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By Amira El Masaiti
Rabat – A futuristic rail project promising to link Madrid and Tangier in under an hour has reached the semi-final of a global competition.
The Tangier-Madrid “Hyperloop” is being developed by a Spanish enterprise participating of the Hyperloop One Global Challenge. The competition has so far seen 2,600 entries by 35 teams from all over the world.
A Hyperloop is a “capsule” train in which passengers are half-lying down and which is capable of covering distances at the same speed as an aircraft.
The collaborative research project to develop the high-speed train was first launched by South African engineer Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla.
According to the organizers of the competition, the high-speed bullet-train would travel at 1,200 kilometers per hour, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar through a submarine floating tunnel.
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Independiente, project manager Luis Gonzalez Lorenzo said that this new means of transportation would ensure “a stable link” between Africa and Europe.
“We must imagine Africa in 50 years, it is the continent of the future,” explained Lorenz. He added that Tangiers was not chosen arbitrarily. “It is a center of trade and development […] The city is the gateway to Africa, and then the project could be extended to Nigeria or other areas.”
Whether the Madrid-Tangiers inter-continental Hyperloop will make it to the finals will not be known until May this year.
