The Future of Hyperloop in the UK

[AlastairFraser]

Are you saying that it reflects badly on TRL if they don't drink whatever Kool Aid is available on any given day?

There's really nothing in it right now though that looks like a credible technology within the working life of any of us. I'm more than happy for people to burn a bit of R&D money on the concept though. Hell, given another 20 years it may start to look like something that could be worth tentatively doing some real product development for another 20 years.

When that kind of early product dev thinking gets dangerous is when you let it affect your decisions about real investment happening now. Elon mostly pumped it up for a couple of months as part of the campaign against high-speed rail in California, and you can see it being used here as some kind of argument about HS2. The fact is that HS2 will probably be built and used for 50 years before even better-suited countries have a Hyperloop (or whatever actual credible technology comes along to take its place).

That's part of the point I was making, that if private companies want to throw money at developing it and potentially do all the expensive and time-consuming work first, then I have no problem with that. But if the initial incarnation of Hyperloop is going to be a viable project in 20 or 30 years time, what are we doing building a railway like HS2 which is going to cost £50 billion plus, only open in 10-15 years time and destroy some areas of ancient woodland and natural habitats which we can never get back? Could we not build a standard 140mph railway on a different route avoiding ancient woodland and habitats (what about a route between the WCML and MML?) and save the money not used for building HS2 on a progressive resignalling (to ERTMS) , NPR as a priority (which IMHO there is a bigger need for given the congestion and lack of alternative options in the North's transport system) and use all the leftovers to put money into R&D of battery powered trains for regional and branch lines and a progressive electrification to electrify all of our mainlines, not just the ones radiating out of London. Even Redingensians like me in the South had to wait longer and longer for electrification while the government reviewed it...

 

[LOL The Irony]

Probably, but the time saved would surely eventually entice people onto the Hyperloop, just like what happened with the Hyperloop. And we've got to realise on this forum that Hyperloop is an emerging technology and the current concept isn't going to be the final,perfected form of it. We may as well experiment with Hyperloop given the significant benefits over conventional rail and other modes of transport it could offer.

I wouldn't want to be put in a tin can and sent through a pressurised tube faster than the speed of sound.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Actually, try taking a south WCML commuter service on a Friday vs. on other days. The difference is noticeable. "Friday from home" is just the start.

As for the motorways, I don't find them *anywhere near* as bad as they were 20 years ago. Though Smart/Managed Motorways and the M6 Toll have helped.

Indeed working from home and the effect of tech might reduce the growth in commuter numbers, but there still will be sectors that form a large percentage of the UK's economy that require their workers to actually be there, i.e you can't fix a car or wrap a sandwich over the Internet. And a good point to make is that not all households and businesses have good internet connectivity still despite the Government's efforts, so this fantasy of a work-from-home economy doesn't really add up. And remember if some people can work from home, they will be able to work when they want, cutting out commuting time and money for season tickets,meaning they have the time and money to spend on leisure travel, which will make up the numbers and, helpfully, spread demand.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wouldn't want to be put in a tin can and sent through a pressurised tube faster than the speed of sound.

I'm not *that* sure it's any worse in the scheme of things than being put in a tin can and sent up several miles above the ground at something approximating to the speed of sound, to be fair.

 

[AlastairFraser]

I wouldn't want to be put in a tin can and sent through a pressurised tube faster than the speed of sound.

Good for you, you're not forced to use Hyperloop if it does eventually arise as a successful concept. Tbh it's not that much different from Concorde if you ignore the pressurised tube part.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed working from home and the effect of tech might reduce the growth in commuter numbers, but there still will be sectors that form a large percentage of the UK's economy that require their workers to actually be there, i.e you can't fix a car or wrap a sandwich over the Internet.

People doing those kinds of job are not commuting over the sort of distances that make this sort of thing viable (i.e. the same sort of distances that make air travel viable). There's not going to be a London commuter Hyperloop any time soon, or ever.

And a good point to make is that not all households and businesses have good internet connectivity still despite the Government's efforts, so this fantasy of a work-from-home economy doesn't really add up.

Give them chance, we've come a long way in not such a long time!

