Coprolite
Active Member
Look, I'm not against scientific innovation or research. If TransPod wanted to finance and build a test track in some farm fields outside of the city, that's fine by me. They have the right to develop their hyperloop technology here.
With that said, the idea that this kind of system could become operational for large scale commercial passenger operations in even the next 50 years, much less in the next couple of decades, feels so utterly ridiculous and out of touch with the reality of public transit systems to me. And this is just on a technical basis:
I don't understand how there could be any semblance of a tangible business case for a hyperloop system between Edmonton and Calgary. The corridor houses a little over 3 million people right now, which isn't a small number of people but isn't a large number of people either (definitely not nearly enough to create the travel demand needed to warrant such an expensive, complex and high-speed transport system). Even taking into account another 1-2 million people by the time a system like this would be operational, I still don't see how that would be enough to warrant it. High speed rail with an operating speed between 250-300 kph would already get you between Ed and Cal within 1.5 hrs on an express train, which is significantly faster than the current 3.5-4 hr Red Arrow bus ride. How much of an impact will a "45 minute" trip (more likely 1 hr) really have on ridership projections versus a 1.5 hr trip?? And for what could be upwards of double the cost of a greenfield HSR corridor at that!?!?
All I'm saying is that conventional trains are arguably the most effective, efficient, reliable, environmentally friendly and socioeconomically sustainable transport mode we as humans have ever devised. Passenger rail systems permeate throughout the world because of how versatile and scalable trains are, and yet Alberta does not have even one linking its two cities which are essentially the perfect distance apart for higher-speed train services.
I feel so exasperated and disillusioned with these pie-in-the-sky gadgetban concepts its almost hard to describe. Just build a goddamn train line, dude.
Figuring in time to go through security and deal with the whole issue of getting the pod (and the people in it) in and out of vacuum, we're easily looking to adding a half an hour onto that 'more likely 1 hour', which brings us back to HSR territory, but at maglev in a vacuum tube prices and with bus level capacities, etc.
In their video, they have it operating in a low-speed area on wheels capped at a whopping 90km/h within the complexities of the urban environment, and it has to pass through an airlock which is pumped out to vacuum before it enters the vacuum stage. Once in the vacuum stage, they have it accelerating to HSR speeds until it can transition to its maglev propulsion.
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