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Comment by nugator | Hacker News Reader

For the lazy:

U.S. Cheyenne – Denver – Puelbo (360 miles) Chicago – Columbus – Pittsburgh (488 miles) Miami – Orlando (257 miles) Dallas – Houston (640 miles)

U.K. Edinburgh – London (414 miles) Glasgow – Liverpool (339 miles)

Mexico Mexico City – Guadalajara (330 miles)

India Bengaluru – Chennai (208 miles) Mumbai – Chennai (685 miles)

Canada Toronto – Montreal (400 miles)

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There is a project for high speed rail between Dallas and Houston being worked on, though it's not guaranteed to proceed.

If it did, I assume that would take the wind out of a hyperloop proposal. The train is supposed to take 90 minutes, so there wouldn't be much pressure to improve that, I would guess.

I think it could. As proposed, it's no different that taking a flight (50m + airport time) and slated to be similarly priced - so what's the point.

Also, Houston<>Dallas = 240 miles not the 640 quoted

Depending on who you ask, though, "airport time" could be 2+ hours. Especially DFW airport. And IAH isn't really in an area of Houston anyone wants to go to...it's far north of most of Houston. A 90 minute train would be a no brainier decision for me.

And going through airport security is a hassle, whereas time spent sitting on a train is time you can use to get work done. A train also is much less cramped than a plane, has better Internet access generally (you can just tether), and is probably less likely to be delayed.

The image in the article says "Dallas-Laredo-Houston" which presumably means some Y-shaped route connecting those three places via Austin and San Antonio.

My understanding is that construction is scheduled to start in 2018 and the first trains will run in 2020.

Glasgow - Liverpool is just wrong, and Edinburgh - London is the distance by car. I'm guessing the other distances aren't accurate either.

Yeah Glasgow Liverpool doesn't make sense. Maybe London - Birmingham/Liverpool would. that's what all the money on HS2 is going to be wasted on.

If you actually look at the routes [1] (as linked by another user [2]) the Glasgow-Liverpool makes some of the most sense. The UK has long term problems with its north-south divide, putting a hyperloop into London and the south will be crazy expensive and meet tons of opposition. Linking the northern cities will be brilliant infrastructure and form a solid backbone for future economic development. Eventual extension to London is also possible with less opposition.

We need to unite Britain, and a northern hyperloop could go a long way to doing that.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/09/hyperloop-one-colorado-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250816

The UK distances are based on big curving loops with intermediate stops (Liverpool - Glasgow goes via Edinburgh and Newcastle). I'm not convinced that makes them more practical - if anything the opposite - but it does mean the distances likely work.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/09/hyperloop-one-colorado-...

Correction: the distance between Houston and Dallas is 240 miles, not 640.

The reason it's longer is because they're routing it via Austin and San Antonio. In their vision, San Antonio functions as an intersection for the lines from Dallas and Houston, as well as another from Laredo.

Not sure why they went for this configuration. Leaving Laredo out of it and adding a direct Dallas-Houston branch to complete the triangle would make more sense to me.

There is also this competing high speed rail project, which seems more realistic to me:

http://www.texascentral.com/

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