And remember if some people can work from home, they will be able to work when they want, cutting out commuting time and money for season tickets,meaning they have the time and money to spend on leisure travel, which will make up the numbers and, helpfully, spread demand.

Domestic leisure travel doesn't demand the kind of fast journey times this sort of thing offers, evidenced by the vast majority of it being by car, a relatively slow mode of transport.

 

[jon0844]

There are an increasing number of jobs where people may work from home once or twice per week, but still need to travel the other days. The problem for them is the cost of tickets when most seasons don't really allow for (effectively) part-time working. Smartcards were supposed to be the saviour here, along with carnet tickets, but the former hasn't really happened and the latter has many issues.

It's great to want Hyperloop to become a thing. Pushing the boundaries of technology and allowing the human race to travel at ever faster speeds, but Hyperloop is flawed in so many ways that I think we may need to focus attentions elsewhere.

For one thing, how do you conduct engineering work or deal with a catastrophic accident in these pressurised tunnels underground that go for miles and miles? How do you manage branches off to different destinations, or move significant numbers of people in comfort, as well as speed?

 

[jon0844]

Good for you, you're not forced to use Hyperloop if it does eventually arise as a successful concept. Tbh it's not that much different from Concorde if you ignore the pressurised tube part.

I'd suggest it is loads different to Concorde. While for the time the engineering was quite spectacular for the era, the concept isn't that difficult or revolutionary. We could easily build better versions of Concorde today, but don't because it was so environmentally damaging, so we have focussed on moving more people at more modest speed and reducing energy consumption.

Hyperloop cannot be built today, however much money is thrown at it. The tests thus far have been pitiful and you could even suggest bordering on fraudulent (in that these demonstrations are 'upsold' to be better than they are, and managing to secure funding off the back of the hype and false promises).

 

[AlastairFraser]

People doing those kinds of job are not commuting over the sort of distances that make this sort of thing viable (i.e. the same sort of distances that make air travel viable). There's not going to be a London commuter Hyperloop any time soon, or ever.



Give them chance, we've come a long way in not such a long time!



Domestic leisure travel doesn't demand the kind of fast journey times this sort of thing offers, evidenced by the vast majority of it being by car, a relatively slow mode of transport.

1) I was suggesting that Hyperloop would take all but a very small amount of domestic air traffic and existing long-distance rail traffic on conventional rail (this isn't going to be affected by changing commuter patterns). Some of the conventional rail system would then be left for more regional rail services,which are much needed as I'm sure you know and more paths for rail reopenings.
2) We are way behind some other countries and ,given our wealth of expertise in the tech industry, we should be doing better. I don't want to bring politics into this but BT was awarded huge contracts by the government to get superfast broadband and it was 2 years late.For a monopoly, that's pretty poor.
3) I wasn't saying that, as I said above, Hyperloop would handle long-distance and the domestic airline market and conventional rail would then be freed up for slower regional rail services and paths for rail reopenings.The decline in the commuter demand would be replaced revenue-wise by much-increased leisure demand,also meaning that demand is more evenly spread and therefore less trains are needed to run services in the peak and there are more paths for the regional rail services and reopened rail services.

 

[AlastairFraser]

I'd suggest it is loads different to Concorde. While for the time the engineering was quite spectacular for the era, the concept isn't that difficult or revolutionary. We could easily build better versions of Concorde today, but don't because it was so environmentally damaging, so we have focussed on moving more people at more modest speed and reducing energy consumption.

Hyperloop cannot be built today, however much money is thrown at it. The tests thus far have been pitiful and you could even suggest bordering on fraudulent (in that these demonstrations are 'upsold' to be better than they are, and managing to secure funding off the back of the hype and false promises).

No I was talking about the passenger experience not the development of each transport mode I apologise for any confusion.

 

[cb a1]

For one thing, how do you conduct engineering work or deal with a catastrophic accident in these pressurised tunnels underground that go for miles and miles?

I always assumed that Hyperloop was generally above ground albeit maybe going through hills in tunnels like trains do.

 

[Meerkat]

I think travelling in a plane is psychologically different.
It has windows and you are in the open air, you might be able to glide down if things go wrong.
It might not be safer than being in a tube underground but being trapped underground is a thing a lot of people (most?) fear.

