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The Shanghai Maglev was built by a German company called Transrapid International which is a joint venture of ThyssenKrupp and Siemens. If they don't "JUST LIKE GERMANY's", I will be amazed.

The magnetic fields on board the Transrapid seem to be negligible, if you're trusting the manufacturer

Transrapid. History of Transrapid development

Transrapid. History of Transrapid development

You were right until you started thinking you knew the Chinese. The current only maglev implementation between Shanghai and Pudong airport was made by German company. The Chinese are also looking at using French TGVs and Japanease bullet trains for inter city connects.

Maybe the reason you think China is too socialist to use outside companies is that they absolutely will not buy American? I'm sure they're very impressed with Amtrak :-)

Didn't stop these guys.

Here's a real link

There are some videos on the German Transrapid project here:

http://www.transrapid.de/de/medien/video.html

They're mostly commercials, but you can get an idea of how it sounds like (try the "Test Facility Emsland" video).

Umm, no it isn't. A German company has already built a maglev route in Shanghai. BTW, the things you see in animes are not real. The Japanese don't really have battle robots and stuff like that.

and found I'd better clear things up a bit.
My point was that in Germany we have had a recent tendency to rush things. There are numoerous examples, the launch of the UMTS-Network debacle (highspeed mobile network), the Transrapid (a magnetic monorail) fiasco in China and, worst of all, the tollcollect (a sattelite based system to charge on traffic) desaster. All of these projects were ambitious and technically challenging and all of them have a long history of failure and mismanagement. I really love this city and I appreciate the brave decision of the city council to try the switch. But I have this fear that they will blow it and Munich will not be known as the "Linux-Capitol" but rather as the "bad example". Keep your fingers crossed that I am wrong!!

btw: here's a link to the english page of muenchen.de.

Good night.
Lispy

It works just like a "normal" electric motor (that turns into a alternator on breaking). Check the Transrapid Hompage and click on "Technology" (stupid "clever" link auto-redirects to homepage), or this site. The flywheel is the moving train, just that the momentum of inertia is linear instead of angular.

It works just like a "normal" electric motor (that turns into a alternator on breaking). Check the Transrapid Hompage and click on "Technology" (stupid "clever" link auto-redirects to homepage), or this site. The flywheel is the moving train, just that the momentum of inertia is linear instead of angular.

that maglev trains do not use wheels and tracks?

I don't really understand what your intentions are with that post, but at least it's partly wrong. Maglev trains do need tracks, they simply don't have what you'd normally call rails, hence literally there also can't be derailing. Physically, derailing a maglev train probably requires destroying the track or the train (before derailing) or doing both at the same time by having two trains colliding.

If you want some information on the transrapid project (the one used in Shanghai), you can start here or here. The third page is the home page of the German test facility for the transrapid trains. It's unfortuantely in german only, but it has some pictures that don't need translation...

Actually its more a German train on Chinese concrete. Of course everyone expects that in a few years the Chinese will have learned enough to build everything on their own. And sell all the components half price for the connection from Munich city to airport which will be under planning for years to come.

the cause for all the pages the other guys find being out of date is that searching for a chinese company building the maglev won't get you anywhere. It's a german company who invented and built it. the page is at www.transrapid.de

I've been fascinated with Maglev technology since I was a kid, though I admit I haven't followed it closely lately - I didn't know a functioning passenger transrapid had been built in China.

Anyway, I have long been extremely annoyed that Transrapid's maglev technology has been the one to catch on the fastest, because as I see it, it has some major drawbacks relative to other maglev designs.

The primary problem is that the transrapid system uses magnetic levitation in attraction mode -- meaning you're not floating mutually repelling magnets, you're wrapping a part of the train under the track and using magnetic attraction to pull it upward.

There are some huge basic problems with this strategy. To start with, magnetic attraction is dynamically unstable - the closer you get, the harder it pulls, until you stick to the track. Transrapid deals with this by detecting the gap and constantly adjusting the current to the electromagnets with a fast computer. Magnetic repulsion, on the other hand, is dynamically stable: float a magnet over the other one and it will simply sit there, so fast computer needed. The Japanese design functions this way: the train sits in a U-shaped track, repelled on three sides.

There are some other serious advantages of repulsion-mode maglev:

• repulsion-mode trains maintain a gap of several inches between train and track, transrapid maintains a gap of about a centimeter. This means small bumps and flexes in the track (due to tides, thermal expansion, inexact design) get smoothed out much better by a repulsion-mode maglev. Consequently you don't have to build the track to such exacting specifications, making it much cheaper.
• in attraction-mode trains, the track has to be powered to activate electromagnets along the entire length. In repulsion mode, coils embedded in the track are induced by the moving magnetic field of the train: totally passive track, no power required. A repulsion-mode maglev doesn't need to worry about power outages, and the track is cheaper to build and maintain.

