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Future Travel: LA to NYC In 45 Minutes By Tube!


Ever since people in covered wagons took six months to make it from the East Coast to California, they’ve been trying to make the journey a bit shorter. By train, the schedule is about 40 hours. Today, by passenger jet, it takes about four hours.

Now, a company named ET3 predicts that within a few decades, a way to do it by an underground vacuum tube system will take you coast-to-coast in just 3/4 of an hour! ET3 calls it the Evacuated Tube Transport, a 4,000 MPH train that’s blasted through by magnetic levitation.

The whole concept sounds like something a magician would conjure in a stage act, or a super big one of those old department store message suction tubes. The ET passenger system would be made up of a line of six-person capsules in rows within the tunnel vehicle.

Even more ambitious, when the tubes can be constructed to extend under oceans, a trip from California to China could happen in just two hours, and even less from New York to London! When it becomes an entire world network of tubes, it will certainly revolutionize long-distance transportation, as well as shipping, as never before.

Can you imagine telling your family you’re tubing to Beijing for Sunday brunch, and will be back home in time for dinner? And then tubing for a midnight snack in London?
Facing Hours Of Airport Delays: Be Prepared PDF Print E-mail


You sit there fuming. Somewhere out on your expected flight it’s snowing hard, and chances are you’ll be stuck for hours until they can dig out. Try to pass the time by keeping busy and/or just plain snoozing. All you need is some handy stuff with you.

1. Stay in touch with updated airport schedules and the rest of the world. Your smartphone is your connection with what’s happening. Make sure it’s always fully charged and on.

2. Your smartphone, tablet or laptop allows you to do business work, play games, write, email, research, study, watch TV, listen to music and get the latest news. You can also see a movie and do almost anything else to help pass the dragging time.

3. Bring a digital Ebook reader with lighted pages. It’s cheap, and can hold dozens of purchased or rented novels, thrillers and historical biographies.  

4. If airport stores are open, shop and snack. If all closed, go into your carry-on bag for snacks you packed: peanut butter crackers, pretzels, jerky, packaged dried fruit and candy. If you haven’t yet gone through security, bottled water will help wash it all down.

5. For many delayed air travelers, sleep is the best way to pass the long waits. Try to snooze on the uncomfortable plastic seats and benches. Better still, find an out-of-the way, clean floor space where you can go flat and get some real sleep.

For that purpose, dig into your carry-on and get out a heavy jacket, visor cap and sleep mask. Smartphone with earphones can provide sleep-inducing music. Cover your eyes and snooze away. Make sure you don’t sleep so soundly that you won’t hear a PA announcement that your flight is boarding and will depart in five minutes.

 
 
 
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