Could be our marvelous solution to finding a method of intercontinental travel that doesn't use too much gas... although I like the mag-lev in a tunnel with all of its air removed so the train can go 2000mph under the Atlantic better...
Jonlin, there's an upper limit to how fast a vactrain can go. Beyond a certain point, headways become too long, acceleration takes too much time, and corners are insane.
For example, if a vactrain behaves like a good subway with regards to acceleration and yaw, then at 1 km/s, it should take 15-20 minutes to accelerate to full speed and 15-20 minutes to decelerate, have headways of at least 10 minutes, and be unable to negotiate curves of radius less than 500 km.
well if you're going under an ocean the curves thing shouldn't be a big deal, and 10 min headways with a train that can carry hundreds, if not thousands of people... looks fine to me.
Of course when it reaches 7.5km/s it no longer needs levitation :) Now if it then exited the system with a sufficient angle you'd have a cheap launching system for free!
wow, you guys crack me up. I love trains but I don't know if it would be worth the effort to tunnel under the Atlantic. It's one thing to tunnel under a river that is 20 ft. deep. It's a whole other story to tunnel under something that's 2 miles deep. That's in addition to the steep grade down the continetal shelf.
Combine that with the fact that there's a high probability of hitting molten mantle under the ocean floor.
8 comments:
Could be our marvelous solution to finding a method of intercontinental travel that doesn't use too much gas... although I like the mag-lev in a tunnel with all of its air removed so the train can go 2000mph under the Atlantic better...
Jonlin, there's an upper limit to how fast a vactrain can go. Beyond a certain point, headways become too long, acceleration takes too much time, and corners are insane.
For example, if a vactrain behaves like a good subway with regards to acceleration and yaw, then at 1 km/s, it should take 15-20 minutes to accelerate to full speed and 15-20 minutes to decelerate, have headways of at least 10 minutes, and be unable to negotiate curves of radius less than 500 km.
well if you're going under an ocean the curves thing shouldn't be a big deal, and 10 min headways with a train that can carry hundreds, if not thousands of people... looks fine to me.
Of course when it reaches 7.5km/s it no longer needs levitation :) Now if it then exited the system with a sufficient angle you'd have a cheap launching system for free!
How fast can a train go?
With electronically steered maglevs passing is no longer an issue - you just make the track wide enough for multiple vehicles.
More practically, I think maglev is limited in speed by inductance, much like rail guns (which are limited to something like 2km/s).
wow, you guys crack me up. I love trains but I don't know if it would be worth the effort to tunnel under the Atlantic. It's one thing to tunnel under a river that is 20 ft. deep. It's a whole other story to tunnel under something that's 2 miles deep. That's in addition to the steep grade down the continetal shelf.
Combine that with the fact that there's a high probability of hitting molten mantle under the ocean floor.
Unless you were just kidding, right?
How about one of these?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_bridge
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris! I love it.
Although, "transported by container ship" from Hamburg? Buncha wusses!
Cavan, the tunnel is supposed to be submerged in the ocean, at a depth of several tens of meters. It's really a tube more than a conventional tunnel.
Njh, EDS maglev needs guideways on both sides of the train, and I think that so does EMS.
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