Proposal for VERY high speed train

http://www.zdnet.com/elon-musk-challeng ... 000019292/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(This has more details than the brief account in today's (12.viii.2013) New York Times. Elon Musk-- an entrepreneur with successes in computer software behind him-- is proposing a super high speed train (San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour). Track to be inside an elevated tube (it would HAVE to be enclosed: you don't want to generate sonic booms by running supersonic trains in the open!) The proposal has been met, if the NY Times can be believed, with some scepticism: the projected cost seems unrealistically low to many.)

Karl Auerbach, volunteer railroader out in Santa Cruz, has these comments over on Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/10643563068 ... NDHJeyaw9t" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Whether it is realistic or not, there's little chance that Amtrak would be in control of its operations because it is nowhere near what Amtrak operates today. So who would operate this, NASA?

Full disclosure: I hold small amounts of stock in Tesla Motors and Solar City - both companies led by Elon Musk.

That being said...

Elon Musk is not just a software entrpreneur. Yes, he did make PayPal - the company that started the internet payments thing. This was previously thought of as a ludicrous idea.

He's the only private entity to design, build, test and deploy all-new rockets that have docked with the International Space Station and returned cargo from there (Myth Busted: Only governments can afford 'real' space programs). And he did it all for less than the cost of a single NASA Space Shuttle launch (and I'm a NASA fan). This was previously though of as a ludicrous idea.

He decided to start a company that makes revolutionary cars that happen to be electric. 0-60 in under 4 seconds. Highest ever rating from Consumer Reports. Up to 300 mile range on a charge. Free recharges at Supercharger stations for life. Complete 5-star chrash ratings from the government. Next up is the electric SUV and, in 2016, the Camry/BMW-3-series-sized "Gen III" that will cost about $35,000 *before* tax incentives. This was previously thought of as a ludicrous idea.

This guy is a modern day Tony Stark.

No, Amtrak would not be in control. This would most likely be a public/private venture (since he mentions cutting costs via building the system mostly in the medians or alongside interstate highways).

Tracks are inside the tubes because the tubes are depressurised to lower friction - but not a vaccuum as that's WAY expensive.

There's a 57 page PDF describing the system that goes into quite a lot of detail - you can find a copy on the Tesla or SpaceX sites.

If anyone else had said this, I would think of this as a ludicrous idea. From this guy, though? I wouldn't bet against him.

Mr. Musk indeed knows a business opportunity when he sees one, and it would, as stated above, not be wise to bet against him. However, this time he is *not* placing a bet... he is convieniently too busy with his other ventures, and is suggesting that this be funded by the public through a bond issue. I think that about says it all right there.

Could you do this? Sure, given enough time and resources. Could you do it for $7bn? Heck no.

Someone writing for the Atlantic pointed out the existence of this plan, even if it ends up going nowhere, could potentially torpedo CA HSR. I think that's a very real concern.

The big indication that this hasn't really been thought through is Musk's idea that the Hyperloop could be built on pylons above I-5. He's talking about speeds in excess of 700 MPH, or more than 1000 feet per second. Highway curves are typically laid out for 60-100 MPH, or between 2000' and 5000' radius. I-5 has some, even in the Central Valley. By my calculations, a 5000 foot radius at 700 MPH will pull about 6 Gs. To keep G forces down to amusement park ride levels, horizontal and vertical curve radii will have to be on the order of 10 miles. Suppose you want to raise the tube 20 feet to clear a local road overpass and not spill anyone's drink? Start the vertical curve five miles away.

Maglev, in a tube or not, is going to have to be straight and level far beyond any RoW we've ever engineered. Even notably straight RoWs like I-70 across Kansas or the Australian RR straightaway across the Nullabor Plain will still require major viaducts and cuts/tunnels to keep vertical acceleration within comfortable limits.

Just a few corrections...

1) Musk is NOT calling for a bond issue. He calculated the price to make a profit and wanted other *corporations* to get involved.

2) Musk has modified his "hands off" position. He now says he'd be involved in getting things started, to the point of building a prototype in a partnership AND putting his own money into the project.

3) In the 57-page PDF they show where the existing ROW curves too much and other land rights will have the be negotiated. In fact, Musk mentions this in the PDF saying that farmers and other landowners already deal with pylon-based situations like power lines so this would be nothing new to them (many farmers hated the idea of the CAHSR ROW cutting their farms in two with limited accesses to 'the other side').

4) There's NO maglev involved. There ARE linear induction motors to provide acceleration.

5) Look at the PDF. The g-forces ARE taken into consideration.

Do I think it could happen for $6B? No. I see a few things missing after my initial read of the report (like the fact the LA station isn't in downtown, the prices of other stations and the price of getting across SF Bay, according to the map they have) But it would be a bargain at twice the price.

This is a vactrain, a train in an evacuated tube, an idea that's been proposed every now and then for a century.

California High Speed Rail Blog » Hyping the Hyperloop
One of his criticisms:

So it’s extremely unlikely that the Hyperloop can be built without raising objections and attacks from some neighbors along the route. After all, many HSR advocates assumed that they would have an easy time getting approvals to build the tracks – until 2009, when the project became real and opposition did as well.

Imagine the howls of outrage from NIMBY's that tubes on viaducts would provoke.

California High Speed Rail Blog » Criticism Mounts of the Hyperloop
Lots of criticisms.

Loopy Ideas Are Fine, If You’re an Entrepreneur | Pedestrian Observations
Alon Levy calculates its accelerations, and finds it a "barf ride". He also points out that it's overoptimistic about headways, that the only safe headway is at least a stopping time.

