
Improbable research: London to Edinburgh in five exciting minutes - misnome
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/jan/04/improbable-research-london-edinburgh-five-minutes
======
pradocchia
It's satire. From the article, last paragraph:

 _The London and Edinburgh Vacuum Tunnel Company report is accompanied by a
small notice: "The foregoing Jeu d'Esprit appeared in a recent number of the
Edinburgh Star, and being well calculated to throw ridicule upon some of the
preposterous plans now before the public for the investment of money, we
insert it in the Register"._

~~~
mariuolo
A Mach 7+ train sounded indeed a bit preposterous.

~~~
Retric
If nothing else it was going to be pushed by atmospheric air presser which
would seem to limit thing to well bellow Mach 1.

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ig1
The London Pneumatic Despatch Company actually built a system of pneumatic
tube tunnels under London in the 1860s that were capable of carrying people:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Pneumatic_Despatch_Comp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Pneumatic_Despatch_Company)

(they were mostly used for packages but engineers travelled using the system
as well)

~~~
noelrock
NYC also had a pneumatic tube mail network:
[http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/nycs-pneumatic-tube-
mai...](http://untappedcities.com/2013/03/15/nycs-pneumatic-tube-mail-
network/)

It ran until 1953. Paris also had one. It's a worthwhile read.

~~~
david927
Prague has one that's both extensive and still functions.

~~~
agilebyte
You mean this one?
[http://www.capsu.org/features/pneumatic_tube_system_in_pragu...](http://www.capsu.org/features/pneumatic_tube_system_in_prague.html)

They say it is no longer working after the floods of 2002, but the article is
from 2004 so what do I know.

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enko
It seems pretty obvious to me that some variant on the vacuum maglev train is
the long-term solution to travel on Earth. It's the only way, really, to get
past the air problem. I doubt we'll ever see mass supersonic transport - a far
riskier and more inefficient game of fluid dynamics russian roulette.

It's not going to happen overnight, though. We're waiting on a few
technological breakthroughs before it becomes viable. Fully automated robotic
tunnelling and construction, for one. Automated manufacturing of those robots.
Much improved materials science, probably nanotech-enabled. But when these
technologies come, it's inevitable that we build such a network.

The time isn't right for vactrains but it will be eventually. The future is
here, it's just not evenly distributed - and this particular future has been
creeping forward for literally centuries. Give it a few more decades and we'll
see the real hyperloop!

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trumbitta2
"Passengers instead ride in traditional railway carriages on tracks affixed on
top of the tunnel or tube. These passenger cars are coupled by strong magnets
to the freight-carrying cars. As the freight train zooms through the tunnel or
tube, its magnetic field drags the passenger train along on what is sure to be
a rapid and exciting ride."

Clever! Not backed by calculations there in the article, but clever and
amazing nonetheless.

~~~
Gravityloss
Before steam engines became / turned out to be practical to place in a moving
vehicle, there were railroads powered by pneumatic tubes so the heavy
machinery could be stationary. The pneumatic tube was between the rails and it
had a leather seam sealed slit all the way. The "locomotive" was attached to
the piston in the tube with a vane going through the slit.

The magnet cleverly eliminates that.

~~~
DougWebb
That's basically how aircraft carrier launchers work too. There's a long
pneumatic tube with a piston running the length of the runway, and huge
boilers that build up a lot of steam pressure behind the piston. The piston is
attached to a little block on the deck, and the airplane is hooked into the
block. Release the piston, and the piston and block shoot down the runway
dragging the airplane with it.

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untog
Much smaller scale, but in 1870 a demonstration pneumatic tube transit system
was made in New York:

[http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit](http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit)

Aside from anything else, it's a fascinating story. Refused a permit by the
city, secretly built it anyway.

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adventured
Would freight hyperloops make more sense than those for people?

Trains are still the cheapest form of freight transport in the US, but I
assume radically faster speeds + even cheaper costs + lower pollution and
environmental impact would generate a net win for a freight hyperloop. Freight
doesn't care about inconveniences like lack of toilets or being cramped. Do
the benefits begin to rapidly erode under much greater weight, or will that
scale?

