Transport Tycoon Forums

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense ... ornia.html

Elon Musk's proposed Hyperloop will start with a small track in California next year. It's not a test track, but a full service track of 5 miles which will allow developers to actually put their design theories to practical use.

What can't that man achieve?

It almost looks like the beginning of the tube people transport you frequently see in Futurama!
I like the idea, although the ticket cost I read about seems a bit cheap. The initial paperwork stated $20 (USD) between Los Angeles & San Francisco one way would recoup starting costs.

My major concern would be, lets say a passenger falls ill. It's quite hard to get help out, you're speeding through an enclosed tube. Seems to be a recipe for potential disaster in the passenger health & safety area. I know for now its just a prototype/proof of concept, but going forward, seems to be a bit of an issue.

Redirect Left wrote:It almost looks like the beginning of the tube people transport you frequently see in Futurama!
I like the idea, although the ticket cost I read about seems a bit cheap. The initial paperwork stated $20 (USD) between Los Angeles & San Francisco one way would recoup starting costs.

My major concern would be, lets say a passenger falls ill. It's quite hard to get help out, you're speeding through an enclosed tube. Seems to be a recipe for potential disaster in the passenger health & safety area. I know for now its just a prototype/proof of concept, but going forward, seems to be a bit of an issue.

same as maglevs - if person falls ill between stations - the train would carry on to next station

Same also as the underground.

Dave wrote:Same also as the underground.

The Underground isn't too tragic, the stations are pretty much only minutes apart in a lot of cases.
The paperwork for the Hyperloop seems to imply long distance, stations a while away from each other.

You wouldn't stop a normal train mid-track to let someone off who's ill?

You may, I suppose, stop at an intermediate station, if there is one - but in areas in the UK there can be 20-30 minutes between stations, and often in rural areas the next station is a village with no medical care either.

And of course, a plane can't immediately land in an emergency, taking probably half an hour to get from cruise to runway, even assuming they're overhead a suitable airport... when in the middle of the pacific, it could be much longer.

Redirect Left wrote:My major concern would be, lets say a passenger falls ill. It's quite hard to get help out, you're speeding through an enclosed tube. Seems to be a recipe for potential disaster in the passenger health & safety area. I know for now its just a prototype/proof of concept, but going forward, seems to be a bit of an issue.

The same is true for most normal trains, though. Airplanes as well. Cruise liners also who may be many hours from shore and not carrying much more than an advanced first aid kit. A similar first aid station can easily be installed in the middle of the train!

Chrill wrote:

Redirect Left wrote:My major concern would be, lets say a passenger falls ill. It's quite hard to get help out, you're speeding through an enclosed tube. Seems to be a recipe for potential disaster in the passenger health & safety area. I know for now its just a prototype/proof of concept, but going forward, seems to be a bit of an issue.

Airplanes as well. Cruise liners also who may be many hours from shore and not carrying much more than an advanced first aid kit

Airplanes & Cruise liners have members of staff, some of whom are first aid trained, although from what I can read, it doesn't seem such things will be there on the hyperloop, also on large things such as cruise liners, the laws of probability mean there is also often a GP or higher on the passenger manifest that can assist. Although granted the same applies for present day DOO trains without a conductor/guard.

Airline staff are trained in basic first aid. On any given Train/Plane, there is almost guaranteed to be somebody with first aid training, and usually a Doctor/Nurse (the Hyperloop will have as much or more chance of carrying a Doctor as a plane)

Basic first aid isn't much use if you're seriously ill enough to need to stop a train anyway.... they can't do much more than put you in the recovery position and give you a paracetamol and Thomas the Tank plaster.

Getting ill on any of these forms of transport isn't ideal, but I don't see the Hyperloop being any better or worse than other modes.

Any new transport mode that requires its own special none interactive infrastructure will fail.

Human default is paths and water. Roads are an extension to paths. Canals an extension to rivers. Motorways and BRT interacts with roads. Monorails failed. Vacuum failed. ULTRA failed.

The sole exception is rail. It made a good enough case, at the right time to justify it. Nothing else will work until teleportation.

