Seems like Houston - Dallas - OKC - St. Louis - Chicago would be a good flat, straight set of routes.
I have a question though; how will this work when you hit a station? Say your pod goes from OKC to St. Louis, but you want to continue on to Chicago? Do you have to de-pod in St. Louis and hop on another (with your luggage) to continue on, or does your pod just slow down, pick some people up and keep on going?
In other words, is it to be a series of loops, or one big loop with “pit stop” areas where pods can be shunted to drop people on and off, and where “express” pods can keep on going?
The PDF describes baggage being in a separate compartment, loaded by employees.
But I think carryon is the way to go for most people, this is intended as a daily ride the way people do 45 minutes on the freeway today.
For a multi-city loop, I think each pod will be going to/from a single destination.
If you are headed to OKC, your pod gets shunted to a side tube and the Chicago pod is unaffected.
You could stop and start them at each city but that loses a lot of the time efficiency.
Another thought - what if every tenth pod or so was used for freight? Transport costs could drop considerably, with the distribution of goods between somewhere like Chicago and Dallas priced higher and subsidizing the ticket cost. I could imagine a setup similar to a train yard, with pods loaded at the factory and trucked to the pod station.
That was my reaction as well. Seems like something right out of Popular Science.
Yeah that’s one reason that I don’t feel like this is much of a competitor for trains - the peaking capacity is far to low for commuter use (840 passengers per hour in each direction - apparently high speed trains can easily take 10,000 - 20,000 passengers per hour). If it were to be built as described it would surely make more sense to be charging a far higher premium given that it would be the fastest mode of transport between the two destinations by a large margin.
Letting people move around inside a vehicle that’s travelling very fast on air cushions could also be a problem.
Unless the passengers are a very tiny fraction of the total mass of the pod, a person jumping about (or tripping and falling flat) could cause the pod to graze the tube walls.
Good catch! That was a silly mistake. So, the KE is more like 750 MJ. That’s a significant difference but still not insurmountable. The skid pads can be wider, and there is a huge headroom in the capsule spacing. Also, as mentioned, air brakes and the like are possible.
Did you read what you linked me to? It’s not like what is currently being described.
“tube train, suspended and propelled by compressed air.” This device is propelled electrically.
And that makes a huge difference in feasibility vs air pressure.
(Short summary: He’s misrepresenting both the costs of HSR and the elevated viaducts HyperLoop would require. His proposed system would also subject passengers to extreme lateral and vertical accelerations. “It’s not transportation; it’s a barf ride.”)
I like the idea, but it is literally a pipe dream. I agree it’s something that I’d see on the cover of Popular Mechanic or the like. The construction cost estimate is laughably small, and there would be complications hampering every single step to making it a real working transportation system, from planning, refining the design, easements, right of way issues, safety, construction, inevitable construction delays, ticket pricing, passenger comfort, security, maintenance, you get the idea. I don’t care how much the paper says it accounts for that, it’s going to take an order of magnitude more money to finish it. And travel times will be half as fast and ticket twice as much.
The author doesn’t understand anything about how passengers react to G loads. The worst you can say is that the +0.5 g portions will be slightly uncomfortable due to the increased weight. It has nothing to do with motion sickness. The passengers never perceive any lateral acceleration; the force force vector is always to the floor (or front/rear) of the car. The seats are designed for increased comfort for this type of acceleration and obviously transitions will be designed to be smooth (low jerk).
Imagine these pylons every so many miles along I-5. And each has a power source of some sort for the Hyperloop. He mentions that the solar panels will collect a surplus of energy.
Now think about his connection to Tesla Motors.
If this thing gets built and is successful, we’ll eventually all be driving electric cars*, able to stop along I-5 as needed to charge up.
*Hyperbole, but it would certainly be a synergistic dynamic being formed.
That’s the plan, completely separate from the Hyperloop: they’re installing high-speed charging stations every 200 miles all across the country. Provided you buy a top-end Tesla, you’ll be able to stop and get a full charge in about 40 minutes, just long enough to have a leisurely lunch or dinner. And, they’re not charging for the electricity.