China tests high-speed hyperloop ‘flying train’ in 2km vacuum tube

Key technologies were put through their paces – including the large-scale vacuum environment, superconducting navigation control technology, and the coordination of systems in a low-vacuum environment.

“This test improved the overall technical maturity of the system and laid a solid technical foundation for the next test,” a representative of the project told the newspaper.

Known as the “high-speed flying train”, the hyperloop project was jointly developed by the Shanxi provincial government and the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation.

Engineers involved in the project hope that the maglev trains will eventually be able to “fly on the ground” at speeds that rival planes.

Construction of the full-scale test line in Datong – integrating aerospace and railway technology – began in April 2022 and was completed in November 2023. A few months later, the developers claimed a hyperloop test had set a new record. They did not say what speed it had reached, only that it had been faster than the previous record of 623km/h.

Official reports have suggested the ultra-high-speed train could potentially be used to link some of China’s mega cities in the future. That could reduce travel time between Beijing and Shanghai – a distance of more than 1,200km that takes over four hours by bullet train – to just 90 minutes.

The idea of a transport system in a low-pressure tube first emerged more than a century ago, but it has captured the imagination of engineers and investors around the world since tech billionaire Elon Musk released a white paper outlining a vision for hyperloop technology in 2013.

The novel technology aims to overcome two of the biggest problems facing railway transport: friction between the wheels and the track, and air resistance to the train body.

It uses maglev – or magnetic levitation – technology to eliminate friction by using the push and pull of magnets to guide, accelerate and decelerate the train. Meanwhile, running the train in a low-vacuum tube can reduce resistance and noise.

The dream is that one day these tube-encased lines will be able to whisk passengers and freight from city to city at plane-like speeds. But this futuristic technology has a long way to go before it becomes a reality.

While there are still some teams around the world attempting to build hyperloops, Musk’s attempts to realise the project collapsed when his company developing the system, Hyperloop One, was shut down at the end of 2023 after failing to win a contract to build a working hyperloop.

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