test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Introducing: the Hyperloop!
steamwright
Member Posts: 2,820
Elon Musk and his Hyperloop concept.
I remember last decade playing the game Call to Power II. In the future era of game play, you unlock high-speed tube travel, the fastest ground-based movement in the game, allowing rapid deployment, even through oceans. While oceanic trips will have to wait, it looks like the land version just announced itself.
Two thoughts:
1. The art renderings appear to place passengers in a pretty confined riding space. That could cause problems for the claustrophobic, or those who will be claustrophobic when the tube has a breakdown enroute, or for those who suddenly feel sick or the call of nature.
2. I'd be scared to ride it. Not because of the speed (I'm a roller coaster junkie), but because engineering that eye-catching, on a looong track on pillars, is a terrorists dream target. I'd have to see a pretty awesome demonstration of security for the whole track before I'd feel safe on that ride.
I remember last decade playing the game Call to Power II. In the future era of game play, you unlock high-speed tube travel, the fastest ground-based movement in the game, allowing rapid deployment, even through oceans. While oceanic trips will have to wait, it looks like the land version just announced itself.
Two thoughts:
1. The art renderings appear to place passengers in a pretty confined riding space. That could cause problems for the claustrophobic, or those who will be claustrophobic when the tube has a breakdown enroute, or for those who suddenly feel sick or the call of nature.
2. I'd be scared to ride it. Not because of the speed (I'm a roller coaster junkie), but because engineering that eye-catching, on a looong track on pillars, is a terrorists dream target. I'd have to see a pretty awesome demonstration of security for the whole track before I'd feel safe on that ride.
Post edited by steamwright on
0
Comments
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Definitely not for the claustrophobic. Not only is the seating extremely cramped, but what if something goes wrong between LA and San Fran and the train has to stop? And the suspended tube looks like an engineering nightmare, especially along the earthquake-prone west coast. With clearances so tight, it would seem like it would become unusable if there was so much as a one-inch shift between any segment of the loop.
Raptr profile
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Proud Member of: Fubar Inc.
Anyway I saw this the other day and thought it was damn cool. Would love to see something like this someday.
Mine Trap Supporter
Elevated trains are all over the US, haven't seen any of those blown up yet, but whatever.
The cars still need to accelerate/decelerate, seems seatbelts would be useful for that.
I think the concept sketches are showing smaller concept cars, the article I read indicated that a car would hold 28 people, the drawing I saw showed it full at 6, and also indicated there would be cars that passengers could load their personal vehicles into to bring with them.
But since all he has is a white paper, it is little more than an interesting idea. The fact that he would sell it as an alternative to California's high speed rail system, which uses proven, commercially viable technology is laughable.
Also, it seems to me that the real potential is for long distance travel. San Francisco to LA is a fairly short distance where high speed rail would be extremely competitive with air travel. New York to San Francisco on the other hand (the original transcontinental railroad cut travel time from six months to six days), is not a viable candidate for high speed rail. If you could engineer a cheap tube transport system with speeds approaching a jet aircraft, it seems to me that you should be tackling the transcontinental route.
Also, I have not read the white paper, but I do not understand why he would advocate elevating it in the Central Valley, where there is literally nothing in the way. Obviously, in urban areas it would have to be buried or elevated, but in the central valley it should probably be at ground level and just dip over or under any obstructions.
This they did mention in at least one of the articles I've read. Something about the designs makes them more stable than other currently used forms of transportation in California. Not sure, though, how high on the Richter scale they've designed it to survive.
Not so much the elevated nature of it, rather the fact that it would be attention-grabbing.
Red Green, is that you?