 

[takno]

That's part of the point I was making, that if private companies want to throw money at developing it and potentially do all the expensive and time-consuming work first, then I have no problem with that. But if the initial incarnation of Hyperloop is going to be a viable project in 20 or 30 years time, what are we doing building a railway like HS2 which is going to cost £50 billion plus, only open in 10-15 years time and destroy some areas of ancient woodland and natural habitats which we can never get back? Could we not build a standard 140mph railway on a different route avoiding ancient woodland and habitats (what about a route between the WCML and MML?) and save the money not used for building HS2 on a progressive resignalling (to ERTMS) , NPR as a priority (which IMHO there is a bigger need for given the congestion and lack of alternative options in the North's transport system) and use all the leftovers to put money into R&D of battery powered trains for regional and branch lines and a progressive electrification to electrify all of our mainlines, not just the ones radiating out of London. Even Redingensians like me in the South had to wait longer and longer for electrification while the government reviewed it...

There is excellent evidence that hyperloop is a cute physics project that will never work as a technology. Even if it does it will require dozens of years of development before it can be proposed for real projects. Even then, and assuming we wanted to be amongst the first in the world, any HyperloopUK development would still need 10 years of public enquiries and detailed planning before it gets to a shovel-ready, just as HS2 has done. An absolute best-case scenario for it is to be 50 years behind HS2. That's 50 years of high speed running before you're ready to ramp up the hyperloop.

As usual what you're really doing is just the standard boring shrill anti-HS2 rant, with "but teh hyperloops" attached. Shameful abuse of future science to defend present-day luddism.

 

[jon0844]

At least Hyperloop as an alternative to HS2 makes a change to maglev.

 

[Chrisgr31]

I always assumed that Hyperloop was generally above ground albeit maybe going through hills in tunnels like trains do.

And how on earth is a great big tube going to get planning permission? I'll eat my hat if hyperloop is used for large amount of freight or passengers over a distance of 100 miles in my lifetime.

 

[jon0844]

It isn't going to happen. I am not sure why Richard Branson invested, unless it's some sort of way to reduce tax liability or write off debts or something. I know he's getting on a bit, but he's surely smart enough to know the flaws.

Unless he just think it's good for the brand. After all, the media always lap up whatever Elon Musk says and worship him. Bar the SpaceX side of things, what he's achieved isn't actually that amazing. He may be able to mass produce batteries with Panasonic, but the battery technology isn't that clever or anything rivals couldn't do. What he's good at is securing funding, and using deposits for products made tomorrow to keep the business going today. Some might argue that it's rather like a huge Ponzi scheme!

 

[MarkyT]

It isn't going to happen. I am not sure why Richard Branson invested, unless it's some sort of way to reduce tax liability or write off debts or something. I know he's getting on a bit, but he's surely smart enough to know the flaws.
Unless he just think it's good for the brand. After all, the media always lap up whatever Elon Musk says and worship him. Bar the SpaceX side of things, what he's achieved isn't actually that amazing. He may be able to mass produce batteries with Panasonic, but the battery technology isn't that clever or anything rivals couldn't do. What he's good at is securing funding, and using deposits for products made tomorrow to keep the business going today. Some might argue that it's rather like a huge Ponzi scheme!

I agree the investment got the Virgin group and founder's names in the news, worldwide. Maybe there's something else going on here as well though. I've also read that DB and SNCF have small shareholdings in one or other of the startups. I don't for one moment believe the vacuum tube part of the concept will ever work, but there may be associated technologies that emerge from the research and development efforts that some of these investors want a part of. One that might emerge is a new maglev package that isn't tied into patents that Transrapid or the far eastern developers already hold. I'm not a great maglev proponent either, but I don't dismiss it as a potential long term solution to extreme high speed transport without the high costs of rail and wheel wear at the very highest speeds achievable today. I have a lot of respect for DBs emerging policy of limiting most ICE services to a top speed of 250kph using their new lightweight, fast accelerating and very economical ICE4 trains. These units are designed to easily match the heavier ICE1 and ICE2 timings on services with typical stop spacing that they will take over from the older trains, despite their lower top speed. They will do this with significant economy in energy and on rail/wheel wear costs. There are a handful of services with longer hops between stops that are going to continue to run at up to 300 or 320kph with ICE3s/Velaros, but these will be very much in the minority in terms of overall national ICE train kilometers. I generally favour rail technology mainly because of the network benefits of being able to build out new infrastructure gradually with trains using the HS segments being able to fan out onto conventional networks to serve a wide range of destinations without having to construct new infrastructure everywhere. This network development technique has been used very widely indeed thoughout mainland Europe, and is the basis of the UK's HS2 strategy.

