On a cold test track in Shanxi, northern China, a white bullet train slid into a vacuum tube. Heavy steel doors kept the tube closed. Engineers in blue jackets stood near monitors, all of which were showing the same countdown. Three, two, one. Nothing seemed to happen for a little while. Then the numbers on the screen changed quickly, and someone in the control room gasped.
Two seconds. In that time, the prototype went from 0 to 623 km/h. It was faster than a jet taking off and looked more like a prop from a sci-fi movie than a bus.
When I got out on the platform, the big promises of the hyperloop world suddenly seemed very old.
Something has changed in the future of trains.
China’s 2-second shock: when an idea became a working machine
The West made the hyperloop look like a shiny PowerPoint dream for ten years. Capsules speeding through tubes that are almost empty, pairs of cities turning into suburbs, and commute times “melting away.” Elon Musk wrote a white paper, startups got hundreds of millions of dollars, and governments posed for pictures with pictures of floating pods.
We mostly saw test tracks in the desert and prototypes that looked more like fancy trailers than real spacecraft on the ground. The deadlines were moved back. They ran out of money. The dream stayed stuck in the virtual world.
Then China set up a camera on a 2-kilometer-long tube, hit “record,” and quietly stole the show.
The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), a huge state-owned defence and space company, made a special test site for the experiment. Their train, which was based on magnetic levitation, sped through the sealed tube and reached a speed of 623 km/h in just two seconds. Engineers say that the ultimate goal of the design is to have speeds of 1,000 km/h between cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
The Virgin Hyperloop got a lot of attention in the US, but it never went faster than 387 km/h on an open-air track in Nevada. The company’s switch to cargo and mass layoffs made headlines, but not for the reasons investors had hoped. European projects, on the other hand, quietly stopped moving forward while they waited for money and permits that never came.
The Shanxi video went viral on social media faster than any fancy pitch deck could.
This moment feels so disruptive not only because of how fast it is. It’s the way they do it that makes a difference. Western Hyperloop was pitched as a startup dream: fast, new, and a little out there. China used the same method for the idea as it did for heavy infrastructure: it was long-term, supported by the government, and based on existing high-speed rail experience and military-grade engineering.
People in the West were still arguing over land and how to make money when they talked about moonshots. Beijing saw it as a way to add to its already huge high-speed rail network, which is over 40,000 kilometres long.
One side was still asking, “Can we build this?” while the other had already moved on to “How quickly can we safely scale it?”
How China is changing the rules for trains while the West changes the name of the dream
The basic “how” behind this jump is oddly simple and very planned. Begin with what you already know: centralised planning, vacuum engineering, big tunnels, and maglev technology. Then move each of these up one notch. The tube has less air in it. Stronger magnets. Control systems that are more intelligent. Try, fail, and get better, but do it in private, not on TED stages.
You can also do speed in a very Chinese way. Not only trying to be the first, but also trying to say something political. The world’s fastest public rail, the world’s densest high-speed grid, and the first near-vacuum maglev system in the world. Transportation is more than just moving people from one place to another; it also shows how strong a country is.
The Shanxi test is just a 2-second brag.
The West took a very different approach. The media, famous investors, and demos at conferences all paid a lot of attention to Hyperloop One (later Virgin Hyperloop). It was thrilling, but also very weak. It wasn’t clear how to make money with the models. There were no rules. There were a lot of private lands, legal jurisdictions, and environmental lawsuits that routes had to cross.
Reality hit hard when interest rates went up and easy money ran out. The main company quietly shut down its test track in Nevada, sold off its assets, and left behind a few empty tubes in the desert. Instead of actually deploying, other projects, like those in Spain and the Netherlands, went into “research mode.”
Let’s be honest: the story, not the construction sites, made the West fall in love.
This is the point in the story where things really change.
China is now testing a system that fits perfectly with its big plan to make its huge territory smaller, connect inland provinces, and make military and economic logistics run more smoothly. A 1,000 km/h tube between mega-cities isn’t just for people who want to get to work faster. It’s about bringing all the markets together into one small, loyal, and domestic universe.
Experts in the U.S. and Europe see something else in the lines. If China gets vacuum maglev just right, it could start selling full systems like it does high-speed rail: as complete packages with financing. The West’s hyperloop didn’t just stop; it might come back with ‘Made in China’ written on the side.
What this means for your next train ride and what we got wrong
What does a test in a Chinese province that goes 623 km/h have to do with your next train ticket? A lot, in fact. Every time the core infrastructure changes, it changes what people think of as “normal” in the rest of the world. The Japanese Shinkansen set the standard in the 1960s. In the 1980s, French TGVs did it. China’s bullet trains changed the 2000s.
