MOOREFIELD – Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College welcomed Virgin Hyperloop for a campus visit on Thursday, November 19th. Two members of the Project Development team working on the Virgin Hyperloop Certification Center project set to be developed in West Virginia, Kristen Hammer and Kelsey Kirby, met with Eastern’s leadership team.
In October, Virgin announced it will locate a certification facility on nearly
800 acres of land, spanning Tucker and Grant counties, where it will leverage intellectual capital and resources from West Virginia University, Marshall University, and from across the state of West Virginia. The West Virginia Community and Technical College System, which Eastern is a part of, will also play a key role in this project by helping to create education and job training programs. Eastern’s service district consists of six counties in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia, including Tucker County.
“We are looking forward to working with Virgin and all of the West Virginia partners associated with this exciting project,” said Dr. Charles Terrell, President at Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College. “Eastern’s Board of Governors heard an exciting presentation at the virtual November 18th meeting about Virgin’s Hyperloop Certification Center. The meeting was followed the next day by an on-campus visit with Virgin Hyperloop and President’s Cabinet.”
Hyperloop aims to achieve safety certification by 2025, with commercial operations beginning in 2030.
Virgin Hyperloop is the only company in the world that has successfully tested hyperloop technology at scale, launching the first new mode of mass transportation in over 100 years. The company successfully operated a full scale hyperloop vehicle using electric propulsion and electromagnetic levitation under near vacuum conditions, realizing a fundamentally new form of transportation that is faster, safer, cheaper, and more sustainable than existing modes.
The company is now working with governments, partners, and investors around the world to make hyperloop a reality in years, not decades. Learn more about Virgin Hyperloop’s technology, vision, and ongoing projects here. According to Virgin, the certification center will pave the way for certifying hyperloop transportation systems across the US, moving people and cargo at a rate of 670 MPH.
