

The Hyperloop - Not just SF to LA - dojomouse
http://dojomouse.com/the-hyperloop-not-just-sfla/

======
bastawhiz
To address the braking concern: the author of the article says that the
Hyperloop stops and starts at 0.5g, which would make it take 60 seconds to
stop. That's not entirely true. 0.5g is the acceleration that the pods would
experience under normal circumstances.

Everyone reading this (unless they're on the ISS or flying a plane in a sine
curve) is presently experiencing 1G, give or take a tiny bit. 2G is felt by
lots of people on a day-to-day basis during normal activities. Some
rollercoasters get up to 4.5G. Astronauts train at very high G. If there's a
catastrophic failure, the hyperloop could slow down at much higher Gs (some
informal calculations says between 5 and 6 Gs wouldn't be unreasonable). If
0.5G is 60 seconds, 5G is well under ten seconds. Pods spaced 30 seconds apart
would have plenty of time to stop.

Some might say, "But 4+ Gs can cause an untrained person to black out!" Yeah,
and you're on a hyperloop traveling 750+MPH that's just experienced
catastrophic failure. And the scenario that is being explored involves either
the tube in front of you having been obliterated, the pod in front of yours
having come to a complete halt instantly, or someone dropped a blue shell.

To address the pod loading/unloading issue: stations are not located along the
main track, they happen at branches. Proper timing means that branched
stations can be bypassed, allowing pods to bypass the station ("nonstop" pods,
if you will) without shortening or lengthening delays for pods at the station.
This means that when a station diverts a pod, it creates a 60 second gap
instead of two 30 second gaps. Another station further down the line could
then fill that gap with a train that had arrived earlier.

This means that pods could load/unload much more slowly than if they were
forced to arrive/depart in the order that they passed through the vicinity of
a station. And pods that are not stopping at a station would experience no
delay.

Main stations ("terminal stations") could have a buffer of pods. If it takes
granny five minutes to get off the pod, who cares? Just put a different pod in
the queue for departure. Order shouldn't matter, you're at the end of the
line. Ever been on MUNI and seen the inbound trains show up on the outbound
tracks in a different order? Exactly.

To address the time comparison between the hyperloop and HSR: this is
completely speculative, but it's doubtful that the HSR could achieve its
proposed time of 2:48. The author talks about this like it's a hard fact. I'd
be surprised if HSR could hit three hours, or even four. Has this guy ridden
on Caltrain? The sheer number of delays is startling.

Hyperloop, OTOH, is decidedly much more reliable since the tube is sealed.
Nothing can get in the way of the tube, cars can't collide with pods, it
doesn't matter what the weather is, etc. Even if the Hyperloop doesn't meet
its 30-40 minute target, I think it would be much more reliable than HSR, and
there's room for it to improve as well as the technology improves.

~~~
dojomouse
Do you mean the submitted article? I don't think I mentioned the g forces.

I totally agree though. The g limit acceptable, especially in a reclined
couch, is much higher than is applied. Would be a trade off with speed and
curve radius. Regarding stopping I agree even more (yes, even more than
totally). Trying to limit the design 'emergency' G to 1g lateral (so 1.4g net)
is about as reasonable as trying to limit the design g in a plane crash to 1g
lateral. As a passenger my main concern in an infrequent emergency is that I
a) don't die and b) am not significantly injured. If it happens once in a
hundred thousand journeys and I walk away with light bruising from the
harness, I couldn't care less.

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kornork
I think the killer route for the hyperloop is Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas could pay for it - sidestepping California's budget issues. In
return they would get a giant vacuum cleaner nozzle for gamblers from southern
California.

~~~
dghughes
Hasn't there been some sort of train route proposed for decades?

