As Barnum observed, there is a sucker born every minute.
The Hyperloop is just another “better mousetrap scam” from the “anything is better than rail” crowd.
Hyperloop is just a 21t century version of the atmospheric railway con-game and a game well played to relieve ‘true believers’ of cash, like any other scam.
Very few atmospheric railways ever worked and when they did, it was for a very short while, as the mode extremely proved expensive to operate; more expensive than the railways they were to replace.
Sound familiar?
It should, because that is how are SkyTrain light-metros are built, supported by true believers, conned by very adept confidence tricksters. But, that is another story.
Hyperloop is just more of the same and it seems the the politicians in the American “Rust Belt” are playing the part of Barnum’s “suckers” as they are handing over millions of dollars to an untried, yet to be designed transportation system based on past atmospheric railway cons.
The most important thing for any con artist is never to think like a mark. Marks think they can get something for nothing. Marks think they can get what they donai??i??t deserve and could never deserve. Marks are stupid and pathetic and sad. Marks think theyai??i??re going to go home one night and have the girl theyai??i??ve loved since they were a kid suddenly love them back. Marks forget that whenever somethingai??i??s too good to be true, thatai??i??s because itai??i??s a con.
Holly Black
Cities and states are throwing money at a nonexistent mode of transportation.
By Henry Grabar
A Hyperloop capsule passenger car.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT).
Ai??For American lawmakers, funding public transit often feels like small ball. Politicians prefer to dream bigger. Earlier this month, transportation agencies in the Cleveland region and in Illinois announced they would co-sponsor a $1.2 million study of a ai???hyperloopai??? connecting Cleveland to Chicago, cutting a 350-mile journey to just half an hour. Itai??i??s the fourth public study of the nonexistent transportation mode to be undertaken in the past three months.
ai???Ohio is defined by its history of innovation and adventure,ai??? said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who once canceled a $400 million Obama-era grant for high-speed rail in the state. ai???A hyperloop in Ohio would build upon that heritage.ai??? In January, a bipartisan group of Rust Belt representatives wrote to President Trump to ask for $20 million in federal funding for a Hyperloop Transportation Initiative, a Department of Transportation division that would regulate and fund a travel mode with no proof of concept.
Itai??i??s hard to keep up: Last week, the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission announced feasibility and environmental-impact studies for a different hyperloop route, connecting Pittsburgh and Chicago through Columbus, Ohio, to be run by a different company, Virgin Hyperloop One. The companyai??i??which fired a pod through a tube at 240 mph in Decemberai??i??is also studying routes in Missouri and Colorado.* Meanwhile, Elon Muskai??i??who has obtained (contested) tunneling permission from Maryland Gov. Larry Hoganai??i??pulled a permit from the District of Columbia for a future hyperloop station.
But letai??i??s first look at the hyperloop that Grace Gallucci, the head of the Cleveland regional planning association the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), told local radio could be running to Chicago in three to five years, and to the study of which the NOACA contributed $600,000.
The company behind it, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, is one of a handful of U.S. entities that have emerged since Elon Musk first introduced the idea in 2012. In a promotional clip for the Great Lakes Hyperloop that plays like a sequel to Chryslerai??i??s Detroit Super Bowl commercial, a gravelly voice intones that this is not a dream, as b-roll footage of factories is cut with aerial footage of what can only be construction of an oil-and-gas pipeline. ai???Weai??i??ve already got a prototype,ai??? the narrator instructs.
They donai??i??t. Andrea La Mendola, the companyai??i??s chief global operations officer and chief engineering council member, told me there is no full-scale prototype just yet. The company says it is building one now in the southern French city of Toulouse. ai???In terms of full-scale, all-integration, it will [be the first prototype],ai??? he said. ai???We will start with 400 meters. Then we go up to 1 kilometer, and possibly 1.6 kilometersai??i??if we add a curve at the end.ai???
why would anyone want to travel in a tube with no windows?