US-based company proposes Chennai-Bengaluru land travel in 30 minutes!

Chennai/Bengaluru: For those who thought air travel was the fastest, think again, because all that is about to change. As per a proposal by a US-based company, travelling on land from Bengaluru to Chennai would take about 30 minutes.

The brainchild of Elon Musk, HyperLoop One has proposed travel pods that move at 1,200 kmph through a tube propped up on concrete pillars. It is said that the pod could achieve high speed as it floated in a vacuum inside the tunnel.

The company has expressed interest in five routes: Chennai-Bengaluru, Chennai-Mumbai, Pune-Mumbai, Bengaluru-Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai-Delhi.

It is said that the company had already approached the Union Ministry of Road Transport, but sources say that the routes proposed were meant to run bullet trains and the Japanese and Chinese teams had already begun studying the Chennai-Bengaluru route to check if they could lay tracks for high-speed trains.

The company plans on installing prefabricated tubes atop pillars which would cut down cost and time of construction. Solar panels installed atop the tubes and windmills on the pillars to tap energy will further reduce operational cost.

The company’s first line is set to come up between Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the next five years and is said to cut down travel time from 90 minutes to 12 minutes.

However, engineers at Indian Railways seem to be unconvinced and opine that plans for high speed connectivity were good, but might take more than a decade to take off due to several reasons including procedural delays and time taken for government approvals.