A friend went to Las Vegas a few years ago and said condos are sold along a
proposed high speed train route but it's always "just a few years from
completion".

~~~
Anechoic
There is (was?) a privately-funded project that was well into the engineering
phase ([http://www.xpresswest.com](http://www.xpresswest.com)) but they needed
a Federal loan to make the project feasible and FRA recently put the kibosh on
the loan: [http://www.reviewjournal.com/transportation-
insider/prospect...](http://www.reviewjournal.com/transportation-
insider/prospects-dim-high-speed-rail-link-la-vegas)

~~~
dojomouse
There have been several proposals I think. Last I heard it was dead. The
problem is that it kind of sucks as a commercial proposition. A Hyperloop
solution, on the other hand, wouldn't. I've done a basic profitability
analysis on the route, will publish as soon as I can bloggify it. Basically,
even with the existing air traffic only, it's a really attractive route,
especially if you link it in to an SF-LA Hyperloop as well and hence capture
the SF-LasVegas air traffic too.

The main problem with the xpresswest train is that it basically went from
nowhere to nowhere. Still needed a car at both ends. That and its being
grossly expensive.

------
loudin
I think it's worth thinking about how some routes would enjoy increased
popularity given the existence of a hyperloop mode of transport.

For instance, the Chicago-New York route is roughly 800 miles, which is about
an hour of hyperloop time. If the tickets were still priced in the $20 range
each way, just think of how many more people would travel between the two
cities.

People could live in Chicago while commuting to work in NYC. Others could live
in NYC and impulsively decide to travel to Chicago for a fun night out on the
town. Surely, the route would increase in popularity - perhaps vastly so.

What I love about the hyperloop is that it's like a physical embodiment of the
internet - shrinking the geographical distance that separates us.

~~~
tptacek
Not that a "hyperloop" is ever going to happen anywhere, but:

* There won't be $20-40 tickets on the SF/LA route, because (a) capex costs will be much higher than the white paper anticipates (it costs its el line at 1/10th the going rate for viaducts and its tunnel at a tiny fraction of any other tunnel, even given the narrower tube --- not to mention an extremely optimistic projection for much much tunneling will be required, projections lower than those for the Tejon Pass HSR concept, which runs at 1/3rd the speed or less and can thus follow a tighter course) and (b) ticket prices have to account for opex as well, which will be substantial; having built the thing, it does not simply run itself.

* Land in the central valley might be cheap, but the ROWs you'll need to do anything from Chicago to NYC won't be anything resembling cheap. Note that the "hyperloop" painfully acknowledges this, by terminating in Sylmar, on the far northern outskirts of LA, because integrating more thoughtfully with LA's transit system would have been prohibitively expensive; similarly, the "SF" end of the route is actually San Leandro, which is an hour easy from SF in traffic.

~~~
dnautics
I'm unconvinced by the "doesn't connect up with transit" arguments. If it's
built, and there's demand, the transit will catch up. That the CHSR goes to
downtown LA/downtown SF and incurs extra cost is a FAULT, that smacks of
overplanning to satisfy irrational demands of politically connected
constituencies.

~~~
tptacek
Nobody is saying Hayward is the moon. Of course people will get to Hayward to
ride the thing. The problem is that their door to door times won't be that
much better than HSR.

HSR goes from city center to city center because that's where people actually
want to go. Not only that, but it's much cheaper for them to get to city
centers, because they can use existing rail lines, which is something blue-sky
proposals like Hyperloop can't do.

~~~
dnautics
"HSR goes from city center to city center because that's where people actually
want to go." citation? Last I checked, people aren't squeamish about going all
the way down to san mateo to get to SFO. OK. So let's say it takes about the
same time as HSR (keeping in mind that in the real world "existing lines" are
not rated for High speed, and are subject to congestion problems with existing
commercial and freight routes)... The pricepoint for hyperloop is about the
same as an airplane, which is half as expensive as rail travel. So, you could
either take hyperloop or take HSR. The times are the same (assuming no express
routes crop up to get to hyperloop), but you do still have to take _some_
public transport or cab or whatever, is it worth it to pay half as much? I
think so.

~~~
tptacek
Wow does this ever miss the point. It's not that nobody is willing to drive to
Hayward. It's not that Hayward is on the moon. It's not that nobody would go
to Hayward to get on the Hyperloop. Millions would.

The point is that the transit time from SF to Hayward is part of the SF/LA
transit time. That's all.