 

[notverydeep]

My problem with the Hyperloop concept is around the economics and potential capacity. I am making the assumption that the safety distance between two 'pods' is going to be determined by the need to stop at a tolerable emergency deceleration rate (for trains this is around 1.3 m/s/s). Using this deceleration rate from 1125 km/h (the claimed 700 mph), this distance is just over 38 kilometres. At full speed, a pod would take 122 seconds to cover and this is therefore what the effective headway between pods would need to be. Most of the illustrations of the proposed pods and the commentary suggest that these will be quite small, with a capacity of say 12 to 20 passengers. Even taking 20 as the capacity, this gives an hourly maximum number of passengers in any one tunnel of around 600 per hour, equivalent to a couple of Boeing 777s or just two thirds of a Eurostar e320. Clearly this is nowhere near enough to finance miles and miles of complex infrastructure. At this headway, surely pods just won’t cut it and full size trains would be required, but this in turn just adds further to the scale and complexity of the infrastructure required.

Hyperloop seems to be falling into a trap that says, because something is technically feasible, it is necessarily possible to scale and make cost effective. There have been many innovations where this has proved not to be the case, such as Saturn V rockets to the moon and Maglev high speed trains. These did in the past attract considerable private sector investment, but from which there is little to show for bar the Shanghai Airport link and the very long term project to link Tokyo and Nagoya. Meanwhile since the Shanghai Airport link opened, China Rail has opened many thousands of kilometres of high speed, steel wheel on steel rail lines. Hyperloop takes all the technical complexity and expense of Maglev and adds many of the challenges of working in outer space! There are some fairly amusing YouTube videos that highlight some of the engineering issues...

 

[MarkyT]

My problem with the Hyperloop concept...

A good analysis of the spacing problem, and what is the last ditch fail-safe emergency braking method they propose when there's no power or active control on board a pod? A friction brake engaged at full speed seems highly dubious. A parachute's not going to work in a vacuum. Perhaps a rocket thruster on the front pointing forwards? Not exactly fail safe either. The levitation method they're chasing seems to be a speed based passive technique involving eddy currents, and propulsion is by a vehicle mounted linear motor. It might be possible to throw the motor into reverse as a generator but for braking where's the heat energy from resistor arrays going? Once you accept long trains are necessary for capacity because of braking, then the theoretical advantages of vacuum start to disappear. Length and thus extra skin drag added does not significantly increase overall air resistance, dominated as it is by the one nose and one tail of any length train in an open air system. Vacuum only becomes a significant advantage in a very frequent, small pod system, which is not possible at the speeds desired due to the spacing constraints.

 

[mallard]

for trains this is around 1.3 m/s/s

Current Hyperloop photos/mockups show seatbelts and it seems to be the plan that all passengers (and staff) would remain seated for the entire journey. That could increase the maximum permissible decceleration quite considerably; ordinary cars can achieve over 10m/s^2 without causing injury. Plugging those sorts numbers into the relevant "SUVAT" formulas gives a braking distance of approximately 4km and time of 30s.

Also, some concept images of larger "pods" do seem to have seating for 30+ passengers, so maximum capacity could be as high as around 3600 per hour. That's not too bad, roughly equivalent to the seated capacity of 6 class 390 Pendolinos.

However, the real downsides include the psychological problems caused by having no windows (people just don't feel safe in such conditions), the lack of compatibility with existing transport networks and the cost of construction (which, despite Mr. Musk's ideas, is very unlikely to be any less than those for a conventional high-speed railway line).

 

[swt_passenger]

No buffet or trolley then?

 

[MarkyT]

Thinking about failsafe braking, I suppose you could have sprung loaded permanent magnet rollercoaster brakes on the car that are held away from the reactor rail under normal operations. There must be some significant heat to dissipate still though from full speed.

