Edmonton - Red Deer - Calgary Hyperloop | ?m | ?s | Transpod

[archited]

Somebody's been reading my mail To put cost in perspective the new 737-8 passenger jet lists at $380 million dollars -- so $10 Billion is only a fleet of 26 of those -- no operational pollution, more direct connections, better safety, less service staff, better economical tie-ins for the Province, a sense of progressive-mindedness for Alberta, a boon to both of Alberta's major cities, cargo plus passengers... where are the negatives (I know there are some).

 

[quit]

BUt AlBeRtA iS oPeN fOr BuSiNeSs?!?!?!?

 

[Platinum107]

...ugh...

Here’s what I think about the article: I still 100% believe that 320kph HSR is the mode of transport best feasible for the EC Corridor but, if TransPod and the province are now actually finally keen on doing something here (and this isn’t another lip-service-happy-dream agreement for a project like many others before it) then I'll be there for public consultations and giving my opinions to help make this as best as it can be. However, there is still one major thing that is reeeeally grinding my gears, and that is the last stop being at EIA . I get that the project hasn't even started planning yet and these are all conceptual ideas, but COME ON, that is undeniably foolish and gives Edmonton the shortest end of the shortest stick in the history of sticks. I'm honestly surprised that you guys are not more up-in-arms about this aspect of the proposal, because it's going to take being up-in-arms to change and fix it.

I still don't like Hyperloop and think that we are reaching too far ahead of what we actually need and could build, but if they are going to build this, I know I will be a persistent critic to help ensure we get the best product possible.

 

[kcantor]

it says they need 5 - 6 million passengers a year although it's unclear as to whether those are single trip or return trip passengers.

lets be generous and say they're single trips which means you need 3 million return trip passengers. that means you need to carry 8,219 passengers per day each way. assuming your travel is going to take place over a 15 hour period (say 6:30 am to 10:00 pm) that's 548 passengers per hour.

the typically hyped pods carry between 28 and 40 passengers. if 40 passenger pods are used at 75% capacity, it will take 18 pods to carry 548 passengers per hour. 18 pods per hour is 9 per 1/2 hour trip. for a 1/2 hour trip that means 3 minutes and 20 seconds headway.

if 28 passenger pods are used at an average 75% capacity, it will take 26 pods to carry 548 passengers per hour. 26 pods per hour is 13 per 1/2 hour trip. For a 1/2 hour trip that means 2 minutes and 30 seconds headway.

you can't unload and load a pod in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, particularly if you are going to provide both security and cleaning so you need quite a fleet of pods to try and deliver that headway.

and that's before you introduce those "freight pods" which probably need separate terminals for both loading and unloading so they need their own pods and their own headway.

for comparison, at subway speeds toronto transit uses a 2 minute headway for their ridership projections and 5 minutes for lrt. now think about the difference in speeds between lrt and hyperlink and what would be needed to maintain a safe headway margin.

the only thing i've found that's even close to a hyperlink "study" is this now dated university exercise:

https://www.cesarnet.ca/sites/defaul...5PosterT06.pdf

it says hyperloop makes sense if you could:

capture 60% of all calgary - edmonton travel!

capture 30% of all calgary - edmonton freight movement!

do we really need to do any more analysis of the underlying financial assumptions needed to make it work financially even if you could make it work physically?

as for the system, it said hyperloops can reach speeds of up to 1,200 km/hour and should be operational by 2030!

their analysis was based on the smaller 28 passenger pods. i shudder to think about what the headway would have to be reduced to in order to meet those numbers or how many elevated tunnels would need to be integrated and work flawlessly and simultaneously to provide a realistic headway.

and now you're going to stretch this all out not from suburb to core but run it between two cities 300 km apart in a fully enclosed tightly fitted chamber in a climate that sees perhaps the largest seasonal changes in temperature of anywhere in the world.

what could possibly go wrong?

 

[archited]

@kcantor it is true that additional study is required, ergo the test track. But, if it is a private affair with no government funding only MOUs and attaboys, then I would truly be interested to see what comes out the other end. High-speed rail is being ditched all over the world in new projects in favor of maglev and, more recently, Hyperloop projects. High speed rail will not favorably compete with air travel -- remember CP used to operate a self-propelled, single-car "freeway-speed" so-called Dayliner between Edmonton and Calgary, cancelled due to lack of use. The only realistic competitor would be a system that could match or exceed the time efficiency of air travel (especially glimpsing into the future when electric-air becomes viable and sustainable).

