South Korea’s Hyper-Tube Train Hits A Top Speed Of 621 MPH

While it might be more fun or more convenient to drive since you get to set your own schedules and choose when or where you want to stop, sometimes taking public transportation services like trains might be more practical and even more efficient because there are no traffic jams and sometimes it can be a direct route that cuts across terrain.

Now over in South Korea, the country’s Korean Railroad Research Institute has unveiled their new hyper-tube train that they claim has managed to reach a top speed of 621 mph (about 1,000 kmph) during a test. This is a huge milestone for them to achieve in their bid towards creating even faster trains.

Korea had actually begun its work on the hyper-tube (also known as the hyperloop in other parts of the world) back in 2017, so for them to achieve these top speeds 3 years later is mighty impressive. The organization is hoping that by the time the train is deployed for public use, it will be able to allow passengers to travel from Seoul to Busan in just 30 minutes, a trip that would have previously taken 3.5 hours.

While we have seen and experienced extremely fast train rides in the past, one of the advantages of hyperloop is that it encapsulates the train inside of a tunnel. This in turn helps to reduce external forces from the environment, such as air, which in turn helps reduce friction and allows the trains to travel at greater speeds. It is unclear when such transportation systems will become mainstream and available to the public, but so far development on the technology has been pretty good.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Transportation
Tags: trains