 

[edwin_m]

Perhaps SpaceX can lend them a heat shield?

 

[Lucan]

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about Hyperloop.
1) the Hyperloop tube is meant to be on pylons, not (generally) underground. Think in terms of crossing the mid-west prairies and Arabian deserts. Its promoters assume that it will not be necessary to buy land other than the footprints for the pylon bases - hence (partly) the crazy low cost claims. They also assume that people will have no problem with Hyperloop passing over their land and houses because those people will welcome "progress".
2) the Hyperloop is often confused with another Musk project, the Boring Compnay, which is building and proposing commuter subways (US sense) in some USA cities, but with maglev instead of rails, individual "sleds" instead of trains, and originally to carry cars like a Motorail. That, I believe, is where some people are getting the idea that Hyperloop is in tunnels. Musk claims he will be able to tunnel five times faster than anyone else, not now, but real soon now. Financiers seem to believe him.
3) Elon Musk is a showman who loves tossing "outrageous" ideas to to the media, who lap it up; Musk also gets finance at the snap of his fingers. However his schemes generally get watered down as engineers and financiers try to make sense of them. This is visible with the Boring and Tesla projects, eg Boring moving away from the Motorail angle.
4) [Something that was re-ordered - sorry]
5) anything called a "railway/railroad", or uses any railway vocabulary, seems to be an anathema to most folks in the USA. For example many Americans on certain other technical forums I frequent seem unaware that conventional trains can go more than 40mph without derailing (or they derail at any speed). Someone already said here that Hyperloop proposals in the USA are being used as a weapon against HS rail proposals (and will probably go no further than that), and is the reason why no railway related words are ever used by the Hyperloop or Boring supporters.
6) many of the clamed advantages of Hyperloop revolve around it only being for simple end-to-end lines with no junctions, connections or even intermediate stops, and also depend on a fantastic level of automation reliability. The latter is proposed to be so good that trains (sorry, "pods") can be run with separations well within their stopping distances (there would be many pods within one stopping distance). The latter is just one of many departures from normal safety practices on railways (or any other system), which Musk confidently assumes he can push past regulators simply because "it isn't a railway". In fact many of these cost savings could be implemented on conventional railways if we chose to do so.

 

[Meerkat]

Would a more viable (though still implausible) target for Hyperloop be freight containers?
Far fewer safety and comfort issues, just keep slinging them down the tube with front and back panels (using the container itself for structural strength).
Big old tunnel if done here unless you developed a new small standard container that used a tunnel sized like big sewers. Pallets into city centres from rail fed out of town distribution hubs?

 

[MarkyT]

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about Hyperloop.

2) the Hyperloop is often confused with another Musk project, the Boring Compnay, which is building and proposing commuter subways (US sense) in some USA cities, but with maglev instead of rails, individual "sleds" instead of trains, and originally to carry cars like a Motorail. That, I believe, is where some people are getting the idea that Hyperloop is in tunnels. Musk claims he will be able to tunnel five times faster than anyone else, not now, but real soon now. Financiers seem to believe him.
...
5) anything called a "railway/railroad", or uses any railway vocabulary, seems to be an anathema to most folks in the USA. For example many Americans on certain other technical forums I frequent seem unaware that conventional trains can go more than 40mph without derailing (or they derail at any speed). Someone already said here that Hyperloop proposals in the USA are being used as a weapon against HS rail proposals (and will probably go no further than that), and is the reason why no railway related words are ever used by the Hyperloop or Boring supporters.

On point 2 I think the Boring company pods are all illustrated as having conventional rubber tyres. The recent opening of the short demonstration tunnel in LA featured a standard Tesla car being manually driven using bus-style kerb guidance technology.

