"The Line" - Saudi Arabia plans 100 mile long indoor megacity. [Neom]

[teuchter]

Right, so I’ve been thinking about this whilst sat on the loo, and have come up with some back of the envelope numbers (yes, I have envelopes ready at hand next to the bog roll).

So it’s 110 miles long with one ‘high speed’ rail, and a target population of 9 million.

Let’s say there’s a stop every mile, and that the average commuter goes 10 stops to work, and that 40% of the population are working full time (because it’s Saudi and at least 50% aren’t allowed, and 10% of them are so rich they don’t have to)

According to my calculations (and I’m no mathmologist) there will be an average of 32,727 people waiting at each stop every morning. And the train itself will have 327,272 on it at any given rush hour.

Seems legit.

You need to show your workings

 

[urbanspaceman]

It’s going to be a nightmare catching the train from one end to the other with all those stops in between

Neom claims an end-to-end transit time of 20 minutes, suggesting an express line with a non-stop average speed of 510 km/h (320 mph). Actually, the cruising speed must be rather higher, since it takes a significant period of time to accelerate and decelerate to and from cruising speed. For reference, the newest Shikansens can accelerate to their cruising speed of 170 mph in 3 minutes.

A back-of-the-envelope XLS indicated that the train's cruising speed will be about 800-900 km/h. This in turn suggests that some as yet unrealised maglev/hyperloop technology will be required. And of course this just serves the two terminii, which is itself of limited usefulness

For a stopping/commuter train station, the maximum walking radius is generally accepted to be about 400m. So a 170km long city would require about 213 stations. Assuming the typical Victoria Line cadence of 2 minutes per stop, this results in a 7 hour end-to-end trip for stopping trains. So no doubt some version of the NY subway express/local system would be introduced to cater for intermediate length journeys.

The 400m radius catchment circle for a commuter train station covers 500,000 square meters. But since Neom is only 200m wide, two large segments (about 70%) of that circle are wasted, since they lie outside the walls of the city (ie the narrow linear structure is inherently inefficient). Furthermore, the population density of Neom is an astonishing 260,000 people per square kilometer, which is 22 times that of Lambeth (12,000) and 10 times that of Mumbai, the most crowded city in the world. And there will be no buses or cars, only rail. So this suggests that multiple railway lines, of huge capacity and rapid frequency, will be needed.

It's instructive to note that 30 mins of tinkering around, doing some desktop calculations, show just how drokking implausible Neom is. Neom's total land area is 34 square kilometres, the same as a circle only 7km in diameter, an arcology which would obviously be easier/quicker to build and travel around.

So it seems that Neom is effectively an unrolled version of Peachtrees from Megacity One, unrolled to no apparent advantage.

 

[8ball]

Neom claims an end-to-end transit time of 20 minutes, suggesting an express line with a non-stop average speed of 510 km/h (320 mph). Actually, the cruising speed must be rather higher, since it takes a significant period of time to accelerate and decelerate to and from cruising speed. For reference, the newest Shikansens can accelerate to their cruising speed of 170 mph in 3 minutes.

Hence the vaccuum tube - easy solve there. Something something seals, I hear you say - we'll sort that later.

A back-of-the-envelope XLS indicated that the train's cruising speed will be about 800-900 km/h. This in turn suggests that some as yet unrealised maglev/hyperloop technology will be required. And of course this just serves the two terminii, which is itself of limited usefulness

So multiple lines, stopping at different denominations of distances.

For a stopping/commuter train station, the maximum walking radius is generally accepted to be about 400m.

Electric scooters will extend that.

So a 170km long city would require about 213 stations. Assuming the typical Victoria Line cadence of 2 minutes per stop, this results in a 7 hour end-to-end trip for stopping trains. So no doubt some version of the NY subway express/local system would be introduced to cater for intermediate length journeys.

Victorian Line is the past. This is the future.

The 400m radius catchment circle for a commuter train station covers 500,000 square meters. But since Neom is only 200m wide, two large segments (about 70%) of that circle are wasted, since they lie outside the walls of the city (ie the narrow linear structure is inherently inefficient).

Already dealt with.

Furthermore, the population density of Neom is an astonishing 260,000 people per square kilometer, which is 22 times that of Lambeth (12,000) and 10 times that of Mumbai, the most crowded city in the world.