Musk's Hyperloop math doesn't add up - Greater Greater Washington
Only 25% of the passenger capacity planned for the California HSR system -- at best. More like 10% with more realistic assumptions.


The system running on viaducts makes me think of existing HSR lines that run on viaducts. Given the weight per unit length that the Hyperloop viaduct must support, it's no improvement over existing rail viaducts. So unless there's something that we are not getting, its cost figures are far too optimistic.

There are also problems with stations. The trains will have to go through airlocks to enter and exit the system, and space for only 3 trains at a station is far too optimistic. Each train will carry 28 people and run every 30 seconds.

There's the additional problem of earthquake vulnerability: the line must cross the San Andreas Fault. It's safest to do so at surface level, not in a viaduct or in a tunnel.

I'm pretty sure the San Andreas Fault runs from east of Los Angeles through San Francisco, and depending on where in San Francisco the proposed train runs it may not need to cross the fault. Don't you think though that the earthquake danger comes more from having to run close to and parallel to the fault for hundreds of miles than it does from perhaps needing to cross the fault?

The details of the route are a bit vague, but I gather from maps of it that it runs Oakland - I-580 - I-5 - Sylmar.

I-5 crosses the San Andreas Fault a few miles south of Lebec, about 40 mi south of Bakersfield: Interactive Map of the San Andreas Fault - Thule Scientific

Seismic Hazard Mapping of California Considering Site Effects. has several detailed maps, like MS48_revised.pdf (3.5 MB PDF).

The I-5 route is actually rather risky, almost as bad as much of the SF and LA areas. To reduce the risk in the Central Valley segment, the route ought to be moved eastward, to (say) where the CA HSR route will be.

There is yet another problem with the Hyperloop: the lack of a working prototype. Its designers would have to do a Hades of a lot of R&D on it before they come up with a design suitable for a working system.

A similar sort of system, maglev, already has some working prototypes and a few short lines in service, so we have a bit of an idea of how well it functions.

In reference to maglev, I think that a high-speed vactrain system will likely be a maglev one, to reduce friction.

Some interesting reading in the above links. Lots of people are taking issue with aspects of the proposed design - heat dissipation, g-forces, headways, safety, weight, material costs, etc. However, all of these problems can be addressed in one way or another given a sufficient amount of time and resources. (After all, in engineering, the only impossibility is perpetual motion. Everything else is merely difficult.)

But there's a more fundamental issue here relating to practicality and cost.

If you look at Elon Musk's previous successes, they've been in financial transactions (PayPal), solar power (SolarCity), electric cars (Tesla), and of course rockets (SpaceX). None of these technologies are new. We've been building electric cars since the turn of the twentieth century, rockets since the 1930s, financial transaction processing software since the 1960s (longer if you count punched cards), and solar electric power systems since the 1970s, if not earlier. We already know how to do all this stuff. If you want to do it faster/better/cheaper, you hire a team of engineers and have them go read the literature, incorporate all the lessons from past experiences, and figure out how to do it faster/better/cheaper. The real innovation in Musk's other businesses has come from disruptive business models, not technological breakthroughs.

Contrast this with Hyperloop: no one has built any sort of evacuated-tube transit system on this scale before. (Yes, I know about the Beach pneumatic subway - it's not remotely comparable.) We do NOT already know how to do it. Sure, we can figure it out, but it won't be easy. There will be lots of prototyping, testing, and going back to the drawing board. Mistakes will be made, budgets will be busted, schedules will slip, and unfortunately there is a strong likelihood that there will be some tragic accidents along the way (see: Apollo 1.) At the end of the day, there WILL be some more zeros on the end of that price tag, and it's quite possible that CAHSR will look like a bargain in comparison.

Somebody told me the engineering term is "given weightless, frictionless pullies", and explained in layman's terms it's the same as unlimited funds and absolute dictatorial power.

was Beach's subway evacuated? I thought it was high pressure pushing the car, not low pressure helping to pull the car. And Beach tried to do it in secret, he didn't tell anybody even after he built it. Musk's advertising it while it's still electrons on the web.

jkovach wrote: At the end of the day, there WILL be some more zeros on the end of that price tag, and it's quite possible that CAHSR will look like a bargain in comparison.

Maybe that's what he intends. You mentioned before

jkovach wrote: Someone writing for the Atlantic pointed out the existence of this plan, even if it ends up going nowhere, could potentially torpedo CA HSR. I think that's a very real concern.

CONSPIRACY, Musk never intends the tube to do anything, he's actually heavily secretly invested in other firms that'll make money off of California Highschool Rail, so he wants it to seem like a bargain.

I don't have the link handy, but there was a great article discussing the severe drawbacks of the Hyperloop, including (depending on how you do the math) a huge difference number of passengers per hour that can be transported.

Someone above I believe suggested 28 people, every 30 seconds.

That's 3,360/hour.

Contrast that with something like the Tokyo/Osaka line, having 13 trains/hour with 1,323 seats each. That's a capacity 17,199/hour.

So capacity is an issue.

The current plan requires each "car" to be loaded in 90 seconds. That could end up being fairly tight. Honestly, that's easier to solve than the capacity problem, but solving it would drive up the costs.

It's difficult to include stations along the way. So that means you have to have the traffic load between the two cities to support the costs. (Adding stations in between is possible, but drastically impacts your speed and capacity.)

He mentions switching to different destinations in routes, but really glosses over it.

Now, I'm all in favor of SpaceX and if I win the lottery, a Tesla Model S will be in my driveway, but I wouldn't bet on this one.