Every time, one country shows that a new speed or capacity is reliable enough, and within ten years, everyone else looks really slow. The first domino to fall is the Shanxi test. Your politicians, rail companies and airlines are now watching those two seconds over and over again, even if you’ve never been in a vacuum tube.
That’s when people don’t notice that their priorities have changed.
If you just think, “Wow, cool tech,” and then keep scrolling, you’re making a big mistake. Another mistake that is just as bad is to be completely cynical and say things like “It will never work commercially” or “It’s just propaganda.” We’ve all been there: when a big change seems too far away from our daily lives to care about.
But every big change to transport starts out as something odd, little, and hard to believe. People laughed at early high-speed trains because they thought they were dangerous toys. People said the Channel Tunnel was a waste of money. “Nice for the rich” used to be what commercial jets were for.
A European rail engineer told me, but only if I didn’t use his name, that China’s vacuum-tube maglev “is still experimental, sure, but anyone who calls it a gimmick hasn’t paid attention to how quickly rail technology scales once a state decides it’s strategic.”
In less than 15 years, China has built the world’s largest high-speed rail network, going from test lines to full use all over the country.
Vacuum maglev doesn’t need a whole new ecosystem; it builds on things that already work, like tunnels, magnets, and central planning.
The West still has better safety rules, more open research, and more democratic discussions about how to use land and its effects on the environment.
But if the difference between “demo” and “real service” closes faster in China than in Europe or the U.S., people all over the world will start to expect trains to do things that are more like what they do in Beijing than in Silicon Valley.
Take a moment to step back. A train went from zero to 623 km/h in two seconds, inside a tube, in a country that already moves millions of people every day at speeds of 300–350 km/h. The Western hyperloop dreams that used to be symbols of bold new ideas now look like rough drafts of a project that someone else is really working on.
There is an uncomfortable truth that hangs over all of this: the future of trains will belong to whoever actually pours the concrete and welds the steel, not whoever had the best keynote slides.A lot of the cranes and welding torches are in Asia right now.
That doesn’t mean that the U.S. or Europe will always have to use infrastructure from the 1970s. We should stop asking “Can we picture a hyperloop?” and start asking “What are we building in the next 10 years that will change how people travel?” That could mean making the current lines better. That could be real vacuum tubes in short, thick hallways. It could be a mix of things that we haven’t named yet.
The Shanxi test is meant to make people mad. A reminder that real progress looks messy at first, is political, and can be criticised, but once it gets big enough, it can’t be undone.
This two-second Chinese video makes me think of a bigger, more uncomfortable question: who will decide what “modern” means in the 2030s? The next time you’re stuck on a delayed commuter train or wedged into a cheap flight, think of a sealed tube humming quietly somewhere. A capsule will fly by at jet speed on a cushion of magnetic fields.
You can hear more than just the future in the distance. One carriage and track at a time, the sound of the balance of power in the world is changing.
China’s 2-second breakthroughThe vacuum-tube maglev test quickly reached 623 km/h. The goal for commercial systems is to reach 1,000 km/h.Learn why this one test could change how people think about what “normal” train speeds are.
The hyperloop in the West is going more slowly.After years of hype and little use, big projects were put on hold, changed direction, or shut down.Find out how telling stories and raising money without actually delivering can mess up big plans for infrastructure.
China is changing the leadership of its global rail system and plans to export high-speed trains as part of its national strategy.Even if they are far from your own country, think about how travel options, prices, and standards might change in the future.
Questions and Answers:
Question 1: Is this “hyperloop” in China already moving people?
No, Answer 1. The Shanxi system is not a business line; it is a test bed. Before it goes public, it will test vacuum levels, maglev stability, and control systems in real-world situations.
Question 2: What makes this different from Elon Musk’s first idea for a hyperloop?
Answer 2: They are similar in that they both use magnetic levitation to move capsules through low-pressure tubes. The main difference is how they do it. Musk inspired startups, while China is pushing the idea through state-backed rail and aerospace companies that are connected to an existing high-speed network.
Question 3: Will these super-fast trains take the place of planes?
Answer 3: Yes, they could really compete with short-haul flights on some busy routes that are less than 1,500 km long. For a long time, planes will probably still be the best way to travel between continents.
Answer 4: The main problem is safety: loss of pressure, emergency exits, and quick evacuation. Engineers are working on segmented tubes, multiple backups, and automated braking, but real proof of safety will only come from long-term, large-scale testing.
Question 5: When do you think regular people will be able to ride in something like this?
Answer 5: If China keeps going at this rate, there could be some limited commercial or semi-commercial routes by the 2030s. In the U.S. or Europe, you’re more likely to see faster, upgraded conventional high-speed lines first than full vacuum-tube maglev in that same time frame.
