Some people are skeptical this technology can ever work, but it appears CASIC’s Phase 1 testing in a 2km tunnel has given them the confidence to proceed to Phase 2 testing in a 60km long tunnel.

Chinese railway engineering leads the world so I have a hunch that if any nation can pull this off, then it’s China. However, lots of questions remain. A back-of-the-envelope calculation says that to achieve those speeds in the 2km test tunnel deceleration would have been about 3G. That’s the same as a rocket at lift-off and not many people’s idea of comfort.

For reference, if atmospheric pressure at sea level is about 1 bar, “low vacuum” is between 0.3 and 0.001 bar.

Huh. Insane they actually build that. It’s basically impossible to ever make it economical though. Just go slower, build more trains and lower prices. Way more benefit to society.

At 1000 km/hr, it’d run out of track in less than four minutes, hope it can stop in time … Anyway not convinced there’s much point in this. China should be building more suburban rail networks to fill the gaps, instead of pouring so much concrete into crazy-wide highways and toll-roads (look on satellite image, you’ll see).