Just a fun by theory in my head...! Closed systems may work in exceptional circumstances, cable car, maglev from an airport, but it'll but any one a drink who can disprove it.

teccuk wrote: Monorails failed.

I don't know how exactly they have failed - In the places where monorail systems have been built to serve a need, they have generally succeeded at doing what monorails were supposed to do: provide something close to a heavy rail commuter or rapid type service while compromising for a situation that for whatever reason was prohibitive for building real heavy rail infrastructure. Chiba, Osaka, Okinawa, KL, Singapore and Chongqing could all easily be said to have robust and successful systems that augment their rail networks.

But it's niche. Its amusement parks and tourist rides. One or two tiny systems and I think a reasonable sized on ein India. But its hardly the future transport the 60/70s promised it would be.

The future vacuum tube trains, huh ? Thought it was an enlarged particle accelerator with deccelerating portion

Emperor Jake should update his NewGRF to reflect this later maybe...

Regarding monorails - aren't they quite resilient for inner city transports nowadays, with all the cramped space ?

teccuk wrote:But it's niche. Its amusement parks and tourist rides. One or two tiny systems and I think a reasonable sized on ein India. But its hardly the future transport the 60/70s promised it would be.

The systems I mentioned exclude tourist rides and are real urban rapid transit systems used every day as such by residents. I don't think many of these really could be considered "tiny" in the way that the Seattle monorail is - these systems are larger than many cities' proper heavy rail metro systems. They certainly are niche, but monorail (and maglev, and now hyperloop) have always been intended as niche products for very specific circumstances, that they may or may not ultimately excel at. No one seriously proposed replacing a national heavy freight rail network with concrete beam monorail, just as Elon Musk isn't trying to get BNSF or UP to haul coal across country in hyperloops. If anyone in the 60s was actually proposing that monorail was somehow the future for all types of rail haulage they were either an overeager Alweg salesperson or a SciFi writer who didn't fully grasp the concept. Hitachi's monorail division seems to be doing just fine in terms of sales, even if Hitachi makes much more in revenue from heavy rail. Monorail (and other light rubber tired systems) can be built elevated less obtrusively that heavy rail, and can handle steeper inclines. For some lines these criteria may be more crucial than through running with a national network or more familiar equipment.

Beyond monorail and hyperloop, there are plenty of other small guided transit concepts that have no way of interfacing with either road or standard gauge rail, yet are still successful without becoming ubiquitous; primarily rubber tired metros and people movers, but also even various steel on steel rail systems, whether they be narrow gauge or light rail. Even large standard gauge heavy rail metros often have no real connections to the wider rail network and new vehicles are delivered by ship or truck rather than rail.

supermop wrote:

teccuk wrote:But it's niche. Its amusement parks and tourist rides. One or two tiny systems and I think a reasonable sized on ein India. But its hardly the future transport the 60/70s promised it would be.

The systems I mentioned exclude tourist rides and are real urban rapid transit systems used every day as such by residents. I don't think many of these really could be considered "tiny" in the way that the Seattle monorail is - these systems are larger than many cities' proper heavy rail metro systems. They certainly are niche, but monorail (and maglev, and now hyperloop) have always been intended as niche products for very specific circumstances, that they may or may not ultimately excel at. No one seriously proposed replacing a national heavy freight rail network with concrete beam monorail, just as Elon Musk isn't trying to get BNSF or UP to haul coal across country in hyperloops. If anyone in the 60s was actually proposing that monorail was somehow the future for all types of rail haulage they were either an overeager Alweg salesperson or a SciFi writer who didn't fully grasp the concept. Hitachi's monorail division seems to be doing just fine in terms of sales, even if Hitachi makes much more in revenue from heavy rail. Monorail (and other light rubber tired systems) can be built elevated less obtrusively that heavy rail, and can handle steeper inclines. For some lines these criteria may be more crucial than through running with a national network or more familiar equipment.

