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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

> Going an extra 110mph(180km/h) would be a huge win. It greatly extends the distance where a train wins over a jet.

Not really, because jets will go much more places that your single maglev line ever will. That's the problem with hi-tech trains. They are extremely costly to deploy in terms of infrastructure, they go over land that could be used for other purposes, and because of the large investment required they only go in very few places. Jets win everywhere else.

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"Jets win everywhere else."

Of course they don't. Getting to an airport 60-90 minutes before a flight that's only 60-90 minutes doesn't make much sense

Did you even read my comment ? Jets will go WHERE the maglev trains won't, even if it's not that far.

You are being a bit vague. If I want to travel 60 miles, I'm not going to get on a jet. Do I want to get on a jet to travel 200 miles? What exact use case are you trying to describe? Also consider, for example, that a 777 needs a big airport.

This reminds me how once several years ago I had to fly MKE -> ORD -> LHR where the distance between MKE and ORD is about 70 miles. The MKE -> ORD flight was full by the way and it took ridiculous 2 hours to get there (from boarding to leaving the plane). I think I did it because the direct flight was several hundred $ extra and I happened to be in MKE area anyway.

All these scenarios don't matter because wherever you are going most of the time you won't have anything BUT a jet and not a maglev train to bring you there (because it will only connect 2 cities to each other, and you'll never map out the whole territory with maglev train lines due to their prohibitive cost). Unless you want to take you car.

This is true.

But the requirement to arrive 90 minutes before departure time is not a problem with the vehicle but the bureaucracy and security apparatus around it.

True Story: while I like to arrive well before a flight (just in case) when I was younger it was not unheard of to arrive at the airport _minutes_ before flight departure and simply stroll down the causeway, and onto the flight.

I could walk into the heathrow terminal for edinburgh plonk down my card buy a ticket walk into the lounge have a quick pint and be on a plane to ediburgh within 15/20 min

Of course Heathrow itself is an hour from almost everywhere in central London, and Edinburgh Airport is 30 mins by road from Princes Street, so your 20 mins just became two hours.

hmm used to be 30 mins in a taxi to haethrow and the train journy takes 5 hours.

And the british airways cream tea was amazing as it should be for >£200

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