 

[Aaron_Lloyd]

This guy's videos have thoroughly convinced me that the hyperloop as a concept is completely bunk:

Wish we could just invest in a proven rail technology....

 

[EdmTrekker]

This will not be built or operated without public dollars being locked into any contract. Taxpayers of Alberta will find our AIMCO has been pressured by the UCP to invest in this project - like Keystone.

@kcantor it is true that additional study is required, ergo the test track. But, if it is a private affair with no government funding only MOUs and attaboys, then I would truly be interested to see what comes out the other end. High-speed rail is being ditched all over the world in new projects in favor of maglev and, more recently, Hyperloop projects. High speed rail will not favorably compete with air travel -- remember CP used to operate a self-propelled, single-car "freeway-speed" so-called Dayliner between Edmonton and Calgary, cancelled due to lack of use. The only realistic competitor would be a system that could match or exceed the time efficiency of air travel (especially glimpsing into the future when electric-air becomes viable and sustainable).

The Los Angeles hyper loop is dead - and the reasons for it are just like they will be here ... people still need to get to their local destination and thus using a variety of means to do it: car, car-share, bus, metro connection etc. The practicality is simply not there for the capital investment - and people will not choose this option given its only a 3 hour drive.

"No work has been done on the route proposed in Musk's alpha-design; one cited reason is that it would terminate on the fringes of the two major metropolitan areas (Los Angeles and San Francisco), resulting in significant cost savings in construction, but requiring that passengers traveling to and from Downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco, and any other community beyond Sylmar and Hayward, to transfer to another transportation mode in order to reach their final destination. This would significantly lengthen the total travel time to those destinations."

Hyperloop - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[quit]

We shall see. UAE is dumping money into what will likely be the first line. Sounds like a lot of companies have internal working prototypes and are keeping it that way. I suspect this will end up like Facebook where everyone had the same idea and the first person to implement got rich while the rest went bust.

Isn't the Great Lakes corridor still being looked at in the US as a more feasible location? 7 years on and investors are still pumping money in. That makes it seem like someone has something that works.

Does that mean it is right for Alberta? No.

 

[Platinum107]

@Aaron_Lloyd Video basically summed up all of my issues with it and more! I get how people may say "Well the technology is in its earliest stages and needs more development to work!" and they aren't wrong, but I believe that only a few less prevalent issues could be solved with this logic. The truth is that the system has massive problems that inherent with how it functions at its core, and the only way to solve those problems it to change the system entirely until it isn't a "hyperloop" anymore. To restate something from the video: Elon Musk had a cool idea that sounded amazing on paper and when spoken about casually, but when you dissect it you find it fall apart and dies fairly quickly.

 

[dunno]

...ugh...

Here’s what I think about the article: I still 100% believe that 320kph HSR is the mode of transport best feasible for the EC Corridor but, if TransPod and the province are now actually finally keen on doing something here (and this isn’t another lip-service-happy-dream agreement for a project like many others before it) then I'll be there for public consultations and giving my opinions to help make this as best as it can be. However, there is still one major thing that is reeeeally grinding my gears, and that is the last stop being at EIA . I get that the project hasn't even started planning yet and these are all conceptual ideas, but COME ON, that is undeniably foolish and gives Edmonton the shortest end of the shortest stick in the history of sticks. I'm honestly surprised that you guys are not more up-in-arms about this aspect of the proposal, because it's going to take being up-in-arms to change and fix it.