Beyond monorail and hyperloop, there are plenty of other small guided transit concepts that have no way of interfacing with either road or standard gauge rail, yet are still successful without becoming ubiquitous; primarily rubber tired metros and people movers, but also even various steel on steel rail systems, whether they be narrow gauge or light rail. Even large standard gauge heavy rail metros often have no real connections to the wider rail network and new vehicles are delivered by ship or truck rather than rail.

London underground has connection with rail - which means new stock can moved between but deeper lines - some lines can't have connections for new stock moves (victiro line is only one that can't be moved between for new stock but older stocks can access between them)

The deep-level Underground lines are actually rather well connected considering...

As follows:

Bakerloo - eastbound Jubilee line trains can join the southbound Bakerloo line at the south end of Baker Street. Northbound Bakerloo trains can join the westbound Jubilee line via a connection at the north end.

Central - all done at West Ruislip depot. There's a connection to the National Rail network round the back of the station to the siding which backs onto the Down Chiltern. There's also a single line connection to Uxbridge for the Piccadilly and Metropolitan lines.

Jubilee - As per the Bakerloo above. Additionally the Jubilee and Metropolitan line run parallel between Finchley Road and Wembley Park. There are connections at Neasden (near the depot) and Wembley Park.

Northern - Only one connection to the whole line, via the Kings Cross Loop. The only way to access this is via the Euston Loop, that is the section of track that used to run into the old northbound Bank branch platform (this is now used by the Victoria Line). To get into the Euston Loop, a northbound Northern train is signalled straight in from Kings Cross. A southbound train uses a shunt signal from Euston. There's then another shunt signal into the Kings Cross Loop, before a normal signal into the eastbound Piccadilly line platform at KX.

Piccadilly - The best connected of the lines really. See Northern and Victoria. Also, trains can swap to the District Line between Barons Court and Hammersmith.

Victoria - A southbound Victoria Line train can join the southbound Piccadilly Line tunnel just south of Finsbury Park. Northbound Piccadilly line trains join the northbound Victoria Line, also south of Finsbury Park. Interestingly, neither connection was ready when the line was completed for testing - so it was agreed to build a temporary connection between the Victoria Line depot and the rail network. Imagine that today!

Waterloo and City - No connection - trains are brought in by road and are craned in using a mobile crane. Until they built the International side of Waterloo there was a permanently fixed crane.

All this being said - almost none of the stock is interchangeable. For example, the 2009 stock on the Vic is 40mm wider than the standard stock spec, so can't be used on other services (I fancy they could be used at low speed if they were being removed).

Waterloo and City trains are based on the Central Line stock, but neither would work on the other's line these days.

It's all very interesting.

supermop wrote:They certainly are niche, but monorail (and maglev, and now hyperloop) have always been intended as niche products for very specific circumstances, that they may or may not ultimately excel at. No one seriously proposed replacing a national heavy freight rail network with concrete beam monorail, just as Elon Musk isn't trying to get BNSF or UP to haul coal across country in hyperloops. If anyone in the 60s was actually proposing that monorail was somehow the future for all types of rail haulage they were either an overeager Alweg salesperson or a SciFi writer who didn't fully grasp the concept.

It does seem to me that Musk is proposing that hyperloop could become at least quasi-universal, or am I missing something? Otherwise there would be little point in trying to develop this technology.

No self-respecting new town or redevelopment scheme in the 1960s was without its monorail; almost all of them were not built, however. If a universal monorail system for passengers was not the aim, the proposals were pretty universal - even if they were not intended to link together.

I was at a seminar last night and the issue of Hyperloop did come up. One of the big problems however, is that while it may be perfectly feasible at the end of the day to zoom through endless bits of countryside, the issues of urban construction still remain, which means that proposed systems will often terminate on the edges of cities. And we all know how competitive edge-of-city stations can be when you consider a point-to-point journey time.

One chief advantage of High Speed Rail of course, is that you can always water it down and do the German/Californian way of building isolated stretches where it's easy to build, while retaining your existing network for the niggly urban bits. Of course, when your chief objective is to relieve capacity on the niggly urban bits - as in the UK - that isn't an option.

JamieLei wrote: niggly

Sorry, I couldn't help myself