Discussion on:

New York to London in an hour - by train

check out the Extreme Engineering video about this subject, program entitled "Transatlantic Tunnel"

The company claims that "construction would cost a tenth of high-speed rail and a quarter of freeways", and if you believe that, I have an evacuated bridge to sell you!

Care to explain?

It should seem obvious to even the casual observer. You just have to make a grade and lay some track for a high speed rail (concrete and/or asphalt for a highway). An evacuated transatlantic tunnel costing LESS?!?! C'mon.

It should just be common sense. No issues about pressure, weather, ocean currents, new technology, etc., with a high speed rail or highway.

I'd be nervous riding in a vacuum tunnel across the ocean. One little leak and you're in trouble. The safety standard would be so much higher compared to any issues regarding rail or highways that it would dramatically increase costs. That's not to mention the massive equipment needed to keep the tunnel in an evacuated state.

Even not accounting for the cost of developing the new technology, even if you just compare cost of construction, there's no way you'll ever convince me that such a project could be accomplished for less per mile than laying track or highways, let alone one quarter to one tenth the cost.

These sound like short sighted numbers cooked up by someone with a stake in the project. As I said, common sense would suggest otherwise.

Your assumptions put no value on the cost of the travelers time or on the environmental costs of large heavy trains on large heavy tracks that are exposed to the elements. Or the immense complexity of building ever larger, heavier, slower jets which require ever larger airports burning kerosene in the upper atmosphere and necessitate a hub and spoke topology that virtually insures that smaller markets will bear the largest costs.

The maglev technology has been in use since the 1960s. The control systems to regulate a segmented evacuated tube would not be that difficult to implement.

The Boeing 707-320 went into commercial service in 1959. It cruised at 540 kn/hr, burned 6.4 gal/mi carried 202 people, had a range of 3800 mi and its cost in 2011 dollars was $35.5M.
The Boeing 787-8 went into commercial service (sort of) in 2011. It cruises at 490 kn/hr, burns 4.4 gal/mi carries 280 people, has a range of 7800 mi and its cost in 2011 dollars is $194M.

So after 52 years and $32B in development costs (just on the 787 project not counting the 727, 737, 747, 757 767 and 777 development costs) Boeing has succeeded in building a plane that is 10% slower with 2x the range and carries 80 additional people using 49% of the fuel per person as the 1959 707.

That is pathetic. If you would have proposed that to the engineers that built those 707s back in 1959 they would have laughed you out of the freaking building.

My question to a naysayer like yourself is, ???What is your brilliant alternative plan to move people at 3-4X the speed of present day transportation at ten percent of the cost in the most environmentally safe way????

The solution certainly isn't this. And I'm all for moving people for less cost, but why does it have to be at the 3-4x the speed of present day conveyances? Nowadays we can transmit information at the speed of light. Why should we invest our limited human resources just so the 1 percent can cross the pond in less time?

You are correct transatlantic ET3 (tm) will be expensive, however more than 95% of the ET3 network will operate at 200mph to 600mph design speed, and across land -- not water. Only if ET3 networks are built to the same standard in every country can they eventually be networked together with a global backbone operating at 4k mph. This will only cross less than 100 miles of ocean (between Alaska and Siberia).

An $20k automobile with 5 seats = $4k/seat. HSR (high speed rail) costs $60k/seat. A 747 jet costs $462k/seat. The 6 seat ET3 capsules (not a train) can be mass produced using 1/8th as much material as an automobile, and cost even less on a per seat basis. HSR must be elevated for safety and air-blast issues. Elevated double track must withstand the mass of two 100 ton locomotives passing each other. Elevated double tube ET3 infrastructure must bear the weight of two 1200lb capsules for only a little over a ton of live-load. For this reason ET3 guideway requires 1/35th as much material to build as HSR infrastructure. Tubes are produced using automated equipment for much less labor cost per mile than all the "false work" needed to assemble and unassembled forms for making HSR. Detailed cost comparisons have been done between ET3 and maglev trains, ask for the spreadsheet by sending an e-mail to: et3 (at symbol) et3 (dot) com.

...with some interesting challenges as well. For example, how does one construct a deep-underwater structure that can maintain a near-complete vacuum without being crushed? Also, in order to achieve the speeds described without crushing the occupants, the path traveled would have to be almost perfectly straight. Even landscapes that are flat enough for conventional HSR would not be flat enough for this.

Planes already achieve that pressure differential. Underwater, for every 10 meters of depth you are adding one atmosphere to the pressure, the vacuum doesn't make much of a difference. You are right about the path: This contraption would only work in water.

