Elon Musk's vision of a Hyperloop transport system that carries passengers in pressurized tubes at near-supersonic speeds is set to be demonstrated in a public test later today.

The Paypal founder and boss of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, outlined his futuristic idea in 2013 as a way of carrying passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under 35 minutes.

He challenged innovators to bring the dream to life and Hyperloop Technologies, one of the startups that picked up the gauntlet, is hosting a 'sneak preview of the future of transportation technology'.

It will be showcased in a two-day event billed as involving a demonstration at a test site outside Las Vegas.

The first demonstration of Elon Musk's Hyperloop technology is to be tested at a site outside of Las Vegas during a two day event by one of two competing LA-based companies attempting to create the 'transport of the future'. A Tesla Motors concept drawing of the Hyperloop is pictured

A series of tweets fired from the Twitter account @HyperloopTech teased 'big announcements you don't want to miss' and included a video snippet of construction in the desert.

A caption in the video clip heralded a 'milestone event' that would be live-tweeted from Las Vegas beginning at Tuesday 5pm PDT (Wednesday 1am BST).

Late last year, Hyperloop chief executive Rob Lloyd said in an online post that the team was working toward a 'Kitty Hawk' moment in 2016.

The post came with word of an agreement to use an industrial park in the city of North Las Vegas to conduct a Propulsion Open Air Test of the blazingly-fast rail system.

Lloyd described it at the time as a very important step on the way to realizing the full potential of Hyperloop Tech.

'Our "Kitty Hawk" moment refers to our first full system, full scale, full speed test,' Lloyd said.

'This will be over two miles of tube with a controlled environment and inside that tube we will levitate a pod and accelerate it to over 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) per hour.'

He indicated in the post that a full-scale test might not take place until late this year.

Hyperloop did not reveal what components of the system would be shown in a demonstration slated to take place Wednesday at the test site.

The Hyperloop project went live in 2013 on crowdfunding platform JumpStart Fund, which marries crowdsourcing expertise with crowdfunding.

That year, Musk unveiled a design for a super-fast transport system dubbed 'Hyperloop' that could carry passengers in low-pressure tubes at near-supersonic speeds.

The project could connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in 35 minutes in a low-cost alternative to a high-speed rail network planned for California.