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Author Topic: Virgin Hyperloop - first journey with passengers  (Read 4427 times)
broadgage
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« Reply #15 on: November 23, 2020, 16:48:32 »

It's 8.7m long, and travelled up and down a 500m track in a desolate wasteland. This has cost their investors $400m.

Should we tell them you can get the same experience in the UK (United Kingdom) for one pound 40?

And without risk of suffocating, as surrounded by air. And almost no risk of drowning unless very unlucky.
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A proper intercity train has a minimum of 8 coaches, gangwayed throughout, with first at one end, and a full sized buffet car between first and standard.
It has space for cycles, surfboards,luggage etc.
A 5 car DMU (Diesel Multiple Unit) is not a proper inter-city train. The 5+5 and 9 car DMUs are almost as bad.
stuving
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« Reply #16 on: February 22, 2022, 23:26:16 »

Following the precedent set by more precursors than you probably imagine (see Wikipedia's pneumatic tube article), Virgin Hyperloop is falling back from people-whizzing to smaller tubes and urgent parcels. From roadshow by cnet:
Quote
Virgin Hyperloop Lays Off Employees, Scratches Plans for Passenger Transport, Says Report

The Richard Branson-backed company that promised to shake up the future of transportation will now focus on freight, according to the Financial Times.

...
On Friday, Virgin Hyperloop, a Richard Branson-backed company, reportedly let 111 employees go. The layoffs were announced during a video conference, according to the Financial Times. The company told the Times that it's changing direction, responding to increased customer interest in cargo services.
...
In preparation for its strategic shift, Virgin Hyperloop in January announced the appointment of Pierre Chambion as vice president of engineering. Previously, the company said, he was was vice president of engineering at Safran, the world's second-largest airline equipment manufacturer.

Virgin Hyperloop said in a news release that it's looking to launch cargo transportation pilots by the mid-2020s.

"The world needs a viable solution to the current global supply issues and I am confident that we can make that happen,"  Chambion said in a statement.

Most of those precedents fell back even further to little canisters for letters and cash - but somehow it's hard to see either of those giving an enticing BCR (Benefit Cost Ratio) these days.

Our local Tesco was built with a tube system linking all the checkouts to a central cashier's office, which surprised me, being as recent as about 1996. I was even more surprised to see it still being used a couple of months ago, though only to send in a slip printed by the till at operator handover.
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paul7575
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« Reply #17 on: February 23, 2022, 10:11:25 »

“Lamson Pneumatic Tubes”

Tech still available from this firm: https://www.quirepace.co.uk/

Who are apparently in Fareham…
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TonyK
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« Reply #18 on: February 23, 2022, 13:27:39 »


Most of those precedents fell back even further to little canisters for letters and cash - but somehow it's hard to see either of those giving an enticing BCR (Benefit Cost Ratio) these days.

Our local Tesco was built with a tube system linking all the checkouts to a central cashier's office, which surprised me, being as recent as about 1996. I was even more surprised to see it still being used a couple of months ago, though only to send in a slip printed by the till at operator handover.

I think they still use them to transport quantities of Hand Money, or whatever it is called. Seemingly, one of the customers at my local megastore still doesn't have a plastic card to pay with.
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Now, please!
stuving
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« Reply #19 on: February 23, 2022, 14:18:20 »

“Lamson Pneumatic Tubes”

Tech still available from this firm: https://www.quirepace.co.uk/

Who are apparently in Fareham…

And Lamsons started off making the other kind of cash carrier, with a little carriage running along wires. I have a vague recollection of seeing one of those systems, most likely at Gamages (where there certainly was one) or perhaps Hamleys. They were obviously the kind of London shops a little boy would be taken to in the 1950s.

I also remember the tubes, which certainly were used in Bentalls in Ealing. All of those 50s ones would be operating the original method, where the receipt form and money (or cheque) would get sent to the cashiers' office, and the signed and/or stamped receipt and change were sent back. In between, if wrapping the item didn't take long, there could be an awkward gap to fill.

At Tesco, initially it was used to reduce the cash in tills by sending large notes over the maximum float limit with a slip printed by the till. With people using cards and some taking cashback, I guess that at some more recent time tills may have even started to run short of cash!

I'm sure there are a lot more examples of mechanical forerunners of gadgets that since became electrical, electronic, digital, and now virtual. My favourite remains the mechanical analogue computer.

And cash carriers (aka cash railways) of all kinds, like everything else in this world, have their own web site. This includes a few bits of info about the railways' use of such things, e.g. at Euston and Liverpool Street stations, or the Great Western Hotel at Paddington.
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PrestburyRoad
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« Reply #20 on: February 23, 2022, 15:00:19 »

“Lamson Pneumatic Tubes”

I well remember the sound of the containers rushing through the tubes suspended from the corridor ceilings of the office building in which I used to work.  It was said that occasionally a naughty office boy would despatch a cream cake through the tube and not inside the proper container but I never witnessed that myself.
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RichT54
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« Reply #21 on: February 23, 2022, 15:13:28 »

When I worked at Heathrow in the seventies there were several Lamson systems that were used to send documents to different parts of the airport. Some of the systems just connected between two fixed locations, but for others you had to set the address using rotating collars on the carriers e.g. "B1" to go to the teleprinter section. Quite frequently a system would fail, usually when the end cap of a carrier came loose and the papers escaped and got stuck in the mechanism. Mechanics would then be sent out to clear the blockage so the backlog could be cleared.

More recently, the Jacksons department store at Jackson Corner in Reading was still using a Lamson system for payments up to its closure in 2013.
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eightonedee
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« Reply #22 on: February 23, 2022, 16:58:17 »

Quote
And Lamsons started off making the other kind of cash carrier, with a little carriage running along wires. I have a vague recollection of seeing one of those systems, most likely at Gamages (where there certainly was one) or perhaps Hamleys. They were obviously the kind of London shops a little boy would be taken to in the 1950s.

If I recall correctly, as well as Jackson's system recalled by RichT54, another old Reading shop, Reeds, taylors who supplied amongst other things school uniforms until the late 1960s or early 1970s had one of the older mechanical systems too.
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ellendune
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« Reply #23 on: February 23, 2022, 20:14:02 »

Capes Department Store in Oxford (where the Westgate centre is now IIRC (if I recall/remember/read correctly)) had one in the newer part of the store.  The older part had a sort of cable car system. 
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grahame
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« Reply #24 on: December 22, 2023, 16:20:48 »

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67801235

Quote
High-speed train company Hyperloop One shuts down

The company which became well known for its idea of shooting people hundreds of miles an hour through a vacuum has shut down.

The aim of Hyperloop One, based on an idea by Elon Musk, was to dramatically cut journey times.

It has previously received backing from Virgin founder Richard Branson, but he pulled out last year.

The firm will lay off its remaining staff by the end of the year, according to Bloomberg.

The company had promised a new era of high speed travel, using magnetic levitation (maglev) technology - which is already used in some transport systems - within a vacuum tube.
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« Reply #25 on: December 22, 2023, 19:08:59 »

Perhaps the employees laid off can get jobs with Go-Op?  Wink
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