A futuristic high-speed travel project could link London and Paris in 20 minutes

Could Londoners one day reach Paris in less time than it takes to get from north to south London? Thanks to new research into land travel, it might soon be easier to meet your pals for un café et croissant in Paree than making the dreaded journey from Hackney to Peckham. 

Engineers are looking into hyperloop technology, which isn’t something from Star Trek, but instead could be a very real mode of transport that would make land travel as fast as flying. The European Hyperloop Center Veendam in the Netherlands, where the research is taking place, said one day travellers could reach Paris from London in just 20 minutes. 

If it were to become a reality, passengers would be shuttled through hyperloop vacuums, travelling 600 miles per hour. Pods are not attached to rails, but are suspended in midair by magnets attached to the roof of the vehicles. It sounds a little scary, but advocates for the futuristic mode of travel say it could alter how we perceive time and distance forever, affecting everything from holiday planning, to house prices. 

Hyperloop travel was once just a pipe dream, but it gained more recognition in 2013 after Elon Musk wrote a white paper on the topic. The world’s first hyperloop passenger test was conducted in Nevada in 2023, but then the project folded amid skyrocketing costs. 

Thanks to funding from the European Union, research in the Netherlands is still zooming ahead. But it’s not been total plain sailing (or looping) – the project still faces challenges such as finding more funding and working out how to fit more passengers into the pods.  

It’s still too early to say when we might get an ultra-fast service from the capital to the continent, although the engineers are hopeful it could happen one day.

Kees Mark, managing director of European Hyperloop Center told the Telegraph: ‘To think that we could be having coffee in Paris in under an hour from now is a huge mindset shift.’ 

ICYMI: Eurostar could massively cut boarding times at St Pancras International – slashing waiting times by 30 minutes.

Plus: This controversial £1.2 billion makeover of London’s busiest train station has been officially approved. 

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