Beardy Branson chucks cash at His Muskiness' Hyperloop idea

Given the fastest train route to Cambridge from Manchester is via London down the West Coast Mainline I think you'll find it's going to do quite a lot for someone making that particular journey!

Norwich is a fine city - Although I do agree that it's not a first thought for a little trip out. Although now we have a Krispy Kreme and a 5-guys it is looking up.

The West Coast Main Line, which HS2 will mostly duplicate, is at near full capacity during morning peak hours on its southern stretches

I call bollocks. The WCML is far from the most crowded of the lines into London. What 'independent' consultants showed was that if you cherry pick your data and forecast it forward for a decade and a half, you can show that there will be capacity issues. But if the purpose of HS2 is to relieve (potential, future) bottlenecks, there are far, far cheaper ways of doing this. They don't generate cushy non-executive directorships for retired politicians and civil servants, though.

When the history of the 21st century comes to be written, HS2 will feature in similar terms to the East Africa Groundnut Scheme.

Regional transport

Who says the hub would have to be in London? It isn't in the center of the UK, and if Hyperloop even happens, the LAST station to be built will be in London. Because whether it goes above ground or underground, all the permitting and construction would take a decade or two, optimistically. I mean, how long does it take to add a new Tube line from initial plan to opening, let alone if they wanted to add a new rail line?

If they built a hub in the middle of nowhere then it could be opened quickly, and since it would be mostly a transfer station with few people starting or ending their journeys there, it could be compact and easy to walk from one line to another. Having the hub in London means it is the termination of most journeys which adds a bunch of problems (not the least of which is security since anything is more of a terrorist target in London)

I wish I could make billions by doing nothing other than talking shite. Hell, I'd be rich already.

Virgin has been known for disruption

Truth in marketing !

Re: Main benefit of HS2?

Chiltern trains are limited by the length of the platforms. They've been busy extending many stations, just to get from 6-car to 7-car trains.

Re: Journey time...

I think they plan to run them like ski gondalas, so each "train" would be able to divert off the main track to a loading/unloading mini loop.

Re: Journey time...

the regular train could do it in 393m/125mph

If the line were entirely capable of 125mph working - which because of bends, junctions,clearances, etc, it isn't.

More to the point, the faster conventional trains go, the more headway is required - I'd be interested to know how many hyperloop pods they can have in flight at the same time

Re: Journey time...

Why is it that so many crazy people are rich? Or is it that having all that money makes you crazy? 10 whole minutes, wow!

Track capacity halves for every doubling of speed (due to increased spacing required between the trains).

If the rail industry would think, they'd have researched low speed, fully laden coupling, and decoupling at speed. You then run (say) a Manchester set out of the platform at Euston, follow immediately with a Glasgow set, join them without even stopping, run as a single train to MK, Rugby, or Crewe, and decouple on the approach to those. Underground trains can stop with an accuracy of about two inches relative to the platform (eg at Westminster and other "doored" platforms), so this precision is entirely feasible. You then need to sort that out with the antiquated block signalling, but that's hardly an insurmountable problem unless you're dim.

Re: I fear Virgin Hyperloop will be as ill-fated a venture as Virgin Cola

Maybe Beardo doesn't care. He's throwing some cash at this, and he doesn't care if it gets built - the benefit is that he's now publicly mates with Elon the Great. Beardo is associated with a Jetsons train set. Beardo is thinking about the future, about the planet.

Like everything Branson does, it is just about self promotion.

Congratulations; 4 incorrectly used apostrophes and a couple of missing capital letters in 3 lines.

If English isn't your first language then forgiveness might just be available.

The biggest comparison with MagLev is that the reason we don't have MagLev is because a pair of iron rails is a hell of a lot cheaper. How many people will the cost of this line be spread over? (Construction Costs + Operating Costs / Capacity = a ticket price that makes Concorde look like a budget flight?)

It's the Brand, son.

The idea is bonkers, unless you're hoping for a large slice of government pork. California announces it wants a faster rail link from LA to SF, businesses line up at the trough. As for air..

In Musk's original Hyperloop concept, an electrically driven inlet fan and air compressor would be placed at the nose of the capsule to "actively transfer high-pressure air from the front to the rear of the vessel,"

.. Which is why 'artists impressions' show turbine blades at the rear of the 'pods'. Except being near vacuum, it'll be low pressure air outside the pod. So it'll use rail gu.. I mean linear induction motors for most of the propulsion. Pod people will coast along in comfort, unless the cushion fails. Or there's a kink or snag due to quakes, expansion or sabotage. Implosion, explosion or just stuck. Risk of that might be high given suggestions that the HypeLoop will have a very low operating cost. Which is unlikely if it's routed along the I5 median, or underground.

Then there are other tricky issues like the cost. Not only design and construction, but also per pod. Concept art shows single containers in the cargo pods and small numbers of passengers in the suici.. I mean people pods. So they'll need to be loaded/unloaded safely at costs comparable to existing passenger & freight rates. And the I5 carries a lot of freight. Which is part of the California politics. Roads are falling apart and in dire need of maintenance. A high capacity rail link might take some of the pressure off, or just end up being a very expensive white elephant. If you're spending other people's money, that's not a problem.

stick the Virgin name on something...but get all his investment back in name licencing fees.

Lucky he didn't call his outfit BeardedBellEnd, that might not have been so lucrative, even if more accurate.

"The train approaching platform 6 is the late running 17:05 BeardedBellEnd Trains service to Manchester Piccadilly, calling at Milton Keynes Central, Crewe, Macclesfield and some other shite place."

Re: Well done Branson

"anything which keeps the world talking about us cannot be a bad thing"

But the world can't stop talking about the US - & the cause is a bad thing -