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Transpod Signs Memorandum of Understanding with Province of Alberta

 

It seems unbelievable that Government of Alberta would support the Transpod, and their yet to be developed 1000 km/h technology, over high speed trains. Yet the governement has signed a memorandum of understanding 

The province is not putting any taxpayers money into the project but will identify suitable test track for the project. The company has raised some money for the test track project.

What is Transpod?

Since their are no existing Transpod systems in the world and the technology has not been proven we can only speculate on this Jetsons style dream plan.

According to their website the Transpod is: The TransPod vehicle is built like an airline jet fuselage, containing rows of seats inside. Passengers board from platforms at each station. Powered by electrically-driven magnetic propulsion, the vehicle departs, gently accelerates to full speed inside the TransPod tube infrastructure, and decelerates on approach to the final destination station.The TransPod tube system will carry passenger and cargo vehicles on the same route at the same time.

Interestingly when you go to their website and click on the Download button on the Infrastructure page you get an error message "404 page not found". You would think on the company website they would want to show you details of the infrastructure part of the Transpod plan. But then again letting us know the details would open up the technology to be scrutinized. 

Perhaps Transpod is no different than the Hyperloop schemes. Lots of money being spent with not one example of the technology working as the manufacturers have stated.

Why is the Alberta government not open for business for high speed rail expertise of countries like, Japan, Italy, France and China? High speed trains have been running for  a half of century around the world.

Déjà vu All Over Again - 1982 TranSyt

It seems like déjà vu all over again for long time supporters of any modern link between Calgary and Alberta. In 1982, TranSyt proposed to build a high speed 240km/h monorail between the two cities. Unfortunately the province could not come to terms with the company about building the test track and the dream ended..

Time will tell if the Government of Alberta is being taken for a ride....



Comments

  1. agree with the sentiments of the Hyperloop criticism, although there
    are a couple of trivial physics errors.

    What I don't understand is why the existing service is so extremely
    bad. The distance from Calgary to Edmonton is almost exactly 300km.
    The existing VIA Rail equipment is capable of sustained speeds of
    200km/h. Throw in a couple of stops and the trip should take 2h. But
    VIA Rail has abandoned the route, handing it over to a bus company. By
    comparison the distance from Toronto to Ottawa is 400km and VIA Rail
    completes that trip in less time than the bus from Calgary to Edmonton.
    The main reason it even takes 4 hours is that most of the rail line
    belongs to commercial freight carriers and VIA Rail must wait for
    permission to use the line. For that reason VIA Rail has proposed
    implementing its own line from Smiths Falls to Toronto along the
    abandoned route through Peterborough to add to its existing line from
    Ottawa to Smiths Falls. Now that is a lot of money but still a tiny
    fraction of the cost of Hyperloop.

    One of the big challenges facing Confederation is convincing Alberta and
    Saskatchewan to join the other 8 provinces in bringing its green-house
    gas emissions, particularly methane from cattle and oil production but
    also carbon dioxide from its almost entirely combustion-based electrical
    generation system, into line. Obviously a few juicy political bribes
    are necessary. How about the rest of the country paying to create an
    electrified 300km/h rail corridor between Calgary and Edmonton, and
    maybe even extending the 440km up to Fort McMurray so the oil sands
    workers would not have to face the 4 1/2 hour drive each way along the
    "Highway of Death" when they get their breaks?
    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/suicide-63-the-deadly-route-into-fort-mcmurray-finally-set-to-befixed/article28627352/

    You have permission to publish my comments. I could not find any option
    to post a comment on the article on your web-site.

    --
    James Cobban
    911-500 Springbank Dr
    London, ON, Canada
    N6J 4G6
    mailto: webmaster@jamescobban.net
    +1-226-504-7603

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