Quote:
Originally Posted by Hatman
Sure you can have super fast aero-trains or even maglevs, but there are already train stations in downtown areas, and with a few tweaks slow trains can become fast ones. It's the whole "80% of the benefits from 20% of the costs!" philosophy.
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To my mind, the potential advantages of Hyperloop or other private gadgetbahns have nothing to do with technology, and everything to do with privatization. If Elon Musk can truly bring tunnelling costs down by 90%, that's a revolution in itself regardless of what's actually in the tunnel.
Unfortunately, existing railroad systems are led by governments, and while they do usually have the best station locations and rights-of-way, any incremental improvements have to be carefully negotiated among community groups, organized labor, environmentalists, consumer advocates, and a whole mess of other so-called "stakeholders", the result can increase costs by an order of magnitude. For example, the amount that Caltrain is spending to electrify its corridor is insane. LIRR in New York is spending billions to add a third track for only a few miles. It just doesn't make sense.
Elon Musk and other promoters (maglev, etc) are betting that even the high costs of R&D on a brand-new technology can be outweighed by the cost savings of keeping the whole thing private. Of course, as we've seen in Texas, private enterprise is not immune from government meddling, even conservative governments love to meddle if a particular enterprise doesn't quite fit with their handful of favored industries.