The major downside of the repulsion design is that it requires superconducting electromagnets on the train, and they're very expensive (for now) and can cause interference problems if not properly shielded, as someone noted above. But I see that as a technological problem that will be solved eventually and it would be better to work on that now than to saddle ourselves with a standard that has the fundamental problems of attraction-mode maglev design. Sixty years down the road when superconducting magnets are cheap, we might really regret that.

There's another minor downside to repulsion maglev as well- it only levitates when the train is going fast enough to induce currents in the track, so the train has to settle onto wheels as it rolls into the station. (or have supplementary electromagnets in the station).

Both the Japanese and transrapid designs have one other problem: the tracks have to pre-define the angle of the train as it rounds corners (the japanese track is a square "u"). You determine the speed beforehand and angle the track so that the force vector on the passengers is "down" with respect to their butts. This means you can't change the speed of the train later without making it ride like a roller coaster, so no faster trains down the line, and no adjusting speed for current conditions. And it means you have to manufacture very carefully-designed track segments at precise and constantly-changing curvatures. You either have standard track segments and limit the curves you can build, or build a lot of custom track segments. This gets expensive.

IIRC, there was a design done by a team in the US two decades or so ago that used a curved U-shaped track in repulsion mode that had the benefits of the japanese de

May I please augment the excellent writeup ...

http://www.transrapid.de/en/index.html

I was on "the world's first maglev train with longstator propulsion (Transrapid 05) licensed for passenger transportation" (pic) at the International Transportation Exhibition (IVA 79) which had its track just round the corner :)

This is another example how Germans are able to screw up inventions (I am German) - another example is fax-machines.

CC.

May I please augment the excellent writeup ...

http://www.transrapid.de/en/index.html

I was on "the world's first maglev train with longstator propulsion (Transrapid 05) licensed for passenger transportation" (pic) at the International Transportation Exhibition (IVA 79) which had its track just round the corner :)

This is another example how Germans are able to screw up inventions (I am German) - another example is fax-machines.

CC.

I would like to add two interesting links pulled from other posts:

Birmingham International Airport in Britian used to have a MagLev running from '84-'95. It was shut down due to high maintenance cost and replaced with a cable-drawn rail system.

The Shanghai Transrapid looks at first blush like a running passenger service, but look closer and it is a "Test Facility" that gives guided tours and "Demonstration Rides".

There can be no doubt about the technical capabiltiy to build these things, but the practical viability has yet to be seen.

... is in Shanghai, but it's German. It's called the Transrapid [transrapid.de], and was developed in Germany. It was initially to connect Berlin and Hamburg, but that was not built for lack of funding. I haven't followed it lately, but it looks like they are building something in conjunction with the Munich airport presently. If you click the link above, click on the "Chronology" link on that page to get a history.

German engineering is the best in the world!

What about the Chinese Transrapid maglev (built by a German company) now running on a 30km track between downtown Shanghai and its airport.

FYI... The one used in Shanghai, China is the German made Transrapid.

Well...although it doesn't go that fast, there was an item in Popular Science about a similar train by the Chinese called the Shanghai Transrapid.

However, we wouldn't see real trains for a while now since the cost is prohibitively expensive at this time. However, they expect that the cost would come down over the next 20 years.

However, we wouldn't see real trains for a while now since the cost is prohibitively expensive at this time. However, they expect that the cost would come down over the next 20 years.

*grmbl*
Transrapid test track switch system

Check http://www.transrapid.de/en/index.html

This is so wrong.

SWITCHES?

Nothing deployed? The Germans and chinese will be very upset that they do not exist
Then the mention of lack of land, all the while ignoring that the train is elevated.
Earthquakes? well, since the train is elevated, the supports are designed to handle earthquakes. It is LRT and Heavy Rail that has problems due to the fact that they are heavily anchored to the earth through every inch of the rail. This allows for the rail to be moved from underneath the train while it is moving.
BTW, In japan, the monorails have had NO problems with earthquakes/Typhons, etc, while LRT has to be stopped and adjusted after each item.
Cusion of air for aerodynamics???? It is a "MAGLEV"; it is supported by magnetic force, not aerodynamics.
As to evironmental impact, give me a break. The amount of force is FAR less than an MRI.

