"This is pretty much in line with my projections!" Professor Parkinson nodded. "This project is indeed very difficult to make money from."
"If you already know that, then why are you asking me?" Dr. Cooper rolled his eyes.
"I just want to see if you, as the initiator of this project, have any way to make it profitable," Professor Parkinson said.
"Then let me tell you the truth, this thing simply cannot be profitable through operations, we cannot really make money from this project itself!" Dr. Cooper said with a blank expression.
At the same time, Dr. Cooper handed Professor Parkinson a report. The professor looked down and saw that it was a feasibility study report for the vacuum high-speed pipeline train.
This report was completed about a year ago and conducted a thorough investigation into the feasibility of the vacuum high-speed pipeline train.
According to the investigation in this report, a new, most profitable vacuum high-speed pipeline train line was built in the United States, namely the California-New York route, for a simulated investigation.
First, the report outlined a tentative route. The extreme distance between the two states was 2900 kilometers, but the total length of this route was 4680 kilometers, which was 1780 kilometers longer. This route did not seem excellent; on the contrary, it was very wasteful.
But in fact, this was a route planned with full consideration of economic conditions.
First, this route bypassed more than thirty mountainous areas with very rugged terrain. Due to the characteristics of vacuum high-speed pipelines, they could only bend at very low angles. This meant that when facing mountains, it was basically impossible to rely on winding roads or绕山 to get past them. It would only be possible to drill directly through the mountains, creating straight tunnels for the vacuum high-speed pipelines to pass through.
This would incur enormous construction costs. It would be more cost-effective to go around it from a distance and build it on plains.
Moreover, it was not just mountains that needed to be bypassed; cities also needed to be avoided. After all, if such a pipeline passed through a city, demolition would be necessary, and the cost would be too high. Therefore, it could only go around the outskirts of cities and absolutely could not pass through them.
So, in summary, the route that bypassed these obstacles alone was over a thousand kilometers long.
Although the pipeline laying had to go around cities, it had to be as close to the cities as possible in the overall plan. After all, only by being close to cities could passengers be delivered to the cities, and stations for boarding and alighting could be built.
Every additional station could sell more train tickets, thus increasing revenue. Therefore, sometimes the route had to make a turn to proactively get closer to surrounding cities, which would then require additional distance.
Therefore, the 4600-kilometer distance was not an exaggeration; on the contrary, it was very reliable and considered practical value.
However, the 4600-kilometer distance also meant extremely high construction costs.
The report also provided a relatively detailed estimate of the construction costs. Because a pipeline capable of accommodating a normal train was to be built, and the width of a high-speed train was currently 3.1 meters, the diameter of a vacuum high-speed pipeline must be greater than 5.4 meters. Considering the safety of passage, the actual diameter should be above 5.7 meters.
And this was the inner diameter. Considering that the vacuum pipeline would need to withstand various geological and climatic tests from the outside, and also perfectly ensure no air leakage, the overall pipeline diameter would likely reach 7 meters.
This was a very large and terrifying number.
For example, the world's most common passenger aircraft is the Boeing 737. The maximum cabin diameter of a 737 is 3.76 meters. In other words, the diameter of a vacuum high-speed pipeline would be equivalent to two Boeing 737s, which was outrageous.
Ultimately, according to estimates, the cost of manufacturing such a pipeline per kilometer alone reached 130 million US dollars. For 4600 kilometers, the material cost was 600 billion US dollars.
But this was only the manufacturing cost of the pipeline. If the pipeline needed to be laid, the cost would be immeasurable. Moreover, since there was no precedent for the entire laying process, the author of this report could only roughly estimate the laying cost per kilometer to be around 20 million US dollars, resulting in a final laying cost of 92 billion US dollars.
It is worth mentioning that the construction team actually provided two different versions of the estimate. One version was the exposed-ground bearing scheme. It sounded impressive, but it actually meant placing the pipeline directly on the ground and using iron frames on both sides to fix and limit it. This would require relatively lower construction costs, about 20 million US dollars per kilometer.
The other was an elevated scheme, which was relatively easier to understand. It meant using elevated bridges to support the pipeline in the air. The main advantage of the second scheme compared to the first was that it could reduce demolition costs.
