03/09/2026
Imagine traveling nearly 800 miles in just 32 minutes. 🚄
That’s the goal of a new experimental transportation system being tested between Beijing and Shanghai.
Researchers from China State Railway Group and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have reportedly completed construction of a Hyperloop-style evacuated tube train system designed to reach speeds of 4,000 km/h (about 2,485 mph).
The system works by placing a magnetic levitation (maglev) train inside a low-pressure tube, reducing air resistance almost completely. Inside the tube, pressure is reduced to about 4,000 Pascals — less than 4% of normal atmospheric pressure. With almost no aerodynamic drag, the train can theoretically reach extremely high speeds.
If fully operational, the system could cut the journey between Beijing and Shanghai from about 4.5 hours on China’s fastest high-speed rail to just 32 minutes.
Engineers had to solve several major challenges that have slowed hyperloop development around the world:
• Maintaining extremely low pressure across more than 1,300 kilometers of tube
• Allowing trains to enter and exit stations without slowing operations
• Ensuring passenger safety at hypersonic speeds
One solution involves a special airlock transfer system where passengers board in a separate vehicle that connects to the main tube and gradually adjusts pressure during transit.
Instead of wheels touching tracks, magnetic levitation keeps the train floating, while advanced computer systems make thousands of tiny corrections every second to keep the vehicle perfectly centered.
If successful, this technology could dramatically reshape travel between China’s largest cities. A 32-minute connection would effectively merge the economies of Beijing and Shanghai into a single mega-region with tens of millions of people.
China has already approved plans for additional hyperloop corridors connecting cities like Guangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an, and Wuhan.
In the future, long distances across China could be measured in minutes instead of hours.
Would you ride a train traveling over 2,400 mph inside a vacuum tube? Let us know below.
Source: China State Railway Group, Engineering Journal 2025 / Chinese Academy of Sciences