We were told to arrive at the Palazzo Hotel at 8:45 AM to check-in for the event. From here they loaded all of us journalists onto buses to make the trek to Hyperloop One’s test site.
The test site is located at the Mountain View Industrial Park in Apex Industrial Park
in North Las Vegas. It’s about a 35 minute drive from the Las Vegas Strip and there’s not much along the way except desert.
The only other facility we spotted nearby was the Apex Solar Complex.
The first thing we noticed when pulling up to the site were the giant tubes that lined the property.
Once we were off the bus, we were taken to a viewing area that had been set up several hundred feet away from the track.
The track is about a half-mile long and was built on raised ground. So even though we were pretty far back from the track, we could still see it pretty well.
By the time the presentation was about to begin, it was standing room only. Journalists, investors, and guests invited by the company all gathered onto the stands looking for a good spot.
At about 10:45 AM, co-founder Shervin Pishevar kicked off the event with opening remarks.
Brogan BamBrogan, Hyperloop One’s CTO, followed Pishevar with a breakdown of how the propulsion system works. He then initiated the 10-second countdown for the test to begin. No one really knew what to expect, but everyone was still on the edge of their seat.
When the control room reached the number one the sled took off down the track. Media weren't allowed to live stream the event, but we did manage to catch some footage with our cameras and with our iPhones.
After the demo, a sled recovery vehicle pulled the sled back to the other end of the track.
Afterwards we had a chance to walk around the site to check out the tubes and technology up close.
Here you can see some of the steel tubes are set up on pylons. This is just a display area, but it's pretty close to what a production set-up would actually look like.
There were several steel tubes set up around the property that were used for display so that we could get close and even climb up inside. But most of the tubes were kept behind a barbed wired fence. The tubes behind the fence will be used for the company's next test track.
After checking out the tubes, we headed over to the end of the test track where the engineering space was located. This area is pretty well-guarded.
I tried to get closer to the track from the front, but a body guard made sure we stayed in the designated area.
However, the engineers did open up part of their workspace to us so that we could see where all of the magic happens.
We also had a chance to get a closer look at the sled that was used for test.
But by about 12:30 pm, we were herded back onto buses and headed back to the hotel.
