UAE hyperloop to finish initial construction

The company building the world’s first superfast hyperloop train system in the United Arab Emirates will complete a first phase of its construction next year, a top executive said yesterday. Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, based in California, plans to build 10 kilometres of a 150-kilometre route linking Abu Dhabi and Dubai next year, company chairman Bibop Gresta told WAM news agency.

Gresta did not give a specific date for the launch but said estimates put the cost at $3 to $6 billion. Last April, Hyperloop signed a memorandum of understanding with Al-Dar Properties, a major real estate firm based in Abu Dhabi, for the construction and operation of the near-supersonic transport link.

The first capsule of the UAE train has now left the assembly facility in Spain to Toulouse, France where it will be tested on a prototype track. A hyperloop is a shuttle pod that travels on magnetic rails, somewhat like a train, but which runs in a tube with little or no air.