If NYC and LA were the only cities, trains would be amazing. Just one HSR sleeper line straight across the empty desert, trains leaving every 5 minutes to meet demand.
With the amount of passengers and the lack of stops along the way, a state-of-the-art 500-600 km/h maglev like the L0 series shinkansen would be able to bring the travel time down to 6-8 hours while being a lot cheaper, more comfortable, more spacious, and with much better access to the city.
My god, it could even be worth trying to build a hyperloop.
Oh man the Shinkansen is amazing. 2 or so hours instead of 9+ by bus to get somewhere while drinking beer or sake and eating is amazing. And you can take a dump lol
Yes, so it’s a testament to how ridiculously ideal for public transit this fictional scenario is that in this fiction, hyperloop might be a worthy investment.
One of the reasons hyperloop was a scam is that they never really tried. There were some very public-facing stunts, like the design competitions, but they didn’t do the SpaceX thing of throwing a couple billion dollars worth of government subsidies at failing prototypes until they started working.
Another reason is that high-speed rail makes a lot more sense when you have regular stops like a real-world HSR line would. Accelerating and decelerating take distance, so the faster you go the longer you need to go between stops for a top speed to matter.
And another reason is that high-speed rail didn’t exist yet, and this was presented as a better alternative. If you already have the best open-air HSR money can buy, the next logical step is to stop having it be open-air.
Though, saying that, an atmospheric pressure pneumatic tube where the surrounding air is brought up to the same speed as the maglev train would probably make a lot more sense than a vacuum tube.
If NYC and LA were the only cities, trains would be amazing. Just one HSR sleeper line straight across the empty desert, trains leaving every 5 minutes to meet demand.
With the amount of passengers and the lack of stops along the way, a state-of-the-art 500-600 km/h maglev like the L0 series shinkansen would be able to bring the travel time down to 6-8 hours while being a lot cheaper, more comfortable, more spacious, and with much better access to the city.
My god, it could even be worth trying to build a hyperloop.
For context, a flight is already 6.5 hours and cost 350-400. To have comparable speed it would only take building two complete mag level rails.
Oh man the Shinkansen is amazing. 2 or so hours instead of 9+ by bus to get somewhere while drinking beer or sake and eating is amazing. And you can take a dump lol
Nothing stopping you from taking a dump on a bus either, some people do that already
Your fellow passengers might not approve, but that’s another matter entirely.
Does that mean, your long-distance buses do not have toilets? Or is it a joke how bad they are?
Hyperloop are a scam
Yes, so it’s a testament to how ridiculously ideal for public transit this fictional scenario is that in this fiction, hyperloop might be a worthy investment.
One of the reasons hyperloop was a scam is that they never really tried. There were some very public-facing stunts, like the design competitions, but they didn’t do the SpaceX thing of throwing a couple billion dollars worth of government subsidies at failing prototypes until they started working.
Another reason is that high-speed rail makes a lot more sense when you have regular stops like a real-world HSR line would. Accelerating and decelerating take distance, so the faster you go the longer you need to go between stops for a top speed to matter.
And another reason is that high-speed rail didn’t exist yet, and this was presented as a better alternative. If you already have the best open-air HSR money can buy, the next logical step is to stop having it be open-air.
Though, saying that, an atmospheric pressure pneumatic tube where the surrounding air is brought up to the same speed as the maglev train would probably make a lot more sense than a vacuum tube.
HSR existed long before hyperloop