China is building a train that’s faster than a plane – but will it work?

More than a decade after Elon Musk’s Hyperloop pipe dream, China’s biggest missile manufacturer may be finally about to realise it, writes Anthony Cuthbertson

The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) claims its T-Flight train will be able to reach speeds beyond 1,000 kph (CASIC)

In 2013, Elon Musk published a 58-page proposal for a brand new form of transport. Having popularised electric cars as the boss of Tesla, and ushered in a new era of private space travel as the owner of SpaceX, the billionaire believed there was a better way to deliver mass transit than trains, planes and buses.

He called his solution Hyperloop Alpha, and he claimed it was safer, faster, cheaper, cleaner, and even more resistant to earthquakes than the current alternatives. “Short of figuring out real teleportation, which would of course be awesome (someone please do this), the only option for super fast travel is to build a tube over or under the ground that contains a special environment,” he wrote in the white paper, which can still be found on Tesla’s website.

Despite detailing a proposed route between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Musk never intended to actually build or fund it himself. Instead, he made the design concept open source, encouraging others to advance its development and bring it to reality. More than a decade later, and halfway around the planet from where it was originally intended, Musk’s pipe dream may finally be about to be realised.