Super-fast trains travelling at 600kph are on track after massive multi-million investment
The advent of super high-speed trains are on track after the Hyper Poland company received 16.5 million zł plus an additional one million from crowdfunding to begin building their new hyperloop track.
Engineers from the Warsaw University of Technology which started the Hyper Poland company after advancing to the finals of Elon Musk’s Hyper Pod Competition in 2016, plan to use the funds on research and perfecting their technology.
They will also build a 500-metre-long test track for trains going up to 300 km/h in Żmigród near Wrocław, which will give the engineers a chance to work on linear drive and magnetic levitation.
With the cash injection of 16.5 million zł from the National Centre for Research and Development and a further one million from crowd-funding platform Seedr, HyperPoland now plans to start developing a vacuum cover for railway tracks.
Przemysław Pączek, CEO of Hyper Poland, said: "Thanks to co-financing, R&D works necessary for the development of the hyperloop magnetic technology will be accelerated significantly. We will be able to build a full-sized test track.
“In addition, we will buy the necessary equipment and enlarge our team with outstanding specialists.
“The grant from the National Centre for Research and Development will enable us to complete the research and development work on the motor and suspension of the magrail system and the transition to certification and pilot implementations."
The HyperPoland team will also build a 500-metre-long test track for trains going up to 300 km/h in Żmigród near Wrocław, which will give the engineers a chance to work on linear drive and magnetic levitation.
Hyper Poland, unlike any other institution working on the hyperloop technology, decided to take a step-by-step approach, rather than work on the entire vacuum infrastructure from scratch. They developed a technique to adapt regular rails to the needs of levitating magnetic trains – magrail vehicles which can reach a speed of 300 km/h, comparably to the Japanese bullet train Shinkansen.
Przemysław Pączek, CEO of Hyper Poland, said: "Thanks to co-financing, R&D works necessary for the development of the hyperloop magnetic technology will be accelerated significantly. We will be able to build a full-sized test track."
The next step is to provide a vacuum cover for the tracks and higher speed for the hyperrail (600 km/h), then to finally construct entire vacuum tracks for proper hyperloop transportation, which is supposed to reach a speed of 1200 km/h. With this method, the trip from Warsaw to Kraków would only take a few minutes, compared to the current 2.5-hours.
Hyper Poland is not the only Polish company working on high-speed trains.
The engineers have developed a technique to adapt regular rails to the needs of levitating magnetic trains – magrail vehicles which can reach a speed of 300 km/h, comparably to the Japanese bullet train Shinkansen.
Euroloop, led by Marek Gutt-Mostowy, a former CERN hadron collider scientist, is developing vacuum-based solutions for efficient cargo transport.
Their long-term goal is to use vacuum-based technology to transport cargo more efficiently and to introduce the Automated Container Transportation System – ACTS – to the market.
