NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) —  It’s called Hyperloop.  It’s a fast train, a really fast train.  And you won’t find one operating anywhere.  But plenty of people want to change that, including one man from New Orleans.

How does a Hyperloop train work?  Imagine you’re inside one of those containers at the bank drive through that zips inside the tube from the teller window to your car.  Others describe it as a train that rides like a giant air hockey puck.

“I like to think of it as a spit ball in a straw,” said Josh Manriquez, the founder of  Leontos, llc.  “There’s only so fast it can go.  But if someway, somehow, you get a tiny fan in front of that spit ball, suck up that air pressure, there’s really no limit how fast it can go.”

Manriquez is working to bring a Hyperloop train to New Orleans.  He says it can travel at 700 mph to Baton Rouge in 9 minutes, Houston in 35, and he’s hoping to lead an effort that would build a giant loop continuing on to Dallas, Alabama, Atlanta, and back to New Orleans.

He says a mix of state, federal, and private funding could make it happen.  But he also knows it could be decades before all the investors and engineering are ready to go.

Manriquez is also hoping, should his project go well, to build a test track for a Hyperloop in Washington Parish.

Manriquez brought his project to a crowd at the Zeitgeist Arts Center on Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. on Monday.  His presentation was one of the opening events for NOLA Tech Week, which runs through Saturday.  For a complete schedule of events, visit nolatechweek.org.