The Transatlantic "vactrain" advocated by Frank Davidson (the founder and long time chair of the English Channel Tunnel project from start till completion), along with expert ocean engineer Ernst Frankel DOES NOT ADVOCATE DEEP WATER TUBES -- they advocate SFT "submerged floating tunnel" technology. They admit the horrific expense.

ET3 by contrast is NOT a train. The tubes are less than 1/3rd the diameter (less than 1/30th the cost) as "vactrain" tubes, and mostly will cross dry land (as most roads and railroads do). When ET3 must cross water, it could use SFT tech, OR more likely will be underground underwater (as the Chunnel is).

Even if the landscape were perfectly "flat" - conforming to the surface of the Earth - it has a radius of curvature of ~4400 miles. This works out to a constant acceleration of about .02G

Any conceivable change in altitude of the tube (short of a vertical transition) would be swamped out.

It's the stopping.

handling breakdowns, multiple capsules on the line...will the capacity be worth the construction?

ET3 is NOT a train, the design philosophy is more like an automobile operating on a freeway; but automated so the vehicle frequency can be much greater. (Just as automated telcom has much more capacity than human switchboard operators of 100 years ago). At 350mph, a single 5' (1.5m) diameter ET3 tube has the passenger capacity of 20 lanes of highway traffic (over 10 capsules per second). This is also 10 times the capacity of a high speed rail line.

Your destination will be known before you leave so they will just slow you down at the halfway point. You wouldn't only touch your top speed for a certain amount of time. Stopping shouldn't be hard.

It seems that passengers with certain health issues could be at risk. How might the technology change the precision of mechanical pumps, nano-drug delivery or effect vascular systems of compromised passengers?

Very interesting to consider the possibilities!

It wouldn't affect those devices because the passenger compartments would have to be pressurized like an airplane. If it lost pressurization, everyone would die from oxygen starvation.

The bigger problem for a system like this would be how expensive, large walled, well anchored, and straight the tunnel would have to be to prevent the passenger compartment from hitting the sides of the tunnel or subjecting the occupants to many times the force of gravity as the train went around curves at thousands of miles an hour.

I think you can solve the 'straight tunnel' problem with magnets. If the train levitates inside the tunnel, it can never hit a bump in the wall.
Concerning bends: just slow down I guess?

This thing would have to have some kind of seals to make the vacuum effective. Wondering how advanced seal technology is for something traveling that fast.

Also agree with another post that the vacuum pump would have to be huge!

There are many proven vacuum sealing and pumping technologies for ET3. Instead of large pumps, many small pumps will be used for cost scale factors, and also safe redundancy and ease of replacement without interrupting operation. Once almost all the air is removed, only some of the pumps operate intermittently to remove any air that leaks in.

If seals aren't available, then dolphins will happily help out. Besides, they are smarter than seals, so I would guess that dolphin technology is much more advanced than seal technology. And they work for fish and occasional applause!

Most (over 95%) of the global ET3 network will operate at 200mph to 600mph speed, and be above ground for much less cost. Underground ET3 is at least 3 times the expense of elevated structure. At higher speed than about 600mph, most ET3 will be underground to achieve the straightness required for passenger comfort. Higher speed ET3 must be actively aligned to automatically compensate for normal earth movements, for these reasons the cost will be much greater, (but the capacity will also increase by approximately the same factor).

It would seem that maintaining the vacuum would consume a lot of energy, and you'd have to do it throughout the entire length of the tube at all times.

how much the cost of electricity would be to run the magnetic rails in the tube as well as the vacuum pump. That is one heck of a carbon foot print for only six passengers.

Cars in the US move over 50 times more passengers than trains, and over 10 times more passengers than jumbo jets (typically 1 to 6 people at a time). The carbon production can be virtually eliminated by using renewable energy sources. ET3 can provide 50 times more transportation per unit of carbon production than electric cars or trains. For the record, ET3 uses HTSM (high temperature superconductor maglev). HTSM suspended ET3 capsules will require less than 10 cents worth of cooling per hour per capsule for the maglev energy cost.

It's like those bank teller tubes! Except really long and with people!

Cool concept, but I doubt the execution will be cost-effective for long distances.