This was because if the pipeline was laid directly on the ground, not only would the pipeline itself occupy an area, but a certain distance around the pipeline would also have to be designated as a safety exclusion zone, prohibiting people from approaching. Preliminary estimates suggested that an area within 50 meters of the pipeline as the center would require demolition, making the demolition costs extremely high.
At the same time, this investigation report also frankly stated that unless a large number of patrol personnel were arranged, given the character of some lower-class people in the United States, they would definitely find ways to steal some auxiliary equipment from the pipeline to exchange for money.
Even worse, they might not want money at all, but just want the pipeline to fail, to disgust you capitalists, etc. In any case, the danger was very high.
The elevated scheme could relatively easily avoid these problems. With the pipeline suspended in the air, ordinary people could not get close to it. Furthermore, only the area for the elevated bridge would need to be demolished, and the demolition costs could be significantly saved.
The disadvantage was that the elevated structure itself was a huge cost, and the actual construction cost per kilometer would increase to more than 50 million US dollars.
Considering all aspects, the grounded scheme was still cheaper.
The report also listed many other expenses, which will not be elaborated here. In the end, this report gave a forecast of 1.8 trillion US dollars, and cautiously noted that this figure was only a forecast based on various data and did not represent the actual dollar amount required during the construction process.
After estimating the cost of building the railway, the plan then began to estimate the railway's profitability.
Without considering the operating costs after the railway is built, if the 1.8 trillion US dollars investment were to be recouped through 30 years of revenue, it would require an average pure profit of 60 billion US dollars per year.
According to current data, the total number of passengers traveling between the two places by train, plane, and car in a year is about 7.2 million.
These 7.2 million people need to provide a profit of 60 billion US dollars annually, which means the profit per ticket must be over 800 US dollars. If operating costs are also considered, the actual ticket price would likely exceed 1400 US dollars.
The investigation report itself did not state how outrageous this price was; it only listed the prices for traveling between New York and California by plane.
For ordinary airlines, the price of a regular passenger ticket is 600 US dollars, first class is 2000 US dollars, and business class is around 4000 US dollars.
And if there are discounts from budget airlines, the price of a ticket could drop to below 300 US dollars.
Comparing these two prices, it is clear that if the ticket price for the vacuum high-speed train were indeed set at 1400 US dollars, then only passengers who could afford first class and business class would have the financial means to travel by vacuum high-speed train.
However, the total number of passengers traveling between the two cities by business class in a year does not exceed 300,000. If the vacuum high-speed rail train only has 300,000 passengers per year, then the consideration would not be how much profit to make, but how much loss to incur.
Finally, the report also thoughtfully provided a solution, which suggested setting the ticket price at 600 US dollars per ticket, which is roughly the same as the price of an airplane ticket.
In this way, it would be almost impossible to recoup the investment within 30 years, but there would be a high possibility of achieving profitability after 60 years. As for whether there would be problems with pipeline damage requiring replacement after 60 years, this report did not mention it at all.
After reading this report, Professor Parkinson sighed and said, "Old Cooper, your work ability is still very good! This report is much more accurate than the one I hastily had people investigate. Why didn't you give it to me earlier!"
"If I had given it to you, it would have remained on my personal desk. Wouldn't you have been the first thing you did after moving into your office was to have my desk thrown out without even looking at it?" Dr. Cooper retorted calmly. Professor Parkinson's expression immediately became strange.
"Do you think that by deliberately leaving this project to me, I will definitely fall for it, eagerly push this project to make money, and then find that I've lost a fortune, thus being able to bring me down again?" Professor Parkinson suddenly asked with a slightly ferocious expression.
"Isn't that the case? Aren't you already promoting this plan?" Dr. Cooper said calmly.
"Yes, that's right, I am indeed promoting this plan, but what I want to tell you is that I haven't fallen for your trick at all. On the contrary, I should really thank you for leaving this project to me. Otherwise, how could I have such a good opportunity!" Professor Parkinson suddenly started to smile again and then threw a report to Dr. Cooper, saying, "Didn't I just say that? I also had people investigate, but it was a bit rushed, not as detailed, accurate, and a bit stingy as yours!"
Dr. Cooper frowned, then picked up the report Professor Parkinson gave him. He didn't look at anything else but directly went to the last page of the report, which contained the final investigation and statistical results.
It clearly stated that the estimated construction cost was 3.9 trillion US dollars, which was more than double the construction cost in Dr. Cooper's investigation results.