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A comment on Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy. Parent comment

Re:Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy by owenversteeg on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @11:09PM (#24139591)
Since this is getting to be a bit popular, I'm going to push the "technology really doesn't matter" point a bit more here: in 1955 the French built this [0] (just look at the picture!) and sent it down a traditional (wooden sleepers, rocks for ballast) rail line between Bordeaux and Irun [1]. It got up to 333 km/h, which is faster than any TGV currently operates in the year 2020 on their fancy concrete HSR tracks.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SNCF_BB_9004_photo_1.JPG

[1] Side note: that bit from Bordeaux to Irun is quite possibly my favorite train line in the world. Absolutely beautiful views towards the Irun end.

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Re:Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy by ant6n on Thursday August 13, 2020 @12:36AM (#24139969)
To be fair, That was a test run, where the locomotives and infra where specially prepared and did take some damage. This was a long way from operating at 320km/h every day - and today there is a 10% safety Margin, so tgvs have to be able to run at 352km/h without special prep or damage in order to be allowed to run at 320km/h during normal operation.

For comparison, a tgv test run in 2007 got up to 575km/h on fancy new track, also with some prep but no damage, but operating at this speed would make little economic sense at this point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record

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Re:Hyperloop: Pipes of Fancy by simonebrunozzi on Thursday August 13, 2020 @01:34AM (#24140246)
Great!

Even better, this steam-powered train, reaching 126 mph (203 km/h) in year 1938! [0]

Why do I know about this? Because I played Railroad Tycoon as a teenager in ~1990, and got fascinated by trains.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4468_Mallard

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