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Musk's 700mph Hyperloop Would Be A Game-Changer For Travelers

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DETROIT (CBSMiami) -- If tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has his way, it will take only 29 minutes to commute between New York and Washington one day, traveling on ultra fast trains on a hyperloop track.

Elon Musk - Hyperloop
Space X CEO Elon Musk (L) looks over a pod constructed by Ales Tech from Pisa, Italy during testing for the SpaceX Hyperloop competition in Hawthorne, California on January 29, 2017. Students from 30 colleges and universities from the US and around the world are taking part in testing their pods on a 1.25 kilometer-long Hyperloop track at the SpaceX headquarters. (Photo by GENE BLEVINS/AFP/Getty Images)

Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, tweeted this week he'd just received "verbal government approval" to build a hyperloop tunnel connecting Manhattan, Philadelphia, Baltimore and D.C.

"Elon musk is the modern day, infrastructure PT Barnum and it's a testament that we are even talking about it today about this idea that is really decades away from reality," said Adie Tomer, an expert on metropolitan infrastructure usage patterns.

Several companies are now working to make hyperloop trains a reality. One completed a successful test recently on a special tracks built in the Nevada desert.

Elon Musk - Hyperloop
Hyperloop tubes are displayed during the first test of the propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The company plans to create a fully operational hyperloop system by 2020. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

In 2013, Musk dreamed up the idea of a hyperloop where passengers travel in pods that levitate and glide in vacuum-sealed tubes with almost no aerodynamic drag.

The proposed hyperloop between New York and D.C. would be the world's longest tunnel with trains traveling at 700 miles per hour.

Airliners fly closer to 500 mph and America's fastest passenger train tops out at 150 mph.

If it gets built, most would agree that it'd be a game-changer for travelers.

"All of a sudden, folks with friends and family in Washington can actually work in New York and Philadelphia on a daily basis," said Tomer. "Hyperloop is capturing our imagination because the thought of moving at that fast a speed is nothing less than exciting."

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