While Britain mulls the benefits of the new High Speed 2 rail network, the Elon Musk-backed Hyperloop One company has plans to blow it out of the water.
The company, which uses floating pods that travel on air through a vacuum, is proposing a London to Edinburgh route that could make the journey in just 50 minutes.
Thanks to the magnetic levitation technology, it could make the trip faster than the 1 hour 20 minutes it currently takes to fly the 400-mile distance.
Currently, the journey from Kings Cross to Edinburgh Gateway takes at least 5 hours, with at least one change required.
The pods, which move at speeds of up to 700 miles per hour, would even make stops in Birmingham and Manchester along the way.
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The company is also proposing routes from Liverpool to Glasgow and Cardiff to Glasgow. The firm is also considering six routes throughout Europe.
Currently HyperLoop has one test track in the Nevada desert, which is only 500-metres long at present, so the tech is likely to be a long way away yet.
Josh Giegel, the co-founder of Hyperloop One, said: “We’re looking forward to showcasing our technology and believe that Europe is the perfect region for one of the world’s first Hyperloop systems.”
Can we please have this now? Thanks. Would you like to see Hyperloop One set up shop in the UK? Or would the environmental impact be too great? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
