Switzerland to test ‘hyperloop’ train technologies

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/future-transport_canton-valais-to-test--hyperloop--train-technologies/44616820

by baazaar • 8 years ago

118 66 8 years ago

swissinfo.ch

treve• 8 years ago

If the drawing has the correct scale, it looks like you will have to lie down going through the tube. Futurama-esk.

ceejayoz4• 8 years ago

I think that's just a depiction of the three kilometer test track.

microtherion3• 8 years ago

Since both accelerating to 900kmh on such a short track and decelerating will involve multi-g forces, maybe this will be the most comfortable travel position.

ip26• 8 years ago

I think it's the opposite really, you black out at much lower g forces when accelerating head first compared to face front.

Not proof of anything but notice rocket crew always face front.

heinrichf• 8 years ago

Back in the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissmetro https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissmetro

ilove_banh_mi2• 8 years ago

[Corrected, with thanks! I hadn't read the German-language wikipedia page, and I don't recall hearing about the roots of the idea when it was in the news by 1993.]

A research and development project was funded and launched in the 90s, while the initial concept is credited to Swiss engineer Rodolphe Nieth in 1974.

cpolymeris• 8 years ago

Or in the 90s https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KK_BOlHCaeI/V1G9-ezN_5I/AAAAAAAAA... [HR Giger]

ilove_banh_mi2• 8 years ago

Swissmetro [1] was a precursor concept publicized in 1993 [2], abandoned by 2009.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255792073_Swissmetr...

[2] PDF link to English-language report at the bottom of the page: http://www.bfe.admin.ch/dokumentation/energieforschung/index...

Animats• 8 years ago

The Dubai-Abu Dhabi hyperloop had a lot more potential.[1] Flat undeveloped desert along most of the route, the best case for a tube train. But the UAE government is backing off on support.

Nobody really wants to build Musk's hovercraft-like system. They're all maglev in vacuum systems.

Meanwhile, Japan's JR continues to tunnel for the Tokyo-Nagoya maglev. They have 42km of working track and rolling stock. It's expensive, but it's very real.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbFq_pSijE

ceejayoz4• 8 years ago

Swiss citizens travel more kilometers by rail per capita than any other country in the world. If you're going to implement a new form of public transit, they're a pretty good place to look.

ucaetano6• 8 years ago

If you're going to implement a new form of public transit, they're a pretty good place to look.

Not really. Most of Switzerland's transit is through rail, particularly standard gouge. Introducing a completely new, incompatible form of transit in a highly integrated network is a bad idea. You have to build entirely new infrastructure, stations, etc. All of them incompatible with the existing infrastructure.

It is the same reasons why the Germans didn't chose Transrapid for high-speed rail.

New types of transportation only ever make sense in a place with no or little existing transit infrastructure.

aidenn02• 8 years ago

You don't happen to know why nobody wants the air-bearing system? It seems like all Musk's announcement did was give cachet to tube train maglev.

dnautics• 8 years ago

Is it maglev? Iirc it's a passive magnetic system, like inductrac... Which has recently come off patent.

om42• 8 years ago

Air bearings are expensive and have a very low clearance (talking about tens of microns). The lower clearance raises the issue of safety. If I remember correctly, to get that to be greater than tens of microns you need larger compressors and lower operating pressure inside the tube which increases costs and it tougher to maintain.

If you take a look at the SpaceX Hyperloop competition the teams moved away from using air bearings mostly due to the low clearances and the challenges it brought. Maybe on Mars it could be more realistic.

icefo• 8 years ago

Damn it feels super weird to hear something about my childhood village on HN.

There is also a recently closed refinery there. The funny thing is that they never budgeted the decommissioning cost when it was built. So there is no money to do it and it's probably going to stay like that forever.

I hope the don't do the same for this project.

StreakyCobra• 8 years ago

You know what is even more weird? Reading a comment on HN of another person saying he also grew up there ;-)

__m• 8 years ago

https://youtu.be/RNFesa01llk

ttul• 8 years ago

That was a good watch!

salimmadjd• 8 years ago

Hyperloop only works most comfortably in very flat routes. It's something I never realized until I visited Hyperloop's offices in LA when they first started.

I got to make some early promo photos for them [0] and signed a 10-year NDA in the process. However, what I learned (which is public knowledge) that at high speeds even smallest elevation drops would make the passengers feel the free-fall sensation of being on a rollercoaster. Basically at high speeds the elevation change of the vertical vector components of anything more than several degrees can approach the free fall dropping speeds.

I have also taken numerous train rides in Switzerland and driven through large parts of the country and I don't believe the technology can be used there as well as it could have been deployed in other routes in the world that is naturally more flat. So I'm wondering if this mostly an R&D project designed to export an entire tunnel/hyperloop making solution.

[0] https://www.instagram.com/p/BMiyAIdhCJn/ (photo is about 80 frames stacked. Because we only had one welder at the time and I had to reuse him and also to intricately light every parts of this lot)

tdeck• 8 years ago

I wonder if people would just get used to that sensation if it meant cutting their commute in half.

mcguire2• 8 years ago

Or they wouldn't get those jobs.

jcranmer• 8 years ago

The thing about ultra-high-speed is this: your benefits (travel time) grow linearly with speed, but your problems (energy, capacity, curve radii, etc.) grow quadratically.

