The problem is that if any of that was a good idea, the question is why is the Hyperloop specifically a good idea, but regular old high speed rail is not? What factor are you changing that makes one good, and the other not good enough to get done right now?

(the answer of course is nothing: the Hyperloop would be stupidly expensive, and however fast it is wouldn't solve the logistics problem of loading and unloading it - so whatever quote you've seen for rail, just triple it if you tried to build a hyperloop).

We used to discuss this back in university days! NA is extremely allergic to copy something that’s been done extremely well in the east (e.g., high speed rails) and instead tries to come up with some “cool better way” of doing things. After all, we are different, and copying something would be an extreme ego hit. This thought process applies to Hyperloop as well. I live in Canada, and it is really disappointing how we don’t have reliable rails between metro areas of large cities. Or even cross-border ones like Vancouver-Seattle corridor. Even sadder knowing it will never happen.

Canada has a massive infra problem. That is not strange when you consider that it has an enormous area to deal with a relatively low population and that most of that population lives along a relatively narrow strip of land, and long strips are very much sub-optimal compared to a circle (which is the ideal for infra).

So both from a density perspective and a topology perspective there are serious challenges to overcome. Which makes things like highway one even more impressive (especially when you take into account some of the territory it runs through, I think that its construction should rank right up there with the Panama Canal and the Chinese wall).

You’re absolutely correct. Highway was built around 1941 though, NA was still building itself up during that time. In an ideal world, we would be building up new cities, new rail lines, new infrastructure and etc., but I guess the momentum is lost. Now we’re stuck in “upgrade and spend a lot more for a km of subway line”. Maybe we’ll figure our way out of it eventually!

I suspect that eventually immigration will solve it but it will take a very long time.

As it is it did not look sustainable to me while I was living there.

Yes, there isn't anything in particular about Hyperloop that makes it stand out, but it is different in high speed rail in that it is underground and so more complex in almost all ways but one: right of way (and possibly aesthetics, which depending on the landscape can matter a lot).

Not a lawyer and might be wrong but as far as I know land rights go all the way to the core in the US, so going underground wouldn't help with right of way. I know, "HN is more than the US," but we seem to have the most trouble with trains.

I think you're referring to the 'all the way to heaven and all the way to hell' bit.

In principle that's true. But in practice mining rights and such have been split off from the right to the land and some reasonable depth underground. And any objection to an easement would be much harder to establish if it doesn't actually affect you. But for those parties that own the underground and mining rights for a given location there could well be a viable opposition to such a development. But that would then risk an eminent domain claim.

It's all pretty complex. But I would still assume that going underground is easier than going above ground where the parcels are small and the interests are immediate due to interference with existing activity.

Even if this is true, the costs of digging are much higher than the costs of above-ground construction + the legal costs of acquiring the land. A hundred kilometer tunnel would be one of the longest tunnels ever built, and the longest train/track tunnel by quite some margin. And it would need copious safety features and auxiliary tunnels leading to the surface, even before the whole vacuum part gets added in. So it won't even completely avoid the need for buying above ground lands.

> the costs of digging are much higher than the costs of above-ground construction

Yes, easily 3 to 10x.

> A hundred kilometer tunnel would be one of the longest tunnels ever built, and the longest train/track tunnel by quite some margin. And it would need copious safety features and auxiliary tunnels leading to the surface, even before the whole vacuum part gets added in. So it won't even completely avoid the need for buying above ground lands.

Indeed, so it's both a technical and economical non-starter. But it's not a 'dumb idea' in the sense that it is impossible. Merely impractical, too expensive and too complex and besides cheaper solutions exist (aircraft, for one, which scale much better with increasing distance than rail ever will).

One thing all of these 'dumb ideas' and the hyperloop, tidal energy and so on all have in common: they are great ways to get your grubby fingers on subsidies.

I understand your point much better now, yes. These are all different from things like cold fusion.

I'm still waiting on the giant pneumatic tubes from Futurama.

Anything that can be called "a vacuum" is very very hard to achieve in a large volume.

Yes. That's why any kind of vacuum solution is likely a non-starter both from a technical and an economical perspective. And the 'obvious' solutions (multiple smaller evacuated chamber that connect as trains pass through) have a whole raft of safety and complexity issues and are going to increase the costs massively.