HSR in AB? How about this instead?
 

Billionaire and awesome future thinking guy Elon Musk (Paypal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX) is proposing the "Hyperloop" system instead of the traditional high speed rail for the Los Angeles-San Francisco corridor.

http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop

Do you think something like this could be in Alberta's future between YYC and YEG?

HSR track is expensive, as this would be. Figure out how much it costs, then build it! (provided that it is cost effective)

I was wondering if this would be posted here. Interesting idea, needs a lot of R&D before anyone is going to spend money on it. Would be cool to get to Edmonton in about 20 minutes.

In the document released yesterday Musk is estimating a passenger only version to cost about $6B USD. So I guess a ballpark for YYC-YEG would probably be around $3.5B USD or so.

Where does that compare to estimates of the HSR options?

The huge thing about this (if it works as advertised) is just how little energy is used per trip versus all other transport methods. It would be a big deal for a province like AB to invest in technology like this.

I watched a lot of video on this last night. The comparison they gave was the Calfornia HSR from LA to SF tagged at 70 Billion USD. Musk stated that it would cost him about a tenth of that to build his hyperloop. So Biggie is right with his numbers.

It's a radical concept I don't know how it would work for claustrophobics and you would certainly have to eliminate the feel of a 20 minute roller coaster ride.

I think that would be a little higher than low level HSR estimates. Still, if HSR was seriously being considered, spending a little bit more so that people could get from Calgary to Edmonton in 20 minutes would be well worth it.

You'd have much higher ridership with a 20 minute trip vs a 90 minute trip.

I think YYC-YEG would be even more of a straight line shot than the LAX-SFO corridor, so less time accelerating and more time in the cruise portion. Probably not too bad on the body, I think they were only planning on about 0.5G's for accelerating and decelerating.

Regardless of if this thing happens in Cali or not, guys like Musk are going to be credited in the future with bringing us new technologies like this that could revolutionize our lives.

20min?? 900km/hr? Geez! If it has a proven safety record, build a line to the west coast too while we're at it!

This is insanely cool. Do you know the name of the video? Curious to learn more about this.

According to Elon musk's paper, this technology doesn't make sense for further routes, as supersonic planes probably make more sense at that point.

Also, the route needs to be straight and flat. Getting a line to Vancouver would have huge costs I would imagine.

If this technology works, Calgary to Edmonton would be a great candidate for where it could work well.

Sounds like that guy needs to get to work desigining a hyperloop for our bitumen! :P

His cost estimates seem rather low, but otherwise it's a cool idea that I hope they can flesh out!

I think they said it would go over 1100km/h. I wonder if with speeds like that whether having a stop in Red Deer would make sense as you would not go very far at cruising speed...

What was the cost in the HSR reports the province had done, something like $15 billion?

Its definitely interesting. But a 500km elevated or tunneled structure for only 6 -10 billion? I believe it when I see it.

The HSR would likely need to have stops at YYC, Airdrie, Red Deer, YEG, and finally in Edmonton City Centre, but I doubt the Hyperloop could stop that many times and achieve the speeds and timing it is designed for. If we were satisfied with expanding our own regional and municipal transit systems to hook up with the Hyperloop, I could see it working. As for building a Hyperloop line along the proposed HSR route within the city of Calgary, wouldn't it get a bit tricky to be flat/straight south of Telus Spark into downtown?

So cool, I wouldnt mind my tax dollars going into this but our conservative government would probably come up with some red tape excuse to derail and hamper this at all costs.
Anything that is insanely cool and radical is simply too much for the Redford government to handle. I hope it is a private enterprise that builds this, a guy like Mr.Facebook can put in a few billion from his wallet and build this for his state and he would be a god to them.

But I dare to dream, build a few hundred meters worth of test track and prove this thing and after they have my permission to build in our province :)

I don't really get the point of suburban or airport stations. Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton city centres only. It would get people to where they want to go, and as quickly as possible.

Stops at airports seem a lot less necessary when the speeds between downtowns are so high. HSR would lose riders if people had to ride 90-120 min between downtowns, plus have to ride another 20 minutes from downtown to the airport.

However, that changes when you can go downtown to downtown to airport still in far less time than any other option.

HSR would probably require airport stops to survive. Something this fast wouldn't need airport stops to survive.

Besides the obvious technological challenges - I see a basic problem with this technology being capacity. They're talking about capsules of 6 people - how frequently could you feasibly and safely load and launch these capsules into the tube? What kind of maximum capacity could you have per hour? The good thing about trains is they have a high capacity.