A HYPERLOOP research and testing centre will be set up in Málaga in a joint venture between Spain's rail infrastructure board ADIF and Richard Branson's Virgin empire at a cost of €430 million, according to a press release from both firms.
ADIF chairwoman Isabel Pardo de Vera has rubber-stamped a deal with Virgin Hyperloop One chief executive officer Rob Lloyd today (Tuesday) – a step closer to bringing the Hyperloop centre to Spain.
It will be based in Bobadilla (Málaga province) in ADIF's existing test centre for the high-speed AVE line, and is expected to create up to 250 jobs.
The Hyperloop is a bullet train capable of reaching speeds of up to 1,200 kilometres per hour (750mph), taking less than 60 minutes to cover distances that would take around 10 hours by car.
It would be able to get from Madrid to Barcelona in under 30 minutes, from Madrid to Valencia – a distance of over 350 kilometres – in less than 20 minutes, and from Madrid to the Cádiz-province port town of Algeciras, near Gibraltar, in 42 minutes.
Future plans include a line from Madrid to Tangiers, Morocco's northernmost city, via a tunnel in 47 minutes – a journey that takes seven hours by car plus two hours by ferry, not counting passport control and security queues – plus a 90-minute London-Madrid link, faster than the two-hour plane journey, and even a four-hour connection from Madrid to Moscow.
It is thought that in future decades, employees could even commute to other countries in Europe to work and travel home again after clocking off in the time it typically takes the average person to drive to the office today.