On point 5 you're not wrong about so many peoples seeming visceral hatred of rail. It's partly a feeling, oft repeated by anti-rail groups and individuals, of the 'Victorian' technology being out of date, a ridiculous argument in itself. By that logic cars are out of date because they are basically a motorised version something first known in the 4th century BC. Equally ancient maritime technology clearly also makes ships completely obsolete today. On top of that there is long-standing distrust and anger against the railroad companies over monopoly exploitation of shipping rates and their use and abuse of 'eminent domain' powers (equivalent to UK compulsory purchase). Because the Federal Government gave the companies these monopolies and powers in the 19th century, the arguments over local state versus federal control surfaces too. Lastly many free market and libertarian types object in principle to any public money whatsoever going into public transport which is considered but one slippery step from full blown soviet communism. The Stalinist central planning of the Interstate Highway system is not seen in such light of course. There are many well funded think tanks, lobbyists and pressure groups who promulgate these anti rail and anti public transport ideas and arguments ceaselessly, even dispatching teams to doorstep residents in any location where a new proposal is being voted on. Although their funding is opaque, it is thought it almost certainly comes from major oil, motor and air interests and their financiers. Many of these groups also skirt on the fringes of climate change denial and other fruitloopery too.

 

[Lucan]

The fact that the Boring Company calls its urban subway tunnel system the "High Speed Loop" seems to be a deliberate attempt to confuse it with the entirely different "Hyperloop" system.

A point about the Hyperloop is that its promoters point to long distance oil and gas pipe lines and say that the Hyperloop would be similar but with a larger pipe; and that these pipelines are relatively cheap - far cheaper than a conventional railway even allowing for the Hyperloop's greater diameter. They overlook (or deliberately fail to mention) the fact that oil and gas pipelines can and do make abrupt changes of direction in order to hug undulating ground, and so require only short supports. Pipelines can also change course readily to pick their way around existing obstacles like towns.

On the other hand the 750mph Hyperloop cannot be contour-hugging or make rapid changes of direction. Its curvature in both vertical and horizontal planes will need to be very gentle, especially if passengers are to be carried. This is an issue even with 250 mph HS trains of course, but is an order of magnitude worse with Hyperloop because centrigugal force increases with the square of velocity. Therefore Hyperloop will require some spectacular and expensive viaducts and/or tunnels in even moderately hilly country, and there will be little choice in the route they can take though a built-up nation such as the UK - a lot of stuff will need demolition.

Expect Hyperloop to be built first in a flat desert. Let the Saudis finance one as a novelty ride, and that will probably be the last we hear of it.

 

[swt_passenger]

The more I read about this, the more I wonder what it’s got to do with railways at all. But if it has, why isn’t it just considered speculation, or discussed in the ‘other transport’ areas?

 

[The Ham]

I agree, but I can see it being viable over here when the TRL says it will be i.e 20 years later. Despite it's huge cost, it would revolutionise journey times across the UK and destroy the domestic airline industry in a way even High Speed Rail couldn't. It isn't then viable as a freight railway, but with the reduction of passenger traffic on the railways due to the new Hyperloop, it could use the conventional railway so much more.That's why I think HS2 is a white elephant.

If there was someone building a commercial system now then I may be tempted to think why are we looking at HS2. However:
- this is still very much at concept level
- early systems (assuming that any come to the UK) would likely focus on international travel such as between the UK/France (London/Paris). As that spreads the risk between two governments and is on busy and long distance services.
- assuming we're going to wait 20/50/100 years for Hyperloop what alternitves are we going to build to keep the rail network able to cope with passenger demand*

* It is often cited that broadband would reduce travel, yet average speeds for household are now 45mb/s compared with 4.1mb/s in 2009. However if all users paid for the fastest broadband they could then average speeds could be about 100mb/s. For most people undertaking tasks on Word, Excel and even a lot of AutoCAD drawings the current speeds are more than adequate to work in "real time" (i.e Not have to download, work, upload). Yet there's not been the shift to remote working due to the perception of what is undertaken when someone is "working" from home. Without space for a home office I certainly wouldn't be very productive after the time children get home from school, and I would suggest that I'm far from alone in that regard.

 

[The Ham]

That ignores one thing - technology. I see the demand for high speed travel reducing, not increasing. Lower speeds are safer and more environmentally friendly.

It's a white elephant serving basically no purpose.

See my above post about broadband speeds.

If anything the internet had made it possible for people to make friends with people with similar interests anywhere, and so then in time want to meet them.

Although the number of trips we are each making is falling, total distances traveled is rising. In part due to population growth exceeding the falls in the number of trips which are making.