Virgin Hyperloop axes half its staff to focus on freight

[Brooksie359]

13 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Mildly off topic, but land acquisition was one of the biggest struggles with trump's border wall. 

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/789725311/acquiring-private-land-is-slowing-trumps-border-wall

It can be done, but its not just some thing they don't have to worry about.

Well I would expect it would be easier to get the high speed rail done as I doubt many people would be against getting high speed rail between major cities. I mean just imagine if you could take a high speed rail to any major city in the US that would be super great. Also even having better local transit would be super useful as well as places like LA desperately needs some better public transportation as trying to drive in LA sucks. Unfortunately that isn't happening because instead we get this hyperloop thing that is so absurdly pointless. If only they had installed a subway system instead. Granted I don't know if a subway system would be difficult to do due to LA being in a high seismic zone. Granted if the hyperloop can withstand in the seismic zone then a subway system should be able to made to withstand it as well. 

[poochyena]

3 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Well I would expect it would be easier to get the high speed rail done as I doubt many people would be against getting high speed rail between major cities. I mean just imagine if you could take a high speed rail to any major city in the US that would be super great. Also even having better local transit would be super useful as well as places like LA desperately needs some better public transportation as trying to drive in LA sucks. Unfortunately that isn't happening because instead we get this hyperloop thing that is so absurdly pointless. If only they had installed a subway system instead. Granted I don't know if a subway system would be difficult to do due to LA being in a high seismic zone. Granted if the hyperloop can withstand in the seismic zone then a subway system should be able to made to withstand it as well. 

well yea, but the people whose land is being taken could see 0 benefit of it, and would now have to deal with living near a noisy train.

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, poochyena said:

well yea, but the people whose land is being taken could see 0 benefit of it, and would now have to deal with living near a noisy train.

As someone who use to live near a train track I didn't mind it too much. Also I would imagine that modern high speed rail isn't as loud. As for people who are having their land be taken away while it isn't ideal they would still get paid for their property so they could move. 

[poochyena]

2 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

As someone who use to live near a train track I didn't mind it too much.

I hear so many people say this, but I lived half a mile from train tracks for 2 years and absolutely hated it. it would wake me up at night. Was so happy when I moved, I could finally sleep well at night.

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, poochyena said:

I hear so many people say this, but I lived half a mile from train tracks for 2 years and absolutely hated it. it would wake me up at night. Was so happy when I moved, I could finally sleep well at night.

I like white noise when I sleep so it didn't bother me. I guess it's a personal preference thing as I know people who can't sleep with white noise. 

[Mihle]

3 hours ago, poochyena said:

I hear so many people say this, but I lived half a mile from train tracks for 2 years and absolutely hated it. it would wake me up at night. Was so happy when I moved, I could finally sleep well at night.

Cargo trains is usually much louder than passenger trains. Also, could have been and old train rails/trains?

[cmndr]

On 3/11/2022 at 3:43 AM, jaslion said:

Just build a damn higher speed train line already. The hyperloop is a stupid flawed idea that literally blows up if you throw a rock hard enough at it. Or well since it's america some random dude with a gun.

 

It's been a feverdream all the way through and really moving through a vacuum that has to be created brings so little advantages over just using already existing tech it makes no sense to try. Especially the way they were going about it.

There are very real benefits to fixing the issue of air resistance.
Tunnels with a dash of negative air pressure might work better.

[jaslion]

4 hours ago, cmndr said:

There are very real benefits to fixing the issue of air resistance.
Tunnels with a dash of negative air pressure might work better.

Air resistance is not really a huge problem for the speeds they are aiming for as open air rail can do it already.

 

The problem is creating the vacuum is so expensive, time consuming and needs WAY better material construction than they have that it makes no sense to do. That and the cars they are aiming to use from the prototypes don't even get up to normal rail speed yet.

 

It's a project that has been failing for years and that's why little is being done.

[poochyena]

10 hours ago, Mihle said:

Cargo trains is usually much louder than passenger trains. Also, could have been and old train rails/trains?

That makes sense

[wanderingfool2]

14 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

As someone who use to live near a train track I didn't mind it too much. Also I would imagine that modern high speed rail isn't as loud. As for people who are having their land be taken away while it isn't ideal they would still get paid for their property so they could move. 

