By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-20 04:41:41 | Updated at 2025-03-20 15:23:42
11 hours ago
For nearly two centuries, the dream of vacuum tube transport has tantalised scientists and engineers.
It is a dream that was reignited by Elon Musk in 2013 with his Hyperloop, which promised to revolutionise travel, seeing people whizz between cities at 1,000km/h (621mph).
Yet, despite the billionaire entrepreneur’s triumphs in electric cars, satellite constellations and rockets, Hyperloop floundered.
The challenges were insurmountable: a pressure differential 200 times greater than aeroplane cabins, leak-prone concrete, crippling magnetic resistance, and millimetre-perfect engineering for rail and bridges to avoid catastrophe. Hyperloop’s demise has became a symbol of Western tech hubris.
But halfway across the world, China cracked the code – and rewrote the rules.
In 2024, China unveiled a 2km (1.2-mile) maglev hyperloop test line in Yanggao County, Shanxi province. This megaproject was detailed for the first time last month in a peer-reviewed paper published in Chinese journal Railway Standard Design.
