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Local leaders cooling to Boring Company tunnel promises
Virginia state transit officials are telling The Boring Company "thanks but no thanks," at least for now. The Virginia Mercury reported yesterday that the state's chief of rail transportation, Michael McLaughlin, was not sufficiently impressed by his recent visit to Elon Musk's test tunnel in California to recommend that the state work with the startup.
"It's a car in a very small tunnel," McLaughlin reportedly told the state's Transportation Board public transit subcommittee this week. "If one day we decide it's feasible, we'll obviously come back to you," he added.
[...] In February, Musk tweeted that the company was working on improving its test tunnel. "Focus right now is getting to high speed, tight follow distance in test tunnel," the CEO tweeted. He said that "Line-Storm," The Boring Company's second-generation boring machine, would start getting updates "in a month or so."
But even as The Boring Company says it's trying to improve on tunneling efficiency and design, Chicago may be looking to take a step back from the express line that Mayor Rahm Emanuel pledged to build with the company. The mayor's office announced in June 2018 that it would work with The Boring Company to build a long-awaited express line between O'Hare International Airport and the Windy City's downtown area.
Previously: Elon Musk Claims to Have "Verbal Approval" to Build New York to Washington, D.C. Hyperloop
Elon Musk's Boring Tunnel Near Los Angeles
Washington, D.C. Granted Elon Musk's Boring Company an Excavation Permit for Possible Hyperloop
Elon Musk's Boring Company Wins Chicago O'Hare International Airport Transportation Contract
Elon Musk's Boring Bricks
The Boring Company Announces Dec. 10 Debut for First Los Angeles Tunnel
The Boring Company Won't Pursue Los Angeles Tunnel Under 405 Freeway
Elon Musk Startup Picked to Build Las Vegas 'People Mover'
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Captival on Tuesday March 26 2019, @11:22AM (9 children)
Offer them the opportunity to enrich themselves via corruption, bribery and graft. Suddenly they will become very interested in public transportation.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:09PM (6 children)
Moving cars around is not what most people deem "public transportation"
The boring test tunnel is a similar width as a typical tube tunnel, which can carry about 30,000 people an hour
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Nuke on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:53PM (5 children)
The small size of the early tube train tunnels was a mistake. The London Underground tube lines (~12 ft diameter) should have been built to standard surface loading gauge size (~20ft diameter tube). Surface gauge trains have a greater capacity obviously. Less obvious is that the "12 ft" tube trains are non-standard engineering so are relatively expensive for what they can carry. The underframes of the London tube train bodies are complex as they must loop up over the suspension and trucks (bogies in the UK). Believe me, I have done stress analysis on those structures.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:40PM
How come they don't put the trucks between the cars, instead of under them? You got the truck, put a big post in the middle, and that's the coupling. Discuss?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:53PM (1 child)
Here's what I'm looking for [wikimedia.org]. You need half the trucks this way.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:42PM
When I was an engineer for the London Underground Railway, I did propose something like that; they are called articulated trains. There are disadvantages however :-
(1) The distance between the trucks needs to be the same as conventional because of tunnel clearance on curves*, and as the car bodies obviously cannot overhang they need to be shorter; therefore you need more than half the trucks per train, and more cars;
(2) The end-of-train trucks have to be conventional;
(3) many trains are made up of two or more independent units and eg an 8-car train is actually two 4-car units coupled, even if it does not look like it - so you also need conventional trucks at those inner unit ends;
(4) The ride quality is worse (the bigger the axle count the better the ride - luxury trains have had 6-wheel trucks in the past);
(5) The train depot managers object to articulated trains because they cannot quickly replace a defective car by just uncoupling and shunting - they need to put the train into the lifting workshop where there are gantry cranes.
With (1) (2) and (3) the savings on truck count is not as much as you might think.
