yet e
Re: (Score:3)
There's a difference between physically impossible and technologically impossible.
There is also a continuum from "we can build this now for pennies" to "we could theoretically build this in a few years' time at a cost of half the whole planet's GDP".
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You missed one:
This has already been discussed rather extensively [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone can make pointless videos like that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, that Thunderf00t video...
It raises very good points but the catastrophic failure argument doesn't hold. Ironically, a good demonstration is in one of his later video on the subject, the one with the imploding tank.
First thing, yes, people may die, crashing at supersonic speeds tends to do that. It will be expensive, rescuing trapped people will be difficult, etc... Definitely not fun.
However, what he misses is that the tube will be more than 100000 times longer than it is wide. The wall of air traveling
Re: (Score:2)
The psychology of being subjected to movement with no visual reference (vomit tube)
This is an issue in ships and aircraft, which can move around violently depending on weather. In a high-speed train, by contrast, you hardly notice anything. In a TGV, 300 km/h feels like standing still, the only lurching about is when the train approaches a station at low speed and runs over old tracks. Hyperloop won't have points or crossings, and won't encounter trains running in the opposite direction, so should be a very smooth ride.
Re: (Score:2)
The psychology of being subjected to movement with no visual reference (vomit tube)
In a high-speed train, by contrast, you hardly notice anything. In a TGV, 300 km/h feels like standing still Hyperloop .... should be a very smooth ride.
Unless the Hyperloop is dead straight there will be lateral and vertical accelerations as it takes curves* and changes of gradient. At such high speed, the builders will need to push these to near the limit of average human tolerance, for example to skirt round geographical features (villages, cities, hills), minimise tunnelling and viaducts, or, when underground, avoid geological difficulties.
I have never ridden the TGV myself, but those who have tell me there is quite a bit of "hump-back-bridge" sensatio
Nothing happens in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
I do not believe that the Hyperloop One is feasible with this generation of quaint leadership in Europe. They can just talk big and well about climate change, integration, etc.
Still in the 19th century there was the St. Petersburg-Wien-Nizza-Cannes-Express regular train https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] , there were no visas, and not even passports were necessary for travel. WW1 destroyed it all and we are still stuck there.
Re:Nothing happens in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
Talking about cherry-picking your examples. Ukraine is only geographically in Europe. It uses a different gauge and its railway tracks probably weren't maintained since the 1980ies. Even their fastest train (Hyindai Intercity) runs about as fast as German commuter trains stop every two minutes. If you want to go to Kharkov, use an airplane from Kiev. It is an old B737, but at least it is fast. Trust me, I speak from experience. Besides, the only reason to go to Kharkov in first place would be for using it as a time machine - it still feels very much like USSR - but if you want that particular experience, Tiraspol would probably be more authentic.
Re:Nothing happens in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
WW1 destroyed it all and we are still stuck there.
The illusion is that "WW1" is over - there have been lulls and diversions, but right now the US military is trying to keep together the partitioning of the Middle East that the British imposed in the early days of the World War.
Wilson and House's vision for a Pax Americana is just as wrong after a hundred years as it was then, and no amount of bombing the world for democracy can ever work. The premise and the goals of "WW1" are still playing out. Only once that strategy is abandoned can we be said to have given up the mantle of war.
Truly, here in America, we are born into an "we've always been at war" mindset and people believe it to be the normal.
Re: (Score:2)
I do not believe that the Hyperloop One is feasible with this generation of quaint leadership in Europe.
You could have stopped writing after the word "feasable".
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of talk about "European Integration", but nothing really changes on the ground.
And what does European Integration have to do with non-EU countries?
trains are fast enough in the UK (Score:2, Interesting)
They can always run the existing trains faster, they just don't like the wear on the tracks.
If people want the hyperloop experience they can always just make one of the cars a lot smaller and take the window out.
Come to think of it, if the train cars rode closer to the rails and were half the height they could probably just run the whole train 50% faster
Fishing for investors (Score:4, Insightful)
Correction for BS summary... (Score:3)
Hyperloop One has revealed its plans for connecting Europe via its Hyperloop transportation system that can* move passengers/cargo at airlines speeds for a fraction of the cost of air travel.
*cannot
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Hyperloop is all Hype and nothing else (Score:3)
Building costs? (Score:2)
move passengers/cargo at airlines speeds for a fraction of the cost of air travel
Only if you don't include the cost of building the infrastructure. Once you total up the cost of building an airtight tunnel for hundreds of miles, and of designing, proving and building the trains, carriages and stations to deal with near-vaccum travel, the cost of a ticket will far exceed the cost of a flight. We have had airports for decades and most of them are already paid-for, from past use.
