Indian Railways, in a collaboration with IIT Madras, has completed its first test track for a Hyperloop in the country. The 410-meter-long track is on the campus of IIT Madras.
This means one can travel from Mumbai to Pune in 25 mins through a ‘transportation pod’: hollow tube in a high-speed hyperloop pod, a crucial milestone for high-speed transportation technology.
Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently shared a video of India’s first Hyperloop track, announcing that the 410-km long track ready for a test run. “Bharat’s first Hyperloop test track (410 meters) completed,” he wrote while sharing a video of the test track on X.
Watch: Bharat’s first Hyperloop test track (410 meters) completed.
👍 Team Railways, IIT-Madras’ Avishkar Hyperloop team and TuTr (incubated startup)
📍At IIT-M discovery campus, Thaiyur pic.twitter.com/jjMxkTdvAd
— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) December 5, 2024
“Kudos to Team Railways, IIT-Madras’ Avishkar Hyperloop team, and TuTr (an incubated startup),” the union minister added.
The Hyperloop System
The Hyperloop system was conceptualized originally by Elon Musk to transport passengers and cargo at ultra-high speeds in low-pressure vacuum tubes, thereby reducing travel time between cities significantly.
The project is led by the Avishkar Hyperloop team of IIT Madras, comprising 76 students, and TuTr, a startup incubated at the institute.
The work has been divided into two phases:
1. To construct an 11.5-kilometer test track to validate the functionality of the system.
2. Expansion to a 100-kilometer test track, which would then open up to commercial applications.
India has found its first full-scale Hyperloop site. The Mumbai-Pune corridor will be the destination site. When it begins operating, it shall reduce travel time from each city to just 25 minutes. That’s so much faster than by road, air, or sea.
Hyperloop systems have made use of magnetic levitation that makes pods travel within vacuum-sealed tubes at 1,200 km/h. For India, the operating speed of the Hyperloop in the first place would be around 360 km/h and would accommodate 24-28 passengers in one single trip.
Besides passenger travel, firms such as Pune-based Quintrans Hyperloop plan to introduce cargo-based Hyperloop systems by 2027-28 linking major cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, and Delhi.