I find it interesting that so many ppl wish to stop others from coming here (the states), rather than expanding business. So the real question should be "how do you expand?".
Personally, I suggest that that it is during times of seeking new ideas that we expand, not when businesses are simply trying to hold on to dieing markets or expand into somebody elses markets.
What inovation that we have is being re-directed towards the military. While that is good to have some there, we also need a lot in the civilian sector.
BTW, some ideas.
Low power devices geared for the home. Linux would make it cheap as well as secure
High speed maglev that carries cargo/passenger @150-300MPH across the country. If we start a real program, new ideas will come about to lessen the cost.
Back to the moon or on to mars. The US may have no real choice on this.
Automated manufacturing is missing here. We need to look at our top manufactuered import and consider manufacturing those here using automated lines.

The test site (which can be seen on the Transrapid site is quite close to the Dutch borders. As my dad works as a journalist in that area, he had to do a story on it once. Which included a few rounds in the train on the 8-shaped test track in Lathen, Germany. Due to some luck I normally never encounter I had the oppurtunity to go with him and thus also do a few rounds on the track. And I must say, it is nothing less than impressive. We didn't go faster than about 340 km/h, but doing that a few meters above the ground in a very silent train was an unforgetable experience. For short-long-distance (100-500 km.) this is an ideal solution. Clean, fast and just ultra-slick. I hope this system will now finally get some more attention, because it deserves it and is a very good replacement for short-distance flying and long-distance car driving. Hurray for Transrapid!

Maglev trains usually run on elevated platforms high enough to let roads and the like pass underneath while still low enough to avoid most birds. That, and it simply looks cooler on an elevated platform as these pictures show... :)

Damn, forgott the link. Here it is.

You might want to have a look at the German maglev "Transrapid" which is running in circles since 20 years now and will finally be build in China.
It does 310 mph / 500km/h.

http://www.transrapid.de/en/index.html

k2r

Here in Germany, where high-speed trains are fairly common (the ICE2 goes up to something like 280 km/h, or about 170 mph, though only on top-quality track), there has been some debate for some years about building a maglev passenger train -- but the usual NIMBY problems keep coming up.

To add to the irony, the Greens -- who you would think would want to support mass transit, especially one like maglev -- have often blocked its implementation in Germany on environmental grounds (disturbing habitats, etc.).

There there is the situation in the USA.

On the other hand, maglev could in theory revive passenger train service in the USA. I believe that one of the main reasons it has failed in the States is simply economics -- because of the greater distances involved, the net cost per mile of track, the total cost to maintain a (much onger) average stretch of track, and therefore the ticket price for getting from point A to point B is higher than in Europe, where population density is far higher and a greater potential for train service exists. Another drawback in the States is again because of the distance: with Amtrak's usual trains (which are abysmally slow by European standards) it takes forever to get anywhere. So you pay more for worse (slower) service, and the train company has less surplus money to invest in new technology or track improvements. No wonder Amtrak is so terrible.

(Consider the irony that the USA is generally considered to have the most modern freight rail in the world -- but passenger rail is a joke.)

The initial cost of a maglev line is probably a lot higher, but I would imagine that its TCO would be much lower than conventional trains -- and given its far higher potential speeds, it could really compete with airliners (at least on the East and West Coasts, where there is a high enough population density to pay for it).

But the whole train-related mass transit infrastructure is missing in most American cities (thanks in part to the American love of cars) -- okay, so you got to the main station, but then what? How do you get around? Is there a well-integrated tram/bus/subway/coach system? Most cities just don't have that (certainly nothing like in Germany or France). So even if someone is willing to take the (substantial) financial risk and heavy investment load of building a maglev network in the States, there are still a lot of practical issues to deal with beyond just the train lines.

So, sad to say, even though maglev technology was developed to a large degree in America, I don't see it happening in the near future. In spite of the problems mentioned above in Germany, I do think that there will be several trunk lines running maglev service in Germany in the next few years (probably Cologne-Hannover-Berlin and Hamburg-Hannover-Frankfurt-Munich at the least).

By the way, one of the main companies working on maglev is TransRapid. Check out their site (especially the Projects section) for a lot of info about the subject, including about possible maglev lines in the States.

Cheers,

Ethelred

The California Maglev Project as well as the Pennsylvania High Speed Maglev Project are based on the Transrapid, here is their page on all the projects in North America (warning: this is the URL to a frame, it will immediatly try to load the homepage after loading; just hit that STOP button)

1. According to this there was already a patent for a maglev train in 1934

2.About the Transrapid:

Secondly, a power loss would be catastrophic.

It would not. If the power system of the tracks is failing, batteries can hold the train in the air for more than 30 min and vice versa (of course the tracks have power for more than 30min if the internal electrical system of the train fails). Also the train can land on the tracks at full speed without catastrophic damage.

