Seriously? You really think you have to get the passengers settled in 2 minutes to run these at 2 minute intervals?

No, you don't but then that bites into the "35 minutes" from LA to SF. The reality is that these tubes will take 30 minutes minimum at each end to load, route, and unload. I expect that the time will be closer to 1.5 hours, plus the regular 1.5 hours getting though security, etc. You think that these are not going to require the same anal probing by the TSA? Fat chance!

This is a very old idea from the early 1800's.
Move along.

Jules Verne?

But these pods are supposed to be shot through the tubes at 2 minute intervals! There must be sizeable staging areas at both ends for those pods and they must be fed into the tubes automatically then?

It's certainly as old as my 1988 physics book. There's a 6 page essay on it by Gerard K. O'Neil.

http://ephemeralnewyork.files.wordpr...subwaycar1.jpg

http://faculty.ycp.edu/~tgibson/pict...y/BeachCar.jpg

The real first New York City subway

It must have been a good idea in the 1860s. That’s when inventor Alfred Ely Beach decided to construct an underground rail system powered by compressed air—think of those little pneumatic tubes that offices used to exchange memos in pre-email days.

The pneumatic subway was plagued by problems. Beach couldn’t get a permit to build it because Tammany Hall politicians had plans for a subway of their own. But he managed to get it going in secret.

Fifty-eight days later he had a tunnel running from Warren Street across Broadway to Murray Street, a distance of about 300 feet. He opened it to the public on February 26, 1870.

Passengers traveled in the line’s one deluxe car, and the station under Warren Street featured carpeting, paintings, and a grand piano. The cost of a ride: 25 cents (all of it donated to charity).

“Such as expected to find a dismal, cavernous retreat under Broadway, opened their eyes at the elegant reception room, the light, airy tunnel and the general appearance of taste and comfort in all the apartments….” commented The New York Times.

Of course, the pneumatic subway didn’t work out. Beach never got the financing to extend the line to Harlem as he had hoped. And advances in engineering made the air-powered subway obsolete.

Beach’s subway closed in 1873. The tunnel was used as a shooting gallery and then shut off for good by 1900, damaged by a fire in the building above it.

In 1912 workers excavating a tunnel for the N and R trains came upon the old tunnel and wooden subway car (at right). So where is the tunnel now? The consensus seems to be that it was destroyed during construction of other downtown stations.

http://ephemeralnewyork.files.wordpr...ticsubway2.jpg

I agree, there needs to be a large staging area. And the process of staging these pods will increase the total time.

It would be far cheaper to develop a viable HST (hypersonic transport) and then either fly it offshore to avoid the sonic booms annoying the big-money residents of Santa Barbara or Malibu or designing it such that the shock waves primarily propigate upwards (this is already being worked on). Then there's no land-based infrastructure other than runways/airports (which exist already), no easement issues and it can fly anywhere, not just on the leg SFO->LAX. It's also a lot less terror-proof (harder to blow up something at high altitude over the ocean than with miles of tube/supports running through the middle of nowhere).

You would still have to deal with the TSA morons to fly on it though, so maybe that'd kill it and make it unviable. I doubt many people would pay $2k-$3k to get their junk grabbed by Heavy Helga the Transsexual TSA Agent.

Jeff, what makes anyone think they will not deal with TSA to ride this "pipe dream"? Somehow people have in their minds that train = less security. The TSA is expanding to trains and bus service. This is the ever expanding government!

My thoughts as well. I suspect the biggest challenges of a project like this would be political.

At least you can carry firearms on Amtrak! Last I heard there hadn't been any incidents on trains lately. Maybe we should just fire the TSA and give everyone an Airguard .38 before they get on board. :) (stir, stir, stir...)

How long does it take to load your basic commuter train at each stop? 2 minutes? 3?

Now how long would it take if there were 28 people and 28 equal seats instead of 100 people with stairs and separate cars and such? 1 minute? Maybe 2?

Again, I think most of you are out of touch with commuting. You could load this thing while it was moving just like they do with so many small pod-type transit trains, or, you know, ski lifts and Ferris wheels. Humans are perfectly capable of entering a slowly moving pod and settling in within a 2 minute window.


I also don't know where anyone is claiming that this is a new idea. It's a transit design that will work, which is why it's been visited and revisited in various ways for over 100 years. The difference is that we know have the engineering to put it together.

Did anyone go to NASA and say "your Mercury probe sucks because it's not original, science fiction writers invented it 100 years ago, move along"??


I'm surprised by the backlash against advancement here, as well as the cowering fear of government intrusion. We're never going to get anywhere if we assume that the TSA will get in our way, or that costs will interfere.

Did you read the PDF? He basically says that the hyperloop is only useful for 500-1000 mile loops between commerce centers. Less than that, and conventional transportation is better, longer than that and high altitude supersonic planes are the solution.

A supersonic plane between LA and San Fran? Won't work, would spend all of it's time subsonic climbing and descending.

It takes about 1/2 an hour to load an airplane. People move like lost cows down the isles looking for baggage space and seats. The last train I went on was even longer.

Commuter train. The ones that run people from the suburbs to downtown every day. The one where a bunch of businessmen orderly file in and sit down and read their newspapers for 30 minutes. Those load very fast, because the people getting on have a very specific reason to be on the train. This isn't a plane replacement! It's not a holiday tour bus! It's a specific form of technical transportation for a specific subset of travelers, and those people will load on and off a pod in 2 minutes.

I was on a commuter train, New Jersey to DC, very slow to load.

OK, you're right, we should stick with SUVs driving in the right lane for our inter-city transportation.

What about the fat people? Will they fit?

Why not? Something going to happen to them?