USAF tests sled on rails that goes 6,599mph!

[Archae]

https://www.wisn.com/article/blink-and-youll-miss-this-6599-mph-hypersonic-sled/29020818

[Ptah]

2. Youtube:

[DFW]

3. Dallas to Dsseldorf in less than one hour!

Too bad it would take ten trillion dollars and fifty years to build the rails!

[DFW]

5. Got that right

The train ride from here (Düsseldorf area) down to Frankfurt used to be almost 3 hours because the only route was the slow and curvy Rhein valley, and the tracks were so close to the river, the route had to close during flooding. So, the Germans spent billions building a new route through the sparsely populated hills of the "Sauerland" with new tracks that could accommodate a high speed line, and now the route takes 80 minutes. It took years and cost a fortune, but is now so fast and convenient (the route stops at the Frankfurt airport) that commuter/connection flights between Düsseldorf and Frankfurt have almost been eliminated, as the train is often faster and more convenient. Fast trains have brought travel between Köln (Cologne) and Brussels from 3 hours to less than two, and the travel time from Düsseldorf to Paris from seven hours to less than four. The hugely expensive bridge from København ("Copenhagen" ) in Denmark to Malmö in Sweden has brought travel time between the two down from a long, cumbersome ferry ride down to a quick 20 minute local train ride.

Europe is densely populated, so projects like this make sense, but there is no reason (other than money) that the train rides from New York City to either Boston or Washington can't be brought down to under two hours, either.

[DFW]

7. Is isn't fun, but it is utilitarian

The fast trains that run between Paris and Brussels, and on to either Germany or the Netherlands (Thalys) are crowded and uncomfortable, and the toilets are rarely cleaned or refilled with water. The German ones (ICE) are more comfortable, but poorly maintained, and fail (are canceled) frequently, and sometimes even crash with fatalities.

I only take the AVE trains in Spain on an infrequent basis, and then only between Barcelona and Madrid, but they are wonderful. Comfortable, fast, and can make the Mardrid-Barcelona run (8 hours back when I lived there) in an incredible two and a half hours if you are lucky to get a nonstop, three hours and ten minutes if you get the one that stops in Zaragoza and Tarragona along the way. They were mostly paid for with German tax money funneled from the EU, but at least they did something useful with it, rather than government officials sticking it in their own pocket like they did in Romania.

[hunter]

9. Oresund Bridge has some wonderful engineering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98resund_Bridge

The prefabricated sections of the tunnel were laid in an underwater trench. A similar method was used for the BART tunnel linking Oakland and San Francisco, which opened in 1974.

[jmowreader]

10. Two questions come to mind

How close is 6,599mph to escape velocity?

and

Will it still go that fast if we strap the entire Trump family to it before throwing the switch?