~~~
untog
I'm not sure that speed matter for a lot of freight. Fresh food, perhaps. But
a lot of stuff is shipped around the world on shipping containers that take
weeks to get to their destination, and no-one particularly seems to care.

~~~
dragonwriter
Aside from the issues with perishables (of which fresh food isn't the only
kind), delivery times for inputs (and finished goods to the market) combined
with inventory (which has a cost) constrain response times to changing market
conditions; how important this is depends on the market and the other
constraints on response times in that market.

~~~
randomsearch
Apparently (I'm no expert but my Dad is) it makes far more sense to transport
people by train and goods by car. People will autonomously complete the rest
of their journey when dropped at a station, but goods will not.

At least, so far.

~~~
inthewind
I'd personally like more local storage depos. And keep freight off of the road
during the day. Night time would also be a good time to shift freight. The
last mile could be done with a small electric vehicle, or over pneumatic
tubes.

What makes buses and trains so attractive is that they take up far less space
(if filled) compared with say a car carrying one passenger.

It might be too late in the UK to get cargo and freight back on the canals.
Also our local post offices are being closed down, which would be the natural
choice for a local pickup point. I for one wouldn't mind a text to say I have
a parcel to go and collect. I'd probably be happy collecting my mail once a
week (bar the spam.)

Side tracking further, I heard some old dears the other day, lamenting that
they could no longer afford to send xmas cards. It now costs about a dollar to
send mail by first class.

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spellboots
480 miles in 5 minutes is 5757.87 Miles per Hour. That's going to be quite a
ride...

~~~
epo
480 * 12 is 5760! And that's assuming no time is spent accelerating and
decelerating.

~~~
foobarbazqux
I had to reread that... I'm quite curious as to how he arrived at 5757.87.

~~~
bencollier49
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug)
?

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tsenkov
Just a few days after Elon Musk publicly objected to the newly-approved "high
speed" railway in California...[1]

Is this supposed to make people sceptical about Hyperloop?

1\. [http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop](http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop)

~~~
jussij
> Is this supposed to make people sceptical about Hyperloop?

China announced plans to build a transport system very similar to Hyperloop
some 3 years ago:

[http://www.dailytech.com/China+Plans+1000+KPH+Super+Train/ar...](http://www.dailytech.com/China+Plans+1000+KPH+Super+Train/article19268.htm)

Now we have a link suggesting the idea is centuries old.

I guess all that proves is the idea is nothing new and will not be
revolutionary, that is until someone actually builds it!

~~~
lambda
There have been many variations of these basic ideas for a while.

Hyperloop is different in that it does not require a full vacuum, but just a
low-pressure atmosphere, which make the tubes much cheaper to build an
maintain. It also does not require magnetic levitation along the full length
of the tube (like the Chinese proposal uses), as it uses an air cushion
provided by that a compressor that sucks in that low-pressure atmosphere,
further reducing the cost of building the tube. It merely uses occasional
magnetic linear motors spaced out along the route to accelerate and decelerate
the pod, spending most of its time coasting on its air cushion.

So, while it does share design features with many previously proposed systems,
it is not exactly the same as what has been proposed before. There's a good
reason why people have been talking about evacuated tube transport for
centuries but no one has actually achieved it on a practical scale; the hope
is that the low-pressure design will be much cheaper than the evacuated tube
design.

Now, I am somewhat skeptical of the incredibly low numbers that Elon Musk
quotes, especially relative to the much more well understood high-speed rail
he's comparing it to. But you shouldn't dismiss it just because there are some
superficial similarities to previously proposed systems; as far as I know (and
I haven't done much research, so I could be wrong), this is the first such
system that proposes using low pressure, a compressor on the front of the pod
to deal with the problem of the air mass not being able to flow around it, and
an air cushion to support the pod taking advantage of the air taken in by the
compressor.

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at-fates-hands
I wonder how radically different transportation would be today had one of
these systems been built. Even if it was in the early 1900's, it be a huge
leap forward in technology.

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tlarkworthy
cheaper than the trams

~~~
mathie
More likely to be finished, too.