Actually, it's worse than it sounds. Travel time has a big impact on demand--but only within a small-ish window, about 2-4 hours. Outside of that window, demand does not respond that much to changes in travel time. That means that higher speeds are ultimately about trying to bring more destinations within the acceptable travel time window, but you also have to give up destinations within that window because the stop time penalties are too high.

Switzerland has the issue that it's just too small. With conventional 300-350km/h max-speed HSR, going from the eastern to the western edge of the country could be done in about 2 hours (recall that average speed is going to be less than max speed, particularly when stops are included), which is around the point where going faster means getting no practical benefit for people. It could serve international routes, but then Switzerland is bearing the costs without reaping the benefits, which the citizenry tends not to favor very highly.

seanmcdirmid3• 8 years ago

Even the HSR that operates in Switzerland, the TGV, doesn't get up to speed until it is well within France. Switzerland tracks aren't straight enough for HSR, and it would cost a lot to straighten them out.

There also isn't a lot of demand for Geneva to Zurich in an hour.

jfoutz• 8 years ago

There is an eaisier question. Is it better to have more ambulances or faster ambulances. Faster wins every time.

Analogy is a terrible argument. But I kinda think faster transportation beats more transportation every single time.

jws• 8 years ago

Regular US railroads generally are 1:100 slopes (0.6°) or less. Grades steeper than 2.2:100 (1.2°) are rare. Clearly there is a way to efficiently connect population centers which is not steep.

I think the issue is vertical curvature rather than slope. Traversing a slope at speed is just going to get you a constant vertical component which you will not feel, and not terribly fast, <20kph, about half as fast as a fast elevator. Changing slope is going to get you a vertical acceleration which could fill your tiny capsule with more vomit than one would like. The question is then, can you blend the slopes to keep that under control? Going maximum up grade to maximum down grade at full speed will be something like a 40kph velocity change, at 1G that takes 1.1 seconds, during which time you will drive 360 meters. So, blending over 360 meters gives you full weightless vomit motion or a 2x weight. The blend from full up to full down will probably need to be over a kilometer to keep things clean¹.

␄

¹ The internet is not being forthcoming about real world elevator accelerations. It is too polluted by imaginary physics problems. So I unilaterally decided 1/3g would be ok.

snovv_crash3• 8 years ago

That sensation is caused by vertical acceleration, ie. curvature, not by vertical speed. Controlling curvature is something that needs to be done anyway in the horizontal, I don't see why the vertical component would be harder to control for.

tempestn2• 8 years ago

Because the land has vertical variations that you would have to work with, probably involving a lot of filling, bridging, and tunneling. The horizontal is just about planning the route. (Which of course has some restrictions as well, but not to the same extent.)

pasta• 8 years ago

I don't think the Swiss are going to use it in their own country.

To me the article sounds like: we think it has potential and are going to see if we can make money out of it.

Edit: it can also be very interesting to see if it is cheaper and more confortable than 'low speed' trains. Maybe in the future we use the hyperloops at 80km/h.

sschueller• 8 years ago

Why would it be above ground? In Switzerland tunnels are a very common thing and Swissmetro was also planned to be underground. The Gotthard Base Tunnel is a almost level line through a thick mountain.

candiodari• 8 years ago

cost

k5hp• 8 years ago

I don't think Switzerland is going to use this system above ground. It most certainly will be deployed underground - long train tunnels are very common in Switzerland.

There was a project called Swissmetro [0] in 2005 which had a very similar concept to Hyperloop.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissmetro

antpls• 8 years ago

Everyone is talking about transporting humans with Hyperloop, but it doesn't make sense to me.

With internet, I cant think of a case where there is a need to be urgently, physically, transported from A to B anymore. Maybe weekend leisure trip would be more enjoyable with less travel time.

What I can imagine is an Amazon Hyperloop delivering goods and products faster from delivery center to consumers across countries. No problem about human sickness if there is no human transported. Also, maybe fresh foods like vegetables and fishes would benefit from a faster travel time.

EDIT : also, maybe it sounds silly but... what about transporting gold bars very fast?

baddox• 8 years ago

What’s the point of transporting gold bars very quickly when we have plenty of financial instruments that can reliably represent gold bars that can be transmitted digitally?

scotty79• 8 years ago

(which is public knowledge) that at high speeds even smallest elevation drops would make the passengers feel the free-fall sensation

I'm happy to hear that legally, physics is still public knowledge.

mcguire2• 8 years ago

Why is the car (https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/space-age-technology_swiss-team...) streamlined?

malajubee• 8 years ago

Virgin hyperloop is also planning to do testing/R&D in Europe, more specificially in the Malaga province in Spain.

http://www.surinenglish.com/local/201808/10/virgin-chooses-i...

Switzerland to test ‘hyperloop’ train technologies

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