Interstate Traveler Company is a Whitmore Lake based organization founded by Justin Eric Sutton with a concept for hydrogen powered, magnetic levitated rail transportation.
In the news
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GM Willow Run plant proposal: $919M Detroit Aerotropolis 'super hydrogen' rail system, AnnArbor.com, April 25, 2013
A proposal to create a $919 million Detroit Aerotropolis 60-mile rail system that would connect the Willow Run Airport to the Detroit Metro Airport is in the works, according to Justin Sutton, founder and managing partner of The Interstate Traveler Company.
Sutton said all of the manufacturing for the rail system, including production of the rail cars, would be done on site at GM’s former 5-million-square-foot Willow Run Powertrain Plant facility in Ypsilanti Township. Sutton estimates that about $100 million will be spent on production equipment alone for the facility.
- Transit company founder sure he's on right track, Christopher Behnan for Livingston Daily, January 17, 2011
One vocal critic of Sutton's MagLev plan is Kevin Coates, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based North American MagLev Transport Institute. Coates said Sutton is selling an untested concept, and asking for financial and state officials' support without a visual product.
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Hearings Today on Hydrogen-Solar-Maglev Supertrain for Michigan, The Transport Politic, June 15 2009
The Interstate Traveler Company has done little more than provide a series of graphics to support its claim that it knows how to create a true high-speed rail system. Its founder, Justin Sutton, has no experience with the rail industry, but he’s won a prize from the American Computer Science Association. That organization is currently promoting the idea that Bill and Hillary Clinton are supporting terrorism and which refers to the President as “Mr. O’Bamma.” Nonetheless, Tim Hoeffner, administrator of high-speed rail for the Michigan DOT,thinks Mr. Sutton’s project is worth examining.
- Whitmore Lake company's Mag-Lev train concept: Mass transit solution or idea that won't get off the ground?, Tina Reed for the Ann Arbor News, May 2009
Carmine Palombo, director of transportation planning from the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, said his staff has researched the project. It looks good on paper, but there's no evidence it would work or earn back its substantial startup costs when the state isn't taking advantage of some of its current conventional means of transportation, Palombo said.
What does Justin Sutton know about building maglev HSR systems that the Japanese, Germans, & Chinese don't know? If the Germans were 35 years from concept to operating production of their maglev HSR in China (17 years if you count from completion of prototype test facility) & the Japanese expect to be 56 years from concept to commercialized implementation or 18 years from announced commercialization, with all the experience & engineering they have, how is Justin Sutton going to do it in 3 years with no experience, no money or guarantee of money, no engineers on his staff, no prototype, no modern marketing image campaign, no contracts for rights of way, & only a concept that looks like a sci-fi cartoon?