I still don't like Hyperloop and think that we are reaching too far ahead of what we actually need and could build, but if they are going to build this, I know I will be a persistent critic to help ensure we get the best product possible.

i wholeheartedly agree. i’m also leery of teaming up with a private company to provide something that should be a public good (i.e. a rail link on an extremely well-used urban corridor) as it will have profitability as the focus instead of just providing a good, accessible, frequent service regardless of financial incentive. i’d honestly be fine if we just built a VIA track (or perhaps an alberta crown corp equivalent) between edmonton-red deer-calgary with trains roughly the same speed as cars (so 100-120kph) and then perhaps down the line upgrade that to HSR of something akin to what youre saying. but bottom line is there just needs to be a rail link, and a dedicated track, unlike most of VIA‘s current network, so that it isn’t slower than molasses and actually competitive with cars/buses/jets. also once the QEII rail corridor is built, there could be extensions to banff/canmore (and perhaps further into BC), down to lethbridge, maybe an upgrade to the track between jasper and lloyd. i could envision other lines (or just frequent bus service) to medicine hat and into saskatchewan, camrose (kind of exists with ebus now), drumheller, up to grande prairie and the peace region, and down the icefields parkway. think of how cool it’d be to be able to get to hikes and such at lake louise, bow lake, peyto lake, columbia icefields, athabasca falls, and so forth without cars.

 

[archited]

Two Major things -- 1. the Hyperloop is not intended to create a vacuum in its conveyance chamber and that is where @Aaron_Lloyd's source got it entirely wrong. Hyperloop is intended to create a pressure differential only (a partial vacuum in the direction of travel) to drastically reduce air resistance at high speeds. The effort to create a complete vacuum is so ludicrous that the speaker in the video needs to reread or re-engage with his sources. So-o-o-o-o many people make the same mistake! A complete vacuum would whip the internal module at lightning speed -- completely out of control -- basic high-school physics tells us that. Besides if the internal module doesn't touch the wall of the enclosure what use would a complete vacuum be? An air density differential, however would make the system capable of attaining high speeds in a completely controllable fashion -- the same kind of differential (Bernoulli principle) that enables airplanes to fly. The lesson -- don't be misled by people who don't know what they are talking about. 2. There are many Hyperloop test scenarios going on around the world (does one think that major investors in these projects know nothing of where their money is going? C'mon guys!) Here is a more balanced reporting -- https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/how-long-hyperloop/index.html

 

[archited]

For those interested in the HSR possibilities this bit of history on the Dayliner might be of interest (it reached speeds of 90 mph -- 145 kph) http://tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2014/04/vias-calgary-edmonton-rdcs-part-1.html

 

[Aaron_Lloyd]

The original technical paper (pg 12) calls for the tube to be depressurized to 100 pascals (aprox. 0.001 atm) which seems to be what the video used as the basis for making its assessment of the system (based on 9:25 in the video). Maybe there's been development since then that calls for a more reasonable spec, but I haven't heard anything about that if that's the case.

I think you're being a little too generous to the engineering knowledge of investor types, I'm sure there are plenty who hear "Elon Musk" and just start forking over cash. We're talking about the same people who gave the likes of Juicero $120 million.

 

[quit]

The original technical paper (pg 12) calls for the tube to be depressurized to 100 pascals (aprox. 0.001 atm) which seems to be what the video used as the basis for making its assessment of the system (based on 9:25 in the video). Maybe there's been development since then that calls for a more reasonable spec, but I haven't heard anything about that if that's the case.

I think you're being a little too generous to the engineering knowledge of investor types, I'm sure there are plenty who hear "Elon Musk" and just start forking over cash. We're talking about the same people who gave the likes of Juicero $120 million.

The said video is four years old.

Perhaps you are right about some investors; however, there is significant money at play here in the billions of dollars. Not all investors are dumb. There are multiple engineers scattered through many companies working on the technology. Some company has this working out there and you can almost guarantee someone has seen it working, otherwise the money would not continue to flow in.

I think you can generalize on both sides of the coin in this conversation. I like to take a pragmatic approach and acknowledge that there are likely a ton of far smarter people than myself working on this technology and also investing in it.

As to Ken's post earlier in the thread, I do not necessarily think the tech is viable for Alberta, but I do think the tech itself is viable. Until someone comes up with cheap and fast rail, I don't really think we will see it happen in Alberta. The economics just don't make sense here.

The pragmatic side of me also acknowledges that this entire press release was simply a distraction from more pressing and damaging political issues. Judging by our conversation, it was a good distraction! I mean, Alberta is open for business after all.

 

[Aaron_Lloyd]

So I took a look at Transpod's proposal doc (request your own copy here), and it seems they are expecting the same low pressure of 100 pascals criticised in the video I posted. I don't know how the show stopping concerns raised in the video could possibly be overcome to produce an affordable and safe transportation option.