~~~
dnautics
So if I'm in mountain view, what is the differential (public) transit time to
the HSR termini/stations in Bay area, versus Hayward? How about Berkeley?
Vallejo? I guess part of my point also that I'm not articulating well, is that
if you're not on the HSR line (which most of the bay area isn't) you have to
spend non-zero time commuting to the HSR station, too. Even if you are
relatively close, say, cupertino or mountain view (closest stations: Palo Alto
or San Jose) there is a commuting time-cost, too.

~~~
tptacek
The comparison is LA/SF. It would also be cheaper for the Hyperloop to go to
Death Valley, and would serve any nearby residents of Death Valley well.

~~~
dnautics
I'm guessing you don't live in california, do you?

edit: Oh, I think you're sort of a mentor figure to one of my friends from
kindergarten (and a board member of my startup nonprofit...) HN isn't really
the best venue for a nuanced discussion, if you'd like to talk about the
problems with CHSR and why comparing Hyperloop to CHSR official figures is
charitable to CHSR - feel free to contact me personally!

~~~
tptacek
Wait, what? I'm on a board?

~~~
dnautics
no, my friend is on the board, I believe he used to work for you.

------
JDDunn9
It still seems like ET3 has a much better design. It's simpler, more
efficient, faster, and has fewer moving parts (that can break). The only down-
side would be the 6% royalty you'd have to pay.

As far as proposed routes, train stations would be a better marker than air
travel (to eliminate trips over water and mountains, etc.) In which case Japan
would dominate with 45 of the 51 busiest stations in the world. The top trip
on his chart has 10 million travelers a year, Shinjuku station sees 1.25
billion.
[http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/the-51-busies...](http://www.japantoday.com/category/travel/view/the-51-busiest-
train-stations-in-the-world-all-but-6-located-in-japan)

~~~
dojomouse
I prefer many elements of the ET3 design. The problem is that it's not really
moving. The 6% royalty is kind of ludicrous given the amount of work that's
gone into it - if someone made a single line then ET3 would get billions of
dollars. I have talked to Daryl Oster several times and think he is a great
guy and really honest advocate of the ET3 system, but I think the ET3
membership model probably isn't encouraging 'big business' participation, and
the patent (while probably not that hard to work around) could be reducing
interest from other areas. That said, I don't know what stage things are at in
China. There was certainly some active research there.

Another big benefit of an ET3 type system that you don't mention is the tube
fill factor. In ET3 you can take up basically the whole tube, because there's
so little air that you don't need to worry about the Kantrowitz limit (I
think). In Hyperloop, you can only take up 30%. This means that ET3 can either
have much smaller tubes (big cost saving) or much larger capsules (same
cost... but TOILETS!!! ;-)).

------
charlieflowers
There is literally no discussion on Hacker News about this article (so far)
except the discussion about the toilet issue.

Sigh.

~~~
Anechoic
The whole problem is this is a proposal. It's not even at the research stage.
As such, all we can do is speculate to its advantages and/or disadvantages and
a lot of questions go answered.

