Hyperloop to Cedar Point

I’m sure the seatbelts will be really short on any hyperloop stopping in Sandusky.

^lol best comment ever.

As for the train, I cannot see it being done. Aaaand most people with cars, giant SUVs and F-150s will want to drive to CP and other North Ohio locations anyway.

^ I'm not sure I follow you. I'm not saying I think there would be a stop in Sandusky for the currently hypothetical hyperloop, but why would most people with "cars, giant SUVs and F-150s" want to drive to CP instead of a much faster, potentially more economical choice? For example, I live in Pittsburgh. If I was able to hop on a hyperloop shuttle and get to CP in minutes, as opposed to driving and almost taking 3 hours, why would I prefer to drive? It would also allow me to go to CP much more often than I currently do, which is basically one big trip per year.

A recent Ars piece on Hyperloop that is interesting.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/is-it-time-to-take-the-hyperloop-seriously/

I think the Hyperloop is technologically feasible, but not practically feasible. The technology to shuttle people in a pod from place to place within a vacuum could/will be developed in the next few years. However the practical cost of moving them from a central location in Chicago to a central location in Cleveland will be far too great to make the cost of the system worth the squeeze.

And you would not be able to just elevate this above a rail corridor and use that as an approach into a city. Rail companies own that land and they want nothing that would pose any potential problem to their shipments.

I just don't see a way that this could be built from City to City and priced at an economical 30 year payback schedule. No one wants to go from cow country outside of Cleveland to cow country outside of Chicago.

You could easily use the existing I-90/I-80 right of way from Cleveland to Chicago. I don't think it will be too hard to get it close enough to the center city to transfer to Uber or other public transportation to get to wherever in the city you want to go.

tedders55 said:
No one wants to go from cow country outside of Cleveland to cow country outside of Chicago.

Not all but many of the major airports are located in cow country and do just fine. Been to DEN (Denver) in the past 20 years?

Hell, Cincinnati’s airport is in Kentucky!
:^)

Yeah I know most airports are far away from city centers, for good reason. And maybe that is the way they start these tubes. There could be another giant terminal complex in Chicago, just this time with gerbil tubes.

Pete, you could get from Westlake to the Turnpike in the median, but there actually isnt a median on 80 between there and Toledo. Now thats not to say that there isn't an easement next to 80 that couldnt be used, but then you are going to be involving ODOT in this process (along with other DOT if you continue that alignment). So this would go from a 5 year build out to 20 at least. Along with every community demanding a stop on the line.

Also, regarding these intermediate stops; how would they be accomplished? I had thought that each tube was a point to point connection and that doing a stop in between would shut the whole system down.

They can build the tubes over the highway by putting the supports on each side of the road with a support span going over the road. In the illustrations I saw, the support system is very basic and looks like it would be relatively inexpensive and quick to build.

The pods are powered by magnetic induction (sort of but a little different then roller coaster launch tracks) so the speed can be varied. I'm thinking the stops would work sort of like a terminal on a high speed detachable ski lift. The line speed on the lift always runs at top speed but in the terminal the carriers detach from the cable and come to almost a complete stop. This can be done because the carriers in the terminal are very close together and then they are spaced out again to normal spacing as they accelerate to line speed and exit the terminal This can work the same way on the Hyperloop by the control system slowing the pods in deceleration zones before each station and then accelerating back up to full speed when exiting. Sure, it would add a little time to the trip but it would still be very, very quick.

^ I like that idea Pete, but I think there would a diverging tunnel/path into/out of the terminals. Since load/unload times are so different in scale to pass through times, not to mention variable, It makes more sense to plan to allow a following train to pass than hold up an entire line because a seat belt broke in Peoria.

One aspect of the hyperloops I have not heard mentioned is freight. For all the same reasons it is good for passenger travel, it works for freight shipping. Freight would make a great system ballast to even out underutilized time slots. Instead of a passenger bus, run a "semi-truck" with an inter-modular shipping box on it. At the destination, swap the cargo with a different box, wait for an open time slot, and send it on.

Pete said:

They can build the tubes over the highway by putting the supports on each side of the road with a support span going over the road. In the illustrations I saw, the support system is very basic and looks like it would be relatively inexpensive and quick to build.

That sounds like a nightmare, and far from inexpensive and quick to build.

Also, these need to be built in pretty much straight sections in order to maintain the near super sonic speeds. No interstate is perfectly straight for a variety of reasons, land acquisition being the primary cause, and driver fatigue sets in on an incredibly straight part of road. Diver fatigue probably wont be an issue, but making any kind of turn would be. Per a PBS article from two years ago: "The top speed of the fastest commercial bullet train, the Shanghai Maglev, hovers around 300 mph. But at this speed, it would require a banked curve with a radius of 4,400 meters to keep passengers from losing their lunch. By comparison, the hardest turns on an Amtrak train require half as much distance. So, unless hyperloop plan on making huge curves or slowing down precipitously, the track will need to be fairly straight."

So if they are going to be going twice as fast they would need 8,800 meters, or 5.4 miles. to make a turn.

Again while I see this being technically feasible, and really only white paper, I just can't see it becoming practically feasible.

I'm all for hyperloops, but I have no earthly idea where people are getting these "within five years" numbers. This is literally an entirely new type of transportation and there isn't a single functioning track that carries either passengers *or* cargo tonight.

Just think of how long it takes to big a big building in a city. And then think of how long it takes to build a cutting-edge track over hundreds and hundreds of miles, after you get the permits, etc., and then the time it takes to test that track, set up some sort of business to govern it...it's just a mess.

I think it's still likely to happen, but give it a decade.

The Empire State Building opened 13 months after the first steel beam was laid almost 90 years ago.

If the owners want a fast construction time table and the regulators are behind it construction can proceed very quickly.

Plus, the Hyperloop is more like building a pipeline instead of some cutting edge construction project. The prefab tubes would be delivered on site and put together like a pipeline, or even like constructing steel coaster track.