Twice my money got trapped inside one of those tube transport at Providence Savings Bank, not a very good experience. I can just imagine what it would be like for human occupants riding in one of those cars. Sort of like being trapped on top of a burning sky scrapper waiting to be rescued.

http://www.davidevans.googlepages.com

Teller tubes use air pressure differences to propel the capsules. You are correct to guess they are not effective over distance over a mile or so. ET3 by contrast relies on elimination of virtually all air in the tubes, and is propelled by LEM (linear electric motors).

This is an economic problem not technical.

Passenger trains have been mostly displaced by the much better VALUE (benefit/cost ratio) offered by automobiles/roads, and aircraft. Passenger trains would not survive in the market except for gross government subsidy that props up the failed economics.

By contrast ET3 is focused on maximizing transportation value for most passenger AND cargo transportation. As a result of greater value, ET3 will naturally displace cars and jets, just as cars and jets displaced trains (and as trains displaced muscle power 150 years ago). It's all about the economics!

How are the passengers maintained at normal atmospheric pressure and air flow, the slightest over or under pressure would destroy their lungs instantly. to have a self contained independent air supply would be heavy and bulky even for emergency use. Which brings to the point of breakdown 500 miles + from either end with no access points say within 100 miles how do you get them out as the tube would be blocked by their car( mechanical stuck fast) so air powered car of similar type would not work to get to it and even if you did get to it how do you get in and get passengers out. No insurance company would touch it without these answers so back to the drawing board as they say.
While I am here This may interest London underground users that travel to terminal 4 at London Heathrow airport (LHR). I was told by an electronic systems suppler at the time of building, that the surrey fire brigade( not London) rescue service did an exercise to get to people trapped in a train in the tunnel if the incident was half way along the firemen would not have enough air in their breathing apparatus to get to the train and BACK again. It would not be possible to carry extra cylinders due to weight of other equipment they would have to take with them and would not be able to give air to passengers. So smoke filled train no survivors. It was kept quite at the time but I wonder what the plan is now???.

While "vactrains" do not address the issue of passenger escape and rescue from long tunnels, ET3 does -- read the patent !

I'd be real nervous a thousand feet underwater in a vacuum tube. What happens if a ship sinks and falls right on the tube?

What happens if a plain crashes and falls right on a tunnel?
Nothing, it's underground

I hope you are not serious when you make this comparison. The sinking ship can settle directly onto the tube. The crashed "plane" will still be on the top of the mountain or on the side of the mountain. Although the integrity of the tunnel may also be compromised.
Between the cost of the development, cost of building, maintenance issues, emergency issues, this will not happen in our lifetimes.
What about the faults, earthquakes, tsunamis, fire in that oxygen rich atmosphere? Great idea, logistically not feasible.

To set the record straight, neither the transatlantic "vactrain" proposal, or ET3 advocate deep water tubes. Aim first, then fire (research and learn before commenting).

Well, before speculating on the doability of a 2500mph train, get your facts right about todays' trains. Just under 200mph, hmm?? In the US, maybe, but trains travel way faster than that in civilized countries (France, Germany, Japan, even China). 200+mph was was could be done some 60+ years ago in Europe... Wake-up America !!

There few trains that regularly approach 200mph, and when they do it's only for short periods of time. And in case you weren't paying attention, China's much ballyhooed HSR project is a scandalous tragedy with massive fraud and poor technology. In the "civilized" countries, HSR is subsidized at great cost, allowing the wealthy speed and comfort paid for by the humble masses. Whenever I travel in Europe, I thank the European taxpayers with a much lower standard of living than I who subsidized my ticket.

As far as I am concerned, railroads and public transportation are a public matter, much like roads. If I follow your reasoning, I am using my bike to commute, so why should my taxes pay for the decent roads you drive on? Same reason as European taxpayers are paying for decent railroads.

HSR is a very expensive way to get around. (Don't confuse HSR with traditional rail, which is very efficient; most HSR fans like to tout traditional rail stats in place of real HSR figures)

Don't get me all wrong; I love to travel via rail and wish it did exist in the US. The problem is that the promoters of HSR rain here have to lie, cheat, and steal in order to sell it which tells me that it's wrong. If it was such a great deal, that wouldn't be the case.

Take the "public transportation" they are attempting to build in California from LA to SF; on a per-passenger basis it would be cheaper just to buy every person a first-class ticket on an airline, and get between the two places in a third of the time.

If "public transportation" didn't universally equate "inefficient" and "expensive boondoggle", I'd be more likely to agree with you.

