"It's pretty much what I expected!" Professor Parkinson nodded and said, "This project is indeed difficult to make money."

"Since you know, why are you still asking me?" Dr. Cooper rolled his eyes.

"I just want to see if, as the initiator of this project, you can find a way to make this project profitable," Professor Parkinson said.

"Then to tell you the truth, it is impossible for this thing to be profitable through operation. It is impossible for us to really make money from this project itself!" Dr. Cooper said expressionlessly.

At the same time, Dr. Cooper threw a report to Professor Parkinson. The professor looked down and found that it was actually a feasibility study report on the vacuum high-speed tube train.

This report was completed about a year ago and conducted a thorough investigation into the feasibility of the entire vacuum high-speed tube train.

Based on the investigation of this report, a simulation survey has been conducted on the newly built most profitable vacuum high-speed tube train line in the United States, that is, the California-New York line.

First of all, this report first planned a tentative route. The ultimate distance between the two states is 2,900 kilometers, but the total length of this route is 4,680 kilometers, a full 1,780 kilometers more distance. This route seems

It's not excellent, but rather a waste.

But in fact, this is a route developed with full consideration of economic conditions.

First of all, this route bypasses more than 30 mountainous areas with very rugged terrain. Due to the characteristics of the vacuum high-speed pipeline, the vacuum high-speed pipeline can only be bent at a very low angle, which means that facing the mountainous terrain, it is basically impossible to rely on it.

To wind up or go around the mountain, you can only drill directly into the mountain and drill straight tunnels out of the mountain to let the vacuum high-speed pipeline pass through.

As a result, we will face huge construction costs. It is better to go around far away and build on the plains to save costs.

And it’s not just the mountains that need to be bypassed, they also need to bypass the city. After all, if this kind of pipeline passes through the city, it will inevitably be demolished, and the cost will be too high, so they can only go around the city.

In the past, it was absolutely impossible to walk through the city.

So in total, the length of the detour alone is thousands of kilometers.

Although the pipeline must be laid around the city, the overall planning must be as close to the city as possible. After all, only by being close to the city can we transport guests into the city, and then build platforms for picking up and dropping off passengers.

Each additional station can sell more train tickets for one route, which can increase profits. Therefore, sometimes the line must take a turn and take the initiative to get closer to some surrounding cities, and then additional distance needs to be added.

Therefore, the distance of 4,600 kilometers is not only not exaggerated, but on the contrary, it is very reliable and considers practical value.

But the distance of 4,600 kilometers also means extremely high construction costs.

This report also made a relatively detailed estimate of the construction cost, because it is necessary to build a pipeline that can accommodate a normal train, and the current width of a high-speed train is 3.1 meters, so the diameter of a vacuum high-speed pipeline must be

More than 5.4 meters, considering the safety of passage, the actual diameter should be more than 5.7 meters.

And this is still the inner diameter. Considering that vacuum pipes need to withstand various geological and climatic tests outside, and at the same time must be perfectly guaranteed not to leak, the overall pipe diameter may reach 7 meters.

This is a very large and terrifying number.

For example, the most common passenger aircraft in the world is the Boeing 737, and the maximum cabin diameter of the 737 is 3.76 meters. In other words, the diameter of the vacuum high-speed pipeline would be as large as two Boeing 737s, which is simply outrageous.

According to final estimates, the cost per kilometer of such a pipeline has reached US$130 million, and after 4,600 kilometers, the material cost is US$600 billion.

But this is only the manufacturing cost of the pipeline. If the pipeline needs to be laid, the cost will be inestimable. At the same time, because there is no precedent for the entire laying process, the author of this report can only roughly estimate the laying cost per kilometer.

It requires a price of about US$20 million, and the final laying cost is another US$92 billion.

It is worth mentioning that the construction team actually gave two different versions of the estimate. One version is an open-air grounded load-bearing solution, which sounds a bit unclear. In fact, it is just throwing the pipe directly on the ground, and then installing it on both sides of the pipe.

Iron frames are used to fix and limit the sides, so the construction cost is relatively low. It also costs 20 million US dollars per kilometer.

The other is the elevated plan, which is relatively easy to understand. It uses a viaduct to pass the pipeline in the air. Compared with the first plan, the main advantage of the second plan is that it can reduce demolition costs.

