[bubuga]

> A successful tube transport system could be technologically ground breaking. Theoretically they'd be faster than airplanes and use a fraction of the fuel/energy (once they're constructed of course; not counting development costs).

The track would also be far more expensive to operate and build than high-speed rail in pretty much any aspect of the project, the tolerances that need to be complied with for safety reasons are orders of magnitude smaller than the ones in high-speed rail, and it's impossible to ensure a human-tolerable ride.

It appears that everyone is caught in the romantic vision of the future that the Hyperloop salespeople are dedicated to sell to the public, but rarely are the fundamental problems even mentioned.

There are plenty of good reasons why maglev hasn't caught, and the concept being sold by Hyperloop's sales team is far more limiting and expensive to pull than the maglev concept.