I don't know much about the LA-SF HSR, but in France, railroad companies are making lots of profits. In Europe again, a 600mi trip by train is ~50euros. The same trip by plane is 3 to 4 times more expensive. And for reasonably short distances (600miles), I'd rather take a fast train at 250mph (2h30 - 3h trip), with Wifi connection, more leg room etc, than go to the airport, and the hassle of check-in procedures, security check-points, tiny seat, no signal, etc... The flight itself is faster, but door-to-door, it's pretty much the same (not for longer distances like NY-LA, I agree). But again, the railroad network is much denser in Europe.

Not to mention that trains use a lot less energy than planes (specially electric trains)

Again, advocates of HSR tout the efficiencies of conventional rail when selling HSR. You might be able to take a conventional coach train for 50 euros, but I usually pay much more to go far shorter distances on HSR.

Obviously you missed the news a few months ago about the TSA expanding their mission into other forms of transport beyond just airports. It's only a matter of time until they make taking a train as miserable as they make taking a plane.

HSR uses far more energy than conventional rail. In fact, HSR is more carbon-intensive than even automobiles. A British Department of Transport study from 2007 (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/researchtech/research/newline/carbonimpact.pdf/) found that when all factors are considered, on a per-seat basis HSR is no more carbon efficient than automobiles. (Inter-city buses won out on efficiency) The more carbon-efficient rail is traditional rail, but then again mostly not in Europe but in Japan. And the only reason that it is so in Japan is because they literally cram people on trains like sardines. (That's hardly a selling point that would go over well in America)

Correct - but in America you would be packing them in like hippopotamus's...

What are you, like 5 years old?...ok, now go play and let the grown ups talk.
And btw plural for hippopotamus is either hippopotamuses or hippopotami not hippopotamus's.

Why on earth are you comparing HSR, where you can travel large distances in about 1/4 of the time you could by car, with driving?

Driving isn't an alternative in these scenarios, and I didn't see anybody claiming that HSR is more efficient than driving either....

If you're going to make comparisons, compare to EQUIVALENT services, not services which take you there in 4x the time and cost you far more (petrol and car maintenance will far outweigh any rail costs).

What's more, the study you linked (which I haven't looked at) you claim only says that HSR is AS EFFICIENT as driving - I'd say that's damn good since it's also cheaper and faster - where's your point? Here's a quick counter point:

'Even using electricity generated from coal or oil, high speed trains are significantly more fuel-efficient per passenger per kilometer traveled than the typical automobile because of economies of scale in generator technology'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#cite_note-28

Lets make a comparison with services which are actually equivalent shall we, such as flying? I've already provided some stats for that so I think we know where that discussion is headed.

When traveling in Europe I always prefer the trains over planes. In most cases it saves me a whole lot of wasted time, energy and cost of commute to and fro the airport.

What with the current anti-terrorist check-in requirements of 3 hours before flight time, having to pay $ 60/- for checked in luggage, not being able to carry with me half the stuff I need for my trip. I can go on and on.

You spout absolute drivel.

Since I actually live in a country with HSR and use it weekly, I am far more informed than you about the costs. You can go to other countries, return, (lets say 5 hour journey) by train for less than 40 Euros with a weeks notice. A comparable flight cost would be 150-200 EUR. It's cheap, it's fast, it's convenient, and like the other poster stated door-to-door it's actually as good or better than flying.

By comparison, the US (And I see I was correct in my assumption you were from there - lol) has an absolutely atrocious train network and relies on planes for travelling similar distances. I wonder if you even remember that the original comment was simply a perfectly logical, correct guy just pointing out that lots of trains go over 200 MPH regularly. He didn't say it was the most efficient, he didn't say the promoters were angels who never lied, he didn't say it has a low carbon footprint, he didn't comment on which taxes paid for it, he didn't bring up standards of living. You're on a completely irrelevant rant, and what's worse is - all of your ranting is completely incorrect.

A useful comparison in terms of efficiency is Eurostar vs Flying (UK to Paris). The journey by train consumes 22 KG C02 per customer. The journey by plane consumes 244 KG C02 per customer. So you're ranting on about efficiency, carbon footprint, costs, taxes and standard of living yet your own system is more expensive, less efficient, larger carbon footprint, and your country has a lower Consumer price index than the majority of Europe. You need to get yourself educated before you continue spouting such uninformed nonsense.

Don't you meant that both train and aircraft PRODUCE CO2 in emissions since Carbon dioxide is a by by-product of use of fossil fuels and not CONSUMES? if aircraft or trains would Consume CO2 or any combustion engine as a matter of fact we would have a much cleaner environment don't you think so?

What is the real per ticket cost when all of the government subsidies are factored in?