Thirdly, the way the Germans have approached maglev using magnets to attract each other, requires active controls.

But on the other hand it uses relatively simple systems, electro-magnets are not really high-tech and easy to control, therefore it's no big problem to regulate the fields in order to maintain the correct distance.

3. In addition using electro-magnets has the advantage that you don't need supra-conductors and the immense cooling system which is necessary for that. Therefore the Transrapid doesn't need a "landing gear" like the japanese system it's more lightweight and probably cheaper

I'm quite astonished that noone seems to mention, that a German consortium is building a Maglev train in China (Shanghai Airport -- City) and that there will be two Transrapid routes in Germany, one in Munich (Airport -- City) and one in the Ruhrregion between Dortmund and Duesseldorf. Shanghai should be ready in less than a year and the two German routes should be ready for the Soccer World Championship in 2006.

You can find more info on the website of Transrapid in English or German.

Bye egghat.

I'm quite astonished that noone seems to mention, that a German consortium is building a Maglev train in China (Shanghai Airport -- City) and that there will be two Transrapid routes in Germany, one in Munich (Airport -- City) and one in the Ruhrregion between Dortmund and Duesseldorf. Shanghai should be ready in less than a year and the two German routes should be ready for the Soccer World Championship in 2006.

You can find more info on the website of Transrapid in English or German.

Bye egghat.

Well it's actually the German Transrapid that is built in China.

However it is kinda sad that it does not make sense to build a large maglev network in Germany since we already have an expansive (and expensive ;) high speed railway system.

Just an addition: As you could have guessed the URL for that is www.transrapid-usa.com. There's a map of the US with all proposed routes and other stuff. The German site is still more informative about the train itself, though.

The original plan to build a track Berlin - Hamburg has been scrapped after years of planning in 2000 due to high costs. Now two alternative tracks are planned, one in Bavaria and one in Northrhine-Westfalia. The only case, in which Germany was successful in selling this train is China. There's a short track being build in Shanghai, with the hope to get an additional order for a long track between Shanghai and Beijing.

By now the Transrapid is seen in Germany as an example where an advantage in technology is being lost due to not enough courage to take a risk (i.e. build a track). The story's been going on for years now, and the Chinese track is pretty much the last hope for the project. It's great technology, but it's also very expensive and makes only sense on real long tracks...

btw: Siemens and Thyssen also founded a "Transrapid USA" company. They were trying to sell the train to several cities and states in the US, and several tracks were (are?) being evaluated by the government. Don't know what happened to that...

Ah, that's why they are going to build maglevs especially in Europe and Japan Because they are more expensive to build and maintain.

In fact, they are building them because current trains have NOT enough capacity. Especially the highly congested route between Tokyo and Osaka. (Probably the first "real" route sporting maglev.)

AFAIK, the construction costs are indeed higher. Nonetheless, the conventional successors of highspeed trains as the Shinkansen, the TGV or the ICE are mostly limited to roughly 300km/h operational speed. The problem is at very high speed the wheels and the track are strained to the extreme, which leads to wear and tear of the same.
A future successors of the Shinkansen (Linear Chuo Shinkansen ) will be based on maglev, as the supposed successor of the ICE-line the Transrapid.
The Linear Chuo Shinkansen is supposed to have an operational speed of 500km/h. The current Transrapid built in China has an operational speed of 300km/h
Not to mention the better acceleration and lower noise rate, delivered by these solutions.
The Transrapid reaches 300km/h after 5km from a standing start and breaks certainly as fast as it accelerates.

Furthermore, the energy consumption of current maglev based trains are about 40% lower than their conventional counterparts.

Well Europe is once again already planing one check this out!

O.K. maybe not supersonic but evacuated none the less. Btw. you dont need superconductors for Maglev at least the German Transrapid does not need it, makes it cheaper, too.

Not to knock the work being done in China, but they are not the first Maglev.

Birmingham (UK) isn't the first maglev either. To quote from the Transrapid web site:

1979

Operation of the world's first maglev train with longstator propulsion (Transrapid 05) to be licensed for passenger transportation occurs at the International Transportation Exhibition (IVA 79) in Hamburg.

Check out the Transrapid web site (English and German) at transrapid.de

here is a link to the transrapid web site.

There already exists a train using magnetic levitation, it's the german Transrapid (this is no new technology, it exists since the 1980ies). It can go as fast as 420 km/h (260 mph). Unfortunately industry and government couldn't agree on building it yet. There exists a test facility though and you can get a ride for a few bucks.