If Musk (or anyone else) wants to address the criticism, that someone needs to
build a demonstration systems. This was done for HSR (the US even as a test
facility outside Pueblo Colorado for rail research) and MAglev (the now
defunct TransRapid facility in Germany, plus a couple of Japanese facilities).
Once something has been built that people can observe and ride, a lot of these
questions will go away. For know, what else can we do?

~~~
jared314
Musk said it himself on an earnings call: "I think I kind of shot myself by
ever mentioning the hyper loop ... [I] obviously have to focus on core
business and SpaceX business and that's more than enough."[0]

He had to build Tesla to prove it would work. He had to build SpaceX to prove
it would work. I think Musk knew, the moment he first mentioned it, that it
would be nothing but endless pedantic discussions about trivialities.

[0]
[http://www.earningsimpact.com/Transcript/82715/TSLA/Q2-2013-...](http://www.earningsimpact.com/Transcript/82715/TSLA/Q2-2013-Earnings-
Call/Page/6)

------
dnautics
the math in this article is wrong, they are comparing the "capacity" of the
CHSR. There is no way the CHSR is going to be operating at capacity. Operating
at 10% is a more likely scenario. Moreover, direct from LA to SF is a feature,
not a bug. I might take the CHSR IF it only went between the two cities,
having extra stops makes it LESS likely that I will use it (currently at zero
likelihood; I'd rather just take a plane).

~~~
dojomouse
Do you mean the article submitted here? I don't think I mentioned the CHSR or
Hyperloop capacity.

~~~
dnautics
Ugh, I posted to the wrong hyperloop article. Sorry.

~~~
dojomouse
No worries. I hadn't even seen the other article - you did me a favour.

------
threeseed
Interesting.

But still seems to miss all the human elements in the equation. What about if
someone is seriously sick can they be evacuated in a reasonable manner ?
Likewise what about the inevitable "I need to use the toilet" scenario ?

~~~
RyanZAG
Evacuation seems a very strange problem. You certainly can't be evacuated in
under 30 mins when you're half way across the Atlantic ocean in a plane, or
half way between SF and LA in a car. Also, max 30 mins is a very short time
for medical evacuations which often run into the 2+ hour range for most
transport scenarios.

Toilet is a minor worry and if it really is such a big deal to you (and other
crazies who can't wait 30 minutes), reducing the passenger capacity of a car
by 1/3rd so that a toilet can be added is a very simple and obvious solution
that just means your ticket price goes up a bit. The toilet's waste could be
emptied automatically at each stop in the station. With how much people bring
this issue up however, I'm incredibly surprised we have no toilets in buses!
You'd think this was the biggest issue to ever hit public transport... No
doubt it was left out of the original spec because nobody even considered it
worth including.

EDIT: Feels like a debate someone must have had when they first started riding
horses. "I'm not going to ride up on that horse, what happens if I need to use
the toilet? When I'm just walking I just need to bend down in the bushes!
Nobody will ever want to ride horses - consider the human implications of
being up in the air!"

~~~
anonymouz
> With how much people bring this issue up however, I'm incredibly surprised
> we have no toilets in buses!

You don't? Pretty much all long distance buses (many hours ride; very few
stops, usually clustered at the beginning and the end of the journey) have had
toilets on board. Where you can get away without toilets is public transport
in cities, and to some degree overland if there are enough stops (though that
can be a problem). With a bus there's also always the option of just asking
the driver to stop for a couple of minutes if it's really urgent.

~~~
RyanZAG
Sounds good. When the hyperloop starts being used for many hours long rides,
we can add in toilets then.

Maybe we can have an option - double ticket price with toilet, or half price
without? I have a feeling the double ticket price cars will be empty.

~~~
subsystem
I'm not sure where you get double from. The tickets probably won't be cheap
anyways since there is only capacity for 3360 passengers per hour each way. Of
course most other high-speed travel like the TGV and the Concorde started out
as business travel with high priced tickets.

~~~
RyanZAG
From the doc (I'd probably double those cost estimate though):

 _" Transporting 7.4 million people each way every year and amortizing the co
st of $6 billion over 20 years gives a ticket price of $20 for a one \- way
trip for the passenger version of Hyperloop. "_

$20-$40 doesn't seem terribly expensive.

~~~
tptacek
That price accounts only for the capex cost of building the thing, and assumes
that many of the... extremely ambitious... cost estimates in the white paper
will hold up. In reality, there will be high operating expenses as well, which
would also need to be reflected in ticket prices.