* In fact I proposed a form of coupling that did allow normal length car bodies but the Chief Mechanical Engineer considered it too complex. Later I read of a Japanese articulated train using the same idea, independently.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:16PM
No denying that (although 100+ years ago digging large wide tunnels wasn't as easy as now. Victoria line probably should have been bigger. JLE was, and Crossrail obviously is)
However if you're going to build a small tunnel and transport 30-50 cars a minute in it, it's not really what most people consider "public transport"
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday March 26 2019, @09:36PM
Yet the London Underground carries nearly 1.4bn passengers a year, and has been in operation - sometimes with the exact same tunnels - for over a hundred years.
I don't claim the LU is anywhere near perfection, but I think the OP's point is right - you could do an awful lot more with such tunnels than some Musk toy car.
I'd gladly take some engineering complexity on the trains themselves if it means shifting 30,000 people an hour (instead of whatever Musk has planned, which even if you considered putting Tesla's nose-to-nose all the way through the tunnels means an awful lot of investment in his cars, which are the one thing you don't want to be replacing regularly, after the tunnel itself) and not having to dig a wider tunnel at enormous expense. I think almost every engineer, project manager and passenger would tell you the same.
If you're gonna dig a tunnel, use it. Digging a tunnel and then peeing about with little toy cars in a line is just a marketing gimmick for his other side-business.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:56PM
We don't want a tunnel. We want a Monorail! With windows!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:09PM
You seem to have mistaken them for Boeing, et al.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:32PM
Elon came to me, he asked for my blessing for the tunnel from New York to Washington. Going through Philadelphia and Baltimore. I said, hold on. Because I heard, the girth isn't big. So many tunnels are tremendously big around, you could be inside one and not even know it. But Elon's are not, they're much smaller. And I said, I'm a big guy. 6 feet 3 inches. Will I fit? Elon promised me I'll fit, and very comfortably. I believe him. Because this is the same guy that wants to put our astronauts into an incredibly tiny capsule, his dragon capsule. And N.A.S.A. is looking at that one very carefully, they're not done but it looks PERFECTO so far.
Elon's tunnel is very small in the width. But, he makes up for it with the length. Because he does less digging. The small width means, less rocks to dig up. Less dirt to dig up. Longer for less money. And it's a little tight, it's not too tight for a guy to fit into. It's not a bad thing, believe me.
Virginia, don't forget, they got Infanticidal Racist Ralph as their Governor. One of the worst Dems -- who I told to resign - and, I assume, he appointed this guy to the D.R.P.T., the Department of Rail. Not great because, as I said I gave my blessing for the tunnel between N.Y.C. and Washington. Right to the doorstop of Virginia. The border. So close but, they have Dems running the place. Tunnel is going to bring HUGE growth to the cities it goes through. But going from Washington into Virginia, it's going to be like going from El Paso to Juárez. Or San Diego into Tijuana. Horrendous slums everywhere because they voted for the wrong people.
And I'd love to have a tunnel to historic Charlottesville, Virginia. Too bad we didn't have that one in 2017. I would have visited Unite the Right. Does anyone remember Unite the Right? If I'd been there I could have been a great inspiration. I would stopped the violence. And saved many lives. With my words, or by jumping in there. Too bad!
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:56PM (5 children)
So there is actually someone in a high position who has not fallen for Musk's charm and hype. They must be a unique case, a PhD study in psychology for someone?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @12:59PM (2 children)
Not enough $s.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:13PM (1 child)
Most definitely, this. It seems to me that Musk's companies are doing things the right way. I.E. no bribes, corruption, etc.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:22PM
In time, all things shall pass.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 26 2019, @08:17PM
Elon must've ran into a Hutt [stackexchange.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 27 2019, @02:15AM
The people that were sent out were the actual engineers who would know what they are looking at. If you RTFA, then you would also discover that the reason he went out is because the board, which is filled with random people who are not experts, forced him to after he repeatedly stated it would be a waste of time at past meetings. Apparently, there is also some sort of internal document in addition to his actual remarks, but my guess is that the FOIA hasn't gone through on that if not covered by an NDA.