Those people will likely fight tooth an nail.  You get paid the "highest price obtainable on the open market", which doesn't really mean much especially since they likely will still likely lowball you...and you would have to fight it in court to get more.  It means, you have to still move, which means paying for movers, setting up your house again, finding a suitable place, etc.  Overall, someone subject to eminent domain might end up in a worse spot than before (or at best financially neutral).  I guess ask yourself this: Would you move if you were given the value of your home (no moving expenses factored in).

 

For the more rural areas, it would also cause a bifurcation of the land (like farming, your single plot is now 2 plots where you have to now have a specified crossing zone).

 

It's why I do think major projects like this would have to go underground (less feeling of entitlement, and likely easier to get the rights to).  Above ground it just starts getting very expensive very quickly.

[Brooksie359]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Those people will likely fight tooth an nail.  You get paid the "highest price obtainable on the open market", which doesn't really mean much especially since they likely will still likely lowball you...and you would have to fight it in court to get more.  It means, you have to still move, which means paying for movers, setting up your house again, finding a suitable place, etc.  Overall, someone subject to eminent domain might end up in a worse spot than before (or at best financially neutral).  I guess ask yourself this: Would you move if you were given the value of your home (no moving expenses factored in).

 

For the more rural areas, it would also cause a bifurcation of the land (like farming, your single plot is now 2 plots where you have to now have a specified crossing zone).

 

It's why I do think major projects like this would have to go underground (less feeling of entitlement, and likely easier to get the rights to).  Above ground it just starts getting very expensive very quickly.

Well tbh I know someone who was effected by imminent domain and guess what happened. They had to move and all of the fight tooth an nail thing didn't do much to stop the new freeway from.going in. I don't see why they couldn't easily do the same for these high speed rails especially since it was be a convenience that basically everyone could use over taking an airplane. 

[wanderingfool2]

6 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Well tbh I know someone who was effected by imminent domain and guess what happened. They had to move and all of the fight tooth an nail thing didn't do much to stop the new freeway from.going in. I don't see why they couldn't easily do the same for these high speed rails especially since it was be a convenience that basically everyone could use over taking an airplane. 

Yea, it didn't stop them..but when you have that many people complaining it starts to do things like slow down the entire process.  There actually was the case in Abbotsford here with the flood that it was going to be used, and there was enough push-back that they stepped back from doing it.

 

The issue with just doing high speed rail is that you still need roadways, so it creates a build a highway or build a highway and railway kind of mentality...where railways have a higher upfront cost and generally are not as time efficient at moving people from point A to point B.  From where I live, when I went to school there wasn't any direct method of getting from my home to my school.  It also massively sucks having to commute in the pouring rain, waiting at the bus stop at -5C weather, etc.  The thing about highspeed rail is that you still need all that infrastructure to get people from the rail to their destination (which is where the concept breaks down).

 

Either way though, projects like that could potentially move underground, which if tunneling out become 100x cheaper per mile the whole construct of travel could be changed up.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Yea, it didn't stop them..but when you have that many people complaining it starts to do things like slow down the entire process.  There actually was the case in Abbotsford here with the flood that it was going to be used, and there was enough push-back that they stepped back from doing it.

 

The issue with just doing high speed rail is that you still need roadways, so it creates a build a highway or build a highway and railway kind of mentality...where railways have a higher upfront cost and generally are not as time efficient at moving people from point A to point B.  From where I live, when I went to school there wasn't any direct method of getting from my home to my school.  It also massively sucks having to commute in the pouring rain, waiting at the bus stop at -5C weather, etc.  The thing about highspeed rail is that you still need all that infrastructure to get people from the rail to their destination (which is where the concept breaks down).

 

Either way though, projects like that could potentially move underground, which if tunneling out become 100x cheaper per mile the whole construct of travel could be changed up.

I think you are not understanding the purpose of high speed rail. The point isn't to replace for local transportation as the high-speed rail is supposed to be used to travel over long distances and replace the need for using an airplane to travel from major city to major city. I know in Europe you can take high speed rail to travel from one country to another fairly easily. I mean think about being able to take a train to basically anywhere you could want to go instead of taking a plane. Also its much more efficient than taking a plane and you don't have to go through the huge headache of taking a plane as well.