Connecting nowhere (Score:2)
FFS, WHY? (Score:2)
Re:Wait in line (Score:5, Insightful)
One assumes that all 75 million people aren't traveling from Estonia to Finland at the same time.
Re:Wait in line (Score:5, Funny)
Have you ever been to Estonia? It might not be safe to assume that they won't all leave at once...
Re: (Score:2)
I bet you don't actually live there though? prices of ferries? it's cheap as balls to go over already and when the catamarins run it's just couple of hours.
and if they were to build a tunnel, it would be far cheaper and almost just as fast to just drive it with 200kmh regular trains.
of course musk keeps saying that somehow hyperloop would be cheaper, in which case you could just replace all train routes with them.
tech hub or not, you would still be connecting it with just helsinki - if it were cheap enough
Re:Wait in line (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, you could actually RTFM (in this case, TFM = Hyperloop Alpha [spacex.com]) rather than being bewildered as to why.
The short of it: it's basically a pipeline, so you start with base pipeline costs for the given diameter. Compared to a pipeline:
Advantages:
* Far lower mass loadings
* Does not carry things that could "leak" and contaminate the ground (much easier environmental permitting, less NIMBY)
* Simpler thermal management
* Much lower pumping requirements (just to head this off: it's a mild vacuum, not a hard vacuum. The energy required (and pump sizes) to pump fluids through a pipeline is far more than is required to simply maintain a mild vacuum)
* Usually periodic branch points
Disadvantages:
* Far greater straightness requirements
* Requires an internal orbital polisher
* Periodic emergency exits
Both share infrastructure requirements at their endpoints, just of different kinds, both require a leak detection process, both require regular sensors, both require earthquake protection, etc. In general, however, pipeline construction is not very expensive, even at large diameters, relative to rail construction. The ready-made pipe segments are brought to the site and an orbital welder [google.is] connects them together.
Versus rail, Hyperloop offers far lower peak mass loadings. This is because (and feel free to do the math yourself, I have) in both cases, the "track" - whether continuously-welded steel rails or orbital-welded pipe, is well lighter than the vehicles on them, but Hyperloop vehicles - being small with frequent launches rather than heavy with infrequent launches - provide far lower mass loadings. The cost of elevating a structure is directly proportional to its peak mass loadings, and hence the order of magnitude lower peak mass loadings translates to an order of magnitude lower elevation cost, as well as smaller cross section pylons which are easier to locate in tight spaces.
This in turn enables the practical location of it in road medians (with proper crash barriers as needed), if you have government buy-in to the concept. Hyperloop Alpha assumes that you will. I have to concur, it's hugely to the advantage of the government to do so, as the government has to spend huge amounts of public money building transportation infrastructure regardless. Road medians are already permitted for far more onerous environmental and noise conditions (road traffic) than Hyperloop would provide, which should make permitting much easier; the only new thing you're introducing is visual, which you have to introduce for any transportation system construction.
Due to the straightness requirements, the system cannot just stay within road medians. Varying bend radii depending on the speed planned for the segment require various deviations from medians. This requires private land acquisition - budgeted at typical rail rates for private land acquisition - and various tall pylons and/or short tunnel segments (budgeted at typical pipeline tunneling rates) where the landscape dictates it in order to maximize curve radii. And yes, they are typical rates, I've crosschecked the numbers in the document, and encourage you to as well.
Now as for the rest as to why it's so much cheaper than rail, they do cheat on that. There's three main ways. The first is simple: it doesn't carry as many people as California's HSR (it's roughly halfway between HSR and air travel on a logarithmic scale in terms of passenger capacity). That's not really a cheat on the per-passenger cost, but it is a cheat on th
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
A transient (89ms) mass loading (short enough not to allow for any meaningful deflection**) of far lower peak magnitude versus a permanent mass loading of far greater peak magnitude - there is no
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I have no clue what you mean by "resistance requirements". If you mean "mass loading", of course you can. Even the loading distribution is roughly the same - greatest at the bottom, less on the sides, little on top. And the towers are indifferent to where the loadings come from, it's just mass tr
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm bad about proofreading as well :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In English, concerning physics, "resistance" generally means electrical resistance, thermal resistance, or drag (e.g. "air resistance"). How bodies deform under stre
Re: (Score:2)
So, you are basically saying that building a standard piping system to conduct fluids is more difficult than one hosting the very fast transportation of persons except for these points? Even by ignoring diameter/length aspects, I am afraid that such a claim is very far away from being truth.
A oil pipeline is under pressure, a gas pipeline is under high pressure.
