Fluxjut a train faster than a plane

Toronto-based TransPod recently unveiled plans for "FluxJet," an all-electric transportation system that's "a hybrid between an airplane and a train." The project, currently in the planning stages, would include 82-meter-long maglev trains that would carry passengers at a speed of about 1,021 miles per hour.

It's faster than a commercial airliner and about three times faster than most high-speed trains and it does so with zero emissions.The company says, FluxJet would rely on "contactless power transfer," in which the train would draw power from the existing electrical grid via magnetic fields.

The streamlined design of the suspension railway is intended to reduce friction. But the FluxJet's theoretical ability to outrun jets and bullet trains is based on technology influenced by the "old jet" — a relatively new area of ​​physics. The company released a video of its design process for FluxJet in July, which includes a brief look at  the technology in action and concept animations showing what the final version could  look like:

TransPod says it's FluxJet passengers compared to 44% fewer will cost the price of a flight ticket. As a first step, the company wants to build a network of almost 200 kilometers of vacuum tubes between the Canadian cities of Edmonton and Calgary.

According to this plan, the trains would depart every two minutes and carry up to 54 passengers and 10 tons of freight per trip. The company says a 175-kilometer trip between the two cities would take just 45 minutes.

This is good news. The bad news is that, even optimistically, that public transit system is  years and billions of dollars away.

In March 2022, TransPod raised $550 million in funding from UK investors Broughton Capital Group and  China-East Resources Import & export company. The money will fund ongoing R&D and  plans to build a test runway and conduct high-speed testing between 2023 and 2027 cost $18 billion, meaning a lot more money has to be raised from time to time, be it from private investors, government resources, or both.

TransPod says it's worth it, and predicts construction of the FluxJet system will create "up to 140,000 jobs" and add $19.2 billion to the region's gross domestic product (GDP).Once built, the system would reduce CO2 emissions by 636,000 tons annually, according to TransPod. 

Richard Branson's Virgin Hyperloop had previously announced plans for a similar super-fast sail train system, designed to carry passengers at speeds of up to 760 miles per hour. Virgin's floating capsule prototypes have hit speeds of around 240mph in tests so far, and the company recently laid off 111 employees to focus on moving goods rather than people.

Similarly, Elon Musk's The Boring Company has been digging underground tunnels in Los Angeles and Las Vegas for years, hoping to  fill them with high-speed "Hyperloop" transportation systems that move passenger pods at over 600 miles per hour.

So far, the tunnels have only been used to transport Tesla vehicles at speeds of up to around 80 km/h. Musk tweeted in April that he plans to begin "extensive testing" of the Hyperloop later this year.