Elon Musk’s vision for a 700mph train is a step closer to becoming reality after Hyperloop One announced the completion of its first test track.
Engineers put the finishing touches to the 500m long Devloop in Nevada this week, paving the way for trials to begin in the next few months.
The news came as the firm announced 11 proposed routes in the US, which could dramatically reduce the time it takes to travel across the country.
The longest would shuttle passengers from Cheyenne to Houston, an 1152 mile route that takes more than four and a half hours by plane and 17 hours by car.
It would be slashed to just 1 hour 45 minutes in a Hyerloop pod, which would levitate at near-supersonic speeds through a low-pressure tube.
The vision for the train was conceived and open sourced by Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in 2013.
Two firms, Hyperloop One and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT), have since taken up the challenge to bring the vision to life.
In March, HTT unveiled the first prototype passenger capsule for the Hyperloop, a 30 metre long pod that can carry up to 40 people.
Capsules could depart from stations every 40 seconds, according to HTT, providing enough journeys to shuttle more than 160,000 passengers a day.
The most promising proposed routes link Bratislava to Vienna and Budapest in central Europe, Dubai to Abu Dhabi in the UAE, and Mumbai to Nagpur in India.