The outside pressure on an hyper-loop is less than one atmosphere.
Go figure.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Their earthquake proofing (and safety in the event of an accident, e.g. a truck going into one of the pylons in a road median) is not nearly good enough. The PDF they put out suggests that they will simply put adjustable dampers in the pylons... But such things react relatively slowly and have a limited range of movement.
The reason that high speed rail is separated from other things by grades, fencing and large, high-mass pillars is so that these kinds of events don't deform the rails enough to derail the
Re: (Score:2)
When I was a kid I was very much into blowpipes. The solution to windage is a wad. I suspect it might take more than one sheet of bogroll in this case though.
Re: (Score:2)
First off, thanks for actually reading the document. These discussions are a lot more enjoyable when 90% of responses aren't just "RTFM" ;)
They actually have calculations of the track respo
Re: (Score:2)
of course musk keeps saying that somehow hyperloop would be cheaper
yes, that paper and other stuff from hyperloop is what i was referring to but they are failing to make a 10 km track. if it is cheaper than rail, they have already a business.
but it isn't and their test tube and the test chariots were laughable.
that bloody paper IS what I referred to, it kind of makes sense(reason for them publishing it) but their actions and the fact that nobody has ever managed to do something like that(themselves included!) is what is against it. the bloody paper doesn't add up. their pl
Re: (Score:2)
The short of it: it's basically a pipeline
You mean a tube used to transport large quantities of liquids between two places? A very good comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the thing about technology is its capacity to surprise you, both in positive and negative ways.
I still find the capacity of search engines to provide instantaneous response covering millions of data sites to millions of simultaneous users astonishing. It's something that thirty years ago I would have put more like a hundred years in the future, not ten.
And yet, we still don't have a flying car, largely I think because while people think it's something they want, when you put one together it's just n
Re:Wait in line (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, linking us here in Helsinki to Tallin with a tunnel may be smart. However, using Hyperloop to do it makes no sense to me as a Finn that travels to Estonia several times a year. Why? The travel time on the fastest ferries is already down to below couple hours, and they're currently looking into the option of building a rail tunnel [wikipedia.org] in between the cities. which would cut the travel time down to 45 minutes. Benefits of a rail system over something like the hyperloop at this point are enormous: first off, trains are a technology we have mastered and the project does not require maintaining a near-vacuum, second of all trains have a higher capacity than hyperloop and are very likely cheaper to maintain*.
The Hyperloop test track which was about a mile long is so far the 2nd largest vacuum chamber in the world after NASA's. The Hyperloop tech is probably on the order of decades from being commercially viable. Even the planning of a regular underwater tunnel takes years, the estimated completion time of the rail tunnel is in 2038. Infrastructure projects like this take massive amounts of time and money to plan an execute and the planning needs to be started years in advance so it's near impossible that a technology like Hyperloop in such an early stage of innovation will even be considered for the Helsinki-Tallin route. The upsides are not worth the increased risks.
Even the rail tunnel is not a certainty due to the cost factors involved. At 92 kilometers - nearly twice the English channel tunnel - It'd be the longest rail tunnel in the world and underwater, making it extremely expensive (current estimates are in the ballpark of 13 billion euros). With the ferry traffic being cheap (you can get tickets for less than 10 euros), plentiful and fast it may well be the case that the tunnel is never implemented. Not to mention that the ferry companies are major players in the baltic regional economy, and this wield significant political lobbying power both here and in Estonia. Tallink-Silja is one of the largest companies in the Baltics, coming 2nd or 3rd behind only banks.
So to summarize: would it make sense to establish a faster connection between Helsinki and Tallinn? Possibly, I'll wait for more info before saying that for sure. If it is done, what are the chances of hyperloop being used to do it? Practically zero.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The UK has never been part of Schengen, so leaving the EU won't change much.
Re: (Score:2)
...except for the visas UK citizens will need to get into the EU after day one of leaving, because they can't negotiate with any of the member countries for visa-free travel until after they have left.
they are supposed to negotiate those treaties before they leave.
however, any country might block those treaties - and thanks to schengen while uk can negotiate treaties to let people into uk, they cannot negotiate with individual countries to let brits into schengen, so guess what the result of those negotiations is going to be? exact same as it is now.
Except that... (Score:4, Informative)
so guess what the result of those negotiations is going to be? exact same as it is now.
Except that now UK isn't part of the EU and doesn't have anything to say anymore about its politics.
UK went from a full blown EU member, to probably the same status as Switzerland and Norway, two countries who were never members of the EU to begin with, and just sign treaties to be able to participate anyway.
Basically, UK just lost its voice at the EU table - its share of sovereignty.