Yes, but this is a super multi-decker city. So you that's many, many times the footprint in terms of living space.

And there will be no buses or cars, only rail.

And electric scooters.

So this suggests that multiple railway lines, of huge capacity and rapid frequency, will be needed.

...as I said...

It's instructive to note that 30 mins of tinkering around, doing some desktop calculations, show just how drokking implausible Neom is. Neom's total land area is 34 square kilometres, the same as a circle only 7km in diameter, an arcology which would obviously be easier/quicker to build and travel around.

It's called THE LINE. Not the circle. You can't call a circle a line. Bloody hell.

So it seems that Neom is effectively an unrolled version of Peachtrees from Megacity One, unrolled to no apparent advantage.

It's not a comic book.

It's the FUTURE!!

 

[WouldBe]

It's called THE LINE. Not the circle. You can't call a circle a line. Bloody hell.

You can on the London underground.

 

[8ball]

You can on the London underground.

Can't mix logic and Londoners.

 

[ItStillWontWork]

You need to show your workings

40% of 9 million residents is 3.6 million wanting to catch a train on any given morning.

3.6 million people divided by 110 stops is 32,727 per stop.

Each person stays on the train for an average of 10 stops, so multiply the 32,727 by 10 to get the number of people on the train after 10 stops, which gives 327,272 on the train at peak.

 

[ItStillWontWork]

I think the idea is people live very close to their work.

Surely people have to go where the work is though. Unless the idea is that everyone will work in a Greggs or be a paperboy. Which actually sounds pretty cool

 

[8ball]

Surely people have to go where the work is though. Unless the idea is that everyone will work in a Greggs or be a paperboy. Which actually sounds pretty cool

I don’t see why there would be many jobs that you couldn’t find nearby. You’d need medical facilities every so often, similar for schools, most kinds of retail outlet etc.

I mean it will never get built anyway, but minimising repeated linear journeys (work and back, school and back, medical treatment and back, recreation hub and back etc.) doesn’t seem like the hardest part.
You wouldn’t necessarily need to have things spaced out linearly either. Home district, schools district and work district could be on different floors right on top of each other, for example.

 

[ItStillWontWork]

I don’t see why there would be many jobs that you couldn’t find nearby. You’d need medical facilities every so often, similar for schools, most kinds of retail outlet etc.

I mean it will never get built anyway, but minimising repeated linear journeys (work and back, school and back, medical treatment and back, recreation hub and back etc.) doesn’t seem like the hardest part.
You wouldn’t necessarily need to have things spaced out linearly either. Home district, schools district and work district could be on different floors right on top of each other, for example.

Well let’s say that’s the case, and most people stay within their allotted district, with only 20% of people using the train, traveling just one stop. That’s still 6545 on the train at any given point

 

[ItStillWontWork]

And that’s just getting on the train. There’s also the 6545 getting off. It’ll be havoc, I tells ye

 

[8ball]

Well let’s say that’s the case, and most people stay within their allotted district, with only 20% of people using the train, traveling just one stop. That’s still 6545 on the train at any given point

It’s a fair point, that’s easily going to be almost double the density of bodies you get on the Tube at rush hour.

 

[ItStillWontWork]

Btw, this is what midjourney AI image generator predicts the Line will look like in 50 years!

 

[pogofish]

I'm not clear on the point you're making. While I don't really expect that the "Mirror Line" will ever be completed, it does represent the bulk of Neom's US$1T budget and will accommodate most of Neom's 9M inhabitants by 2045. Other, smaller projects do indeed form part of Neom, but would you agree that the "Mirror Line" is a particularly vulnerable target ?

I'm not yet convinced that The Line isn't just the shiny hook to dangle in front of people/investors to get them into one or other of the more traditional "communities" and established towns that are being developed/redeveloped as part of the wider project. Many are also sited much closer to the industrial/trade-related parts of the project as well.

Whoever is going into The Line do not look to me like the real workers here - maybe business/service/office or homworking folk but the hard grafters will be living nearer the workplaces.

I also thought I remember reading that about half of Neom's budget had already been assigned to other projects, before The Line was announced. Mainly Far-Eastern investment IIRC?

 

[pogofish]

It's called THE LINE. Not the circle. You can't call a circle a line. Bloody hell.

