A few months back I had cause to mention the new ‘Hyperloop’ transport system. It works on the basic principle that: if the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, the fastest way to travel along that line must be better than using slight modifications of Stephenson’s Rocket. Our new HS2 trainline (should it ever start, heaven forbid) will use trains travelling at 250mph. Elon Musk’s Hyperloop travels at 760mph. You could get to Birmingham hours earlier than by train, so YOU COULD LEAVE MORE QUICKLY. Surely that’s the whole point of ever going to Birmingham, to come away again and count your blessings.

But it wouldn’t go to Birmingham. It would go to Edinburgh. In under an hour. You could go just for lunch. Though no idea why you’d want to do that, unless your cholesterol levels were dangerously low.

Using the hyperloop technology is going to be ‘free’. Elon Musk, Mr Paypal, Sir Tesla, has decided not to sell the plans, just give it to the best proposal using it. Dubai will probably have the first one, running one to Abu Dhabi. To see if excessive gold and diamonds will slow the thing down significantly. And I’m not sure the exact nature of the ‘competition’ but Britain apparently has four bids in the game. One being from Liverpool to Hull. Useful that one.

But its that technology. Its wonderful. A vacuum tube with a ‘train-thing’ suspended by magnets and whizzed along frictionlessly by compressed air. And speed. Oh my, the speed.

I have no idea what such a thing might cost, but I’m gonna guess its ‘rather a lot’. Unless IKEA are doing a special on do-it-yourself, flat-pack hyperloop vacuum tubes.

So why fuck about with HS2. Old technology, old ideas, variations on ‘slow’. Its not like its cheap. Its outrageously expensive and brutal on the countryside. Though to be honest, there’s plenty of countryside out there, we won’t miss a little bit taken away.

Let’s do it. I want one.

Happy Friday

A xxxx