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Transrapid (MagLev) Test Successful In China: 405

Posted by Hemos on from the were-you-sent-here-by-the-devil dept.

theBunkinator writes "Use your favorite translator (+ unit converter) to read about the first successful beyond 400km/h (~250MPH) test of the MagLev train in China. News Blurp in German at tagesschau.de. The offical Transrapid site is bilingual, with choice of German/English. Pictures & Video, too. Beats the Autobahn any day. Probably beats a plane in many situations as well."

5 of 315 comments (clear)

  1. Does not beat the French TGV by Tsk · · Score: 5, Informative

    which is described here. And it's network described here

    --
    none Yet.
  2. TGV by Maxwell42 · · Score: 5, Informative


    Please note that you can already travel at 300Kmh using the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, 'High Speed Train'), in France, since since 1980...
    Not 400Kmh, but it works very well.

    More informations can be found here.
    (There is a nice flash map of the french railways).

  3. For sake of comparison by sam_handelman · · Score: 5, Informative

    The cruising speed of a typical commercial jutliner is about 550 mph.

    The speed of sound is about 761 mph (sea level, bleah bleah.)

    --
    The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
  4. Not cost-effective by BadDoggie · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here in Munich, we dodged a bullet as the Transrapid idea from the airport to city center was killed. The current S-Bahns can be sped up to 160km/h (from a current 80-120, generally), which would take the travel time down to 16 minutes versus the expected 10 for the Transrapid. This requires no more land, no additional building disruptions (lots of construction and really bad traffic here in Munich), and, even more importantly, the S-Bahn can do the job for half the cost and one-fifth the energy.

    The Transrapid would've cost us about $38 million per kilometer and additional annual costs of $215K. For comparison, ICE train tracks (Inter-City Europe express tracks) cost $16.5 million per km and around $165K annually.

    It gets worse. There's a 30km test track in Emden, and the train has never been up to it's supposed max speed of 500 km/h. The distance from the Munich airport to the city center is only about 20km, and the thing needs 5km just to get up to 300 km/h. Planned costs were set at $1.6 billion (with a "B" as in, "bwooaaaahhh!") -- expected costs around 50% more. Planned completion was 2006 and expected 2008-2010.

    Munich dodged a bullet, but now faces over a year of public transport hell as the main through-tunnel for all S-Bahns is upgraded to increase capacity from 20 to 30 trains an hour. (All S-Bahn trains pass through this tunnel, resulting in massive delays whenever there's a problem even near the tunnel, which extends some seven stations, 5 in the tunnel and end points.) To make things worse, the video schedule displays along the lines run Windows and crash at least once a week. Luckily, the trains don't.

    woof.

  5. Before any gets into "why not in US?"... by Insightfill · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's often a Simpson-esque rally in the US press whenever another country pulls this sort of thing off. People often ask "Why can't we just covert/reuse existing railways."

    The problem becomes one of how you define straight. These tracks need to be really straight for long lengths to get such numbers, and while your typical subway or Amtrak route looks straight, that's only when viewed at lower speeds (under 60MPH). Even then, lots of these routes are shaky. Take it up to over 100 and suddenly, it's not so straight anymore.

    Anyone who's taken their car to really high speeds on public roads can usually attest that a straight road at 70 isn't as straight at 120.