I went to Las Vegas recently to view the first test of Hyperloop. As someone who experiences aging infrastructure daily and desires something better, I was ready to be convinced of the feasibility and future of this idea, which has become one of the purest expressions of techno-optimism.

First, a little background. In 2013, Elon Musk, he of Tesla and space exploration fame, floated a 58-page outline presenting Hyperloop as an alternative to California’s high-speed rail (though in fact the idea has existed since the 1800s — Google it). A smart but busy man, Mr. Musk announced that he wanted to make Hyperloop a sort of open-source Manhattan Project for high-speed transportation, since he didn’t have the time to pursue it himself.

Several separate entities have since been formed to explore the possibilities. The event I attended was presented by Hyperloop Technologies, a group inspired by but not affiliated with Mr. Musk (though riding on his name recognition and involving several of his former employees). Hyperloop Technologies and its competitors are working to develop a structure to move passengers and cargo between two points safely, efficiently and sustainably. And quickly: Mr. Musk’s initial dream was to propel passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in about a half an hour (Amtrak takes 12 hours; flight time is an hour).

Hyperloop Technologies, which announced its name change to Hyperloop One with much fanfare in Las Vegas, is a well-funded operation with over 100 employees. It’s gaining new investors (such as Vinod Khosla, a founder of Sun Microsystems; Sherpa Ventures; and SNCF, the French train company) and new partners (including the engineering firms Aecom and ARUP, as well as the starchitect Bjarke Ingels) almost as fast as the model on view at its press event.

Approximately 200 investors, polo-shirted employees and reporters piled onto buses to converge on a site that looked eerily like a desert scene from “Breaking Bad.” We’d been brought here to watch a test vehicle accelerate down a rail track at speeds of up to 300 m.p.h. using the company’s propulsion technology. The dream is that capsules will hurl through a tube at 700 miles per hour on a cushion of air. That, however, was not what we witnessed.