Which sounds ironic, when a good chunk of the campaign's argument was something along the lines of "we want to be in charge of our own".
--
Or, UK could decide to go bonkers, completely sever ties with EU, and apply a request to be accepted as the 51st state of the USA. :-)
Airstrip One.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't get your 4)
The EU parliament works like any parliament.
The MoPs are voted in by citizens.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is wonderful Orwellian doublespeak; an EU bureaucrat couldn't have done better.
In fact, the UK decided that its "voice at the EU table" wasn't worth it; not surprising, given what a lousy deal the UK was getting from the EU.
Re: (Score:2)
"You can trade with our cartel in return for billions of contributions and accepting millions of people we don't know what to do with" is not principled free trade, it is an embrace of the mercantilism and protectionism. It is Orwellian doublespeak to characterrize EU trade policy as "free trade".
The EU never compromises its principals or its principles: both are rooted in greed, selfishness, and illibera
Re: (Score:2)
...except for the visas UK citizens will need to get into the EU after day one of leaving, because they can't negotiate with any of the member countries for visa-free travel until after they have left.
*yawn*
Visa-free travel does not even need to be negotiated. It can be granted unilaterally.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're willing to abide by the same free-movement requirements you're currently subjected to, sure.
That'd tick off the UKIPers to no end, mind you. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Visa-free travel doesn't mean document-free travel. Passports are a very likely middle ground.
Political != Geographical (Score:3)
They've also got their geography slightly wrong. By the time this finally eventuates, if it ever does, the UK won't be part of Europe any more.
Unless you expect hyperloop construction to take place on a geological timescale they have the geography just fine. Geographically the UK will remain part of Europe regardless of what the idiots in Westminster decide to do politically.
Re: (Score:2)
The business opportunity will be severely downgraded if people need visas to travel in/out of the UK though. May seems to be hoping that it goes wrong so she can blame the EU and avoid negotiating a deal that will inevitably be criticised, which means visas required to visit the EU or enter the UK.
Re: (Score:2)
Speak for yourself - I lost a ton of money on the Doggerland Hyperloop project when it went under.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, the arrogant and silly position that the only way to be a client state of the Greater Franco-German Reich, aka the EU.
I don't think so. The UK is part of Europe and will continue to be so until long after the EU has been relegated to the proverbial dustbins of history, where it belongs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
have to be cheap as pie to make it. (Score:5, Informative)
they will have to be cheap as pie between finland and estonia.
I seriously hope that finnish government doesn't put a dime towards this though. it's still unproven as fuck. they don't have a prototype. giving money towards a tunnel would be shady as fuck. furthermore, estonia - finland route is so fucking short that regular train going 200kmh would do just fine, just fine, if there was a tunnel.
and they have to be cheaper than 20 euros for a trip. which is basically cheaper than a comparable train route in finland. why? boats between finland and estonia are pretty darn cheap and will get you there in couple of hours anyways(!).
Re: (Score:3)
I seriously hope that finnish government doesn't put a dime towards this though. it's still unproven as fuck.
I know right! Why would a government ever put a cent towards something that isn't 100% proven. No government would be stupid enough to spend money on research, trials, pilots or any of that garbage. All of these *biggest things ever* or *newest things ever* should be funded 100% out of private pockets. That's the best way to ensure that costs to the people are kept low and the people remain best served.
Re: (Score:3)
just to add.. existing high speed train routes and the routes that would require a tunnel would be served just fine with a regular train and couldn't make a profit with a regular train.
Re: (Score:3)
FTFY
Re: (Score:3)
Wow, I have a tribute band. Cool! :)
Re: (Score:2)
There is another one without underscores, I believe.
Re: (Score:3)
He does not seem to know much about the UK either. A Hyperloop between Wales and Scotland? Very little traffic there. I live in one of the more populated areas of Wales and I've never come across anyone around here who travels to Scotland on any regular basis. It would be even less so if Scotland gets independence.
Re: (Score:2)
I bet that they looked at transport data around the weekend of the 6 nations rugby game between the two and said "Holy shit! Look at those numbers.", completely failing to recognize that there is probably close to zero demand for the rest of the year.
Re: (Score:2)
While I agree that Wales to Scotland probably isn't where you would start, you are missing the real opportunity. New high speed links can create traffic, not merely serve existing travellers.
Re: (Score:2)
In fact I've just checked and as I suspected there is no direct train between the Welsh and Scottish capitals, despite both places having loads of direct train services to other destinations. How about Musk sponsoring a direct high speed train service on this route to assess the demand before he throws billions on a Hyperlink (in his dreams anyway)?