However, one of the other aspects of the Neom Project is "The Oxagon" - a fair sized octagonal "city", which appears to be a large port, with half of it on a floating/artificial island in the Gulf, which would probably let them handle transhipping of some of the more problematic cargos under Saudi/Neom law?

Transhipping is already an established and major form of income for other states in that area and Dubai/Bahrain have already pioneered the use of artificial islands as a way round Sharia Law, Although Neom has eventually been promised a more western-friendly legal system compared to the rest of Saudi.

 

[Indeliblelink]

The wiki page has a satellite photo of the whole length of it, taken this month. The resolution is too low to see much but there's certainly something going on along long sections of it, even if it's just pushing sand about.

File:Line Progress October 2022.png - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[mx wcfc]

However, one of the other aspects of the Neom Project is "The Oxagon" - a fair sized octagonal "city", which appears to be a large port, with half of it on a floating/artificial island in the Gulf, which would probably let them handle transhipping of some of the more problematic cargos under Saudi/Neom law?

Transhipping is already an established and major form of income for other states in that area and Dubai/Bahrain have already pioneered the use of artificial islands as a way round Sharia Law, Although Neom has eventually been promised a more western-friendly legal system compared to the rest of Saudi.

Sounds like the architect was a Halo Jones fan, Book One at least

The Ballad of Halo Jones - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Whoever came up with the idea of a long straight "megacity", clearly never read Judge Dredd though.

 

[8ball]

However, one of the other aspects of the Neom Project is "The Oxagon" - a fair sized octagonal "city", which appears to be a large port, with half of it on a floating/artificial island in the Gulf, which would probably let them handle transhipping of some of the more problematic cargos under Saudi/Neom law?

Transhipping is already an established and major form of income for other states in that area and Dubai/Bahrain have already pioneered the use of artificial islands as a way round Sharia Law, Although Neom has eventually been promised a more western-friendly legal system compared to the rest of Saudi.

Religion really is hilarious.

 

[NoXion]

So would this be the first ever city in which a railed transportation system experiences a traffic jam? If someone gets trapped in the doors at one station or one of the trains breaks down, wouldn't that hold up the entire line?

 

[teuchter]

You can on the London underground.

The circle line is not actually a circle now though.

 

[8ball]

So would this be the first ever city in which a railed transportation system experiences a traffic jam? If someone gets trapped in the doors at one station or one of the trains breaks down, wouldn't that hold up the entire line?

Doesn’t that happen all the time?

 

[teuchter]

Doesn’t that happen all the time?

No, this is a novel issue, never before faced by humankind.

 

[NoXion]

Doesn’t that happen all the time?

What? To the whole network? I didn't think so. But when the "network" is one big straight line, I would think that might introduce some novel logistical issues.

 

[WouldBe]

The circle line is not actually a circle now though.

It's still called the circle line though.

 

[teuchter]

It's still called the circle line though.

The Victoria line is called the Victoria line but it's not actually a Victoria, is it?

 

[WouldBe]

However, one of the other aspects of the Neom Project is "The Oxagon" - a fair sized octagonal "city",

Shouldn't it be Ox shaped?

 

[Yossarian]

Tank fly boss walk jam nitty-gritty, they're never going to finish this stupid line city.

 

[teuchter]

What? To the whole network? I didn't think so. But when the "network" is one big straight line, I would think that might introduce some novel logistical issues.

I expect that those saying this is never actually going to get built might be right, but if it does, my guess is that they will not be stupid enough simply to build one pair of tracks with no ability to switch between them.

This is all being discussed as if there are any actual details to discuss, but as far as I'm aware, there aren't.

 

[WouldBe]

I expect that those saying this is never actually going to get built might be right, but if it does, my guess is that they will not be stupid enough simply to build one pair of tracks with no ability to switch between them.

This is all being discussed as if there are any actual details to discuss, but as far as I'm aware, there aren't.

There would have to be 2 sets of tracks anyway or all the trains would end up stuck at one end of the line.

 

[iona]

With all the uninhabitable desert outside this is basically going to be like living on one of the stations in The Expanse minus the oxygen rationing, isn't it

 

[mx wcfc]

The circle line is not actually a circle now though.

Off topic, but a few years ago, after the Circle Line became the "Not a Circle Line" I was on the Not Actually a Circle Line when some French tourists on the seats opposite me said "Regardez! Le Ligne Circle n'est pas un Circle!" They found it hilarious. I found it fucking embarrassing, frankly.