Because if the pipeline lands directly, not only will the pipeline itself occupy an area, but a certain distance around the pipeline must also be set up as an isolation protection zone to prohibit some people from approaching. A preliminary estimate is that a distance of 50 meters with the pipeline as the center, then

They all need to be demolished, so the demolition costs become extremely expensive.

At the same time, this investigation report also stated very simply that unless a large number of inspection personnel are arranged, based on the urine habits of some low-class people in the United States, they will definitely find ways to steal some ancillary equipment on the pipelines in exchange for money.

What's more, they may not want the money at all, they just want the pipeline to be destroyed, which will disgust you capitalists, etc. Anyway, the risk is very high.

The high-priced plan can relatively easily avoid these problems. The pipeline is placed in the air and ordinary people cannot get close to it. At the same time, only the area of ​​the viaduct needs to be demolished, so the demolition price can be saved a lot.

The disadvantage is that the high price itself is a huge cost, and the actual cost per kilometer will soar to more than 50 million US dollars.

All things considered, the cost of grounding is cheaper.

There are many other expenses listed in the report, so I won’t go into details here. Anyway, the final report gave a forecast of US$1.8 trillion, and also carefully noted that this figure was only based on various data.

The forecast data does not represent the dollar figures required during the actual construction process.

After estimating the cost of the railway, the plan then began to estimate the profit of the railway.

Without taking into account the operating costs after the railway is completed, if 30 years of revenue are used to earn back the investment of US$1.8 trillion, then on average, a net profit of US$60 billion per year will be needed.

According to current data, the total number of passengers traveling between the two places via trains, planes, cars and other modes of transportation within a year is approximately 7.2 million.

These 7.2 million people need to provide a profit of 60 billion US dollars every year, so the profit of each ticket will be more than 800 US dollars. If operating costs are also taken into account, the actual ticket price may exceed 1,400 US dollars.

The investigation report itself did not say how outrageous the price was, but only listed the price of flying between New York and California.

For ordinary airlines, the price of each ordinary passenger ticket is US$600, first class is US$2,000, and business class is about US$4,000.

And if a low-cost airline runs a discount promotion, the price of each ticket may drop to less than $300.

Comparing these two prices, it becomes clear that if the fare of the vacuum high-speed train is really priced at US$1,400, then only passengers who can afford first-class and business-class seats will have the money to buy the vacuum high-speed train.

However, the total number of passengers who can travel in business class between the two places in a year will never exceed 300,000 yuan. If the vacuum high-speed railway train only has 300,000 passengers a year, then what needs to be considered every year is not the profit, but the profit.

How much loss will there be?

In the end, the report also provided a very considerate solution, which was to set the ticket price at US$600, which is basically the same as the price of an airplane ticket.

It is basically impossible to recover the capital within 30 years, but the possibility of making a profit after 60 years is still very high. As for whether there will be a problem of pipelines being damaged in batches and needing to be replaced after 60 years, this report

It's not mentioned at all above.

After reading the report, Professor Parkinson sighed, and then said, "Brother Cooper, your work ability is still very good. This report is much more accurate than the report I sent people to investigate in a hurry. How can you

Why don't you give it to me sooner!"

"I gave it to you, just keep it in my personal desk. The first thing you did after moving into the office was to send someone to throw my desk out without even looking at it, right?"

Dr. Bo asked calmly, and Professor Parkinson's expression suddenly became strange.

"Do you think that if you deliberately left this project to me, I will definitely be fooled and rush to promote this project to make money, only to find out that I have lost everything, so that I can be fooled again?" Ba Jin

Professor Sen suddenly asked with a slightly ferocious expression.

"Isn't it? Aren't you already promoting this plan?" Dr. Cooper said calmly.

"Yes, yes, I am indeed promoting this plan, but what I want to tell you is that I have not been fooled by you from beginning to end. On the contrary, I actually want to thank you very much and leave this project to me, otherwise

How can I have such a good opportunity!" Professor Parkinson suddenly started laughing again, and then threw out a report to Dr. Cooper and said, "Didn't I just say that? I also found someone to investigate, it's just time.

It's a bit rushed, not as detailed and accurate as yours, and a bit stingy!"

Dr. Cooper frowned, and then picked up the report given to him by Professor Parkinson. He did not read anything else and went directly to the last page of the report, which contained the final survey results.
Chapter completed!