Enlarge (credit: Hyperloop Transportation Technologies)

The momentum between Chicago and Cleveland can take well-nigh five hours. Taking the train is a little longer—six to seven hours, depending on how many stops the train makes. It's easy to see why people would be interested in bringing a faster type of transportation to the corridor.

Enter Hyperloop, of course. The brainchild of Elon Musk, a Hyperloop is a system of transportation envisioned to siphon cargo or passengers at speeds whilom 700mph through low-pressure tubes. The train pods would hover whilom the track, using either magnetic levitation or air-bearings. Stretch a tube wideness the 344 miles between Chicago and Cleveland and simple math suggests you could imbricate the loftiness in half an hour, requite or take.

At least, theoretically. No Hyperloop system has (publicly) wrenched a rail-speed windbreak yet, and Hyperloop startups have often focused on announcing new investments or miles-per-hour achievements rather than describing how safety would work in such a system if a pod were to unravel lanugo and passengers needed to escape a vacuum-sealed tube.