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Japanese Train Sets A Speed Record Of 581 kph
Azuma writes "Last night, on December 2, a high-speed Japanese train set a new record of 581 kph, breaking its own previous record. The new Maglev high speed had real passengers on board this time. They proved that the distance between Osaka and Tokyo can be covered in one hour's time. 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. This seems to be the future of transportation, at least in Japan. Here is a detailed article from The Japan Times."
Bet those passengers were scared out of their pants. With it flying that fast, I'd be...if the thing derailed, you'd be really screwed.
Living in Las Vegas, I would love a high speed rail to LA. It is all desert, plenty of room for a right of way! I'm sure the casino's would love getting people from LA to the city in an hour as well!
:)
Just remember in ten years, it was my idea
I think the reason the US as a whole doesn't invest more in trains is the fact that the country is A. Pretty big and B. Pretty Empty.
There's a lot less people per square mile here then in Japan and the like.
Personally, I love the Chicago transit authority. I've lived as far away as Milwaukee and still commuted into Chicago every day (in fact, living in Milwaukee the commute was shorter then a lot of other train lines - the train made 2 stops and went 80mph most of the way there, about 45 min commute). And that's just the suburban rail, the inner city railway (CTA) is pretty efficient as well, though I have less experience with it.
I've lived all over the US, and every big city runs more or less this way. Because in that case it makes sense. More people in less area. But I can't see a Maglev from Chicago to LA being setup because for the most part this 300MPH train would run through empty land.. Small towns, few people, etc. It would have a huge maintenence cost associated with it to, as they'd have to train people all over the country or have people roaming around ensuring the rails are fine.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
But I thought I'd bring it up. Inevitably there are going to be long threads of why the US doesn't have this leading to conspiracies involving auto manufactures, oil companies, and congessmen payed for by Amtrak.
Before all that gets carried away, a minor side note. There was an article online, and if I find the citation I'll respond to my own post with it, that spoke of why using innerstates as guides for high speed railways was impossible. Basically innerstates have very frequent curves in them, and at the speeds these trains are going, you'd either be making everybody motion sick, or worse, throwing them back and forth inside the train. You need very straight shots for long distances for these to work right.
And, I might add, there's _very_ little incentive to have ultra-high speed trains from a legal perspective. The first time one of these has an accident every blood sucking vermin of a low-life profession would come sniffing around through the remains looking for anyone remotely related to anyone with at least a hangnail to sue the pants off whatever company was running this system.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Umm... a greased Scotsman is a train.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
This is obviously very impressive. Maglev trains are very expensive (especially the track), but they reach enormous speeds. It gets even better if you let them run in a depressurised tunnel, allowing them to reach speeds of several thousand kilometers per hour. Of course, that costs lots of extra moolah, but its an upgrade possibility once maglevs have become more commonplace.
Concerning the question of why other countries don't have trains as cool as Japan - well, several reasons. The US just aren't interested. Appearantly, the American Way means having two cars per family and getting stuck in a traffic jam at least once a week. Besides, there are geographical concerns. America, as well as my home country (Germany) are definitely two-dimensional, rather than a linear strip of settlement like Japan, meaning that one requires a grid of synchronised train lines. Trust me, that's hard.
Also, for the US there's the problem of population density. Sure, in the cities, public transport has customers. But in the rural regions, there isn't enough demand to make narrow-interval trains profitable. And the broader the intervals (say, twice a day?) the lower the interest. After all, why wait two hours for the next train, when you can jump in your car now?
Divide et impera!
But other than test units, none have been deployed.
Why? Because the cost is exponentially higher than simple steel rails. Not just in construction costs, but also in the cost to power the trains.
Once you have maglev, you are restricted to long-distance trips because there is no maglev track feature similar to a "switch" which allows the trains to change tracks without slowing down to a crawl. Either you have just a few trains running the length of the track, meaning it isn't really "mass transit", or you operate like the current bullet trains do right now and stop at every station, losing the advantage of the high-speed capability due to frequent stops.
Remember that in order to stop on a siding, or to allow other trains to pass, you need the aformentioned "switches" which do not exist for maglev, thus they are only practical for long-distance hi-speed trips.
Given the lack of developable land in Japan, where do they expect to put the tracks, since they would have to serve the existing stations which feed regional, metro, and local rail? Would they replace the existing bullet trains?
Seems unlikely because you'd then move 10% of the passengers at 1000% of the cost.
Further, Japan is subject to earthquakes more frequently than most developed nations, often causing tremendous damage.
High-speed rail demands extremely precise rail alignment and a continuous maintenance program.
Fortunately, after an earthquake, existing rail lines can be quickly repaired with little more than sledgehammers, shovels and a welder in the back of a truck. Service is reestablished quickly, and the trains can run again.
Rail trains can even run efficiently at low speeds, as opposed to maglev.
Maglev relies on the aerodynamic flow between train and track to generate a "cushion" on which the train rides. At low speeds, this cushion is inadequate or nonexistant.
At low speeds, the power consumption skyrockets as the same coils remain energized for longer periods of time rather than rapidly cycling to the next zone. Resistance grows with heat and more power is required to do the same thing.
Thus the trains have to run fast to be tenable to operate. But if they run fast, they cannot make the stops necessary to carry the load necesary to sustain operations. Then to service these loads, they would need to build far more tracks, or sacrifice speed for stops, negating the touted speed of the train.
There is also the environmental/health impact of intense, uncontained magnetic fields. When you go for an MRI, you remove all metal from your body. People with metal implants cannot be MRId, else they be thrown about by the magnetic field, or the implant be torn from their flesh. Here, we have staggeringly powerful magnetic fields laid out linearly through the countryside. While cycled, LIMs must energize both in front of, and behind the moving payload, and are thus unshielded.
As I recall from riding the Shin extensively, you are rarely if ever more than 20 minutes between stops. The few "express" trains are curtailed in top speed and times available so they do not run into or get run into by the other trains making more stops.
Summary?
Great rail technology, as usual from Japan, but difficult to see how it will be utilized in their existing infrastructure on basis of facilities sharing, construction cost, maintenance requirements, earthquake survivability, and ability to generate sustaining revenue.
And of course, kids can't put coins on the rails any more!
I wonder if moving that fast causes problems with train-land wi-fi and cell networks due to the doppler effect? Imagine you're screaming toward a cell tower at 167 m/s (600 km/h) - that's a doppler shift of 500Hz at 900MHz, which I imagine could cause some problems.
Whilst there are inter-country trains, it's still a damn long way between, say, Hamburg and Rome, and planes would be quicker than the current generation of very fast trains. 600 km/h maglevs will increase considerably the distance over which a train's travel times are comparable to city-airport-airport-city.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Every post-1870 train is using boggies.
What made the TGV survive its derailments are:
1. it's designed so that the train sets, once the cars are attached one to the next, is very rigid, so if it goes out of the track, you have a long big dildo slipping through the country until it stops
2. so far, it encountered no overpassing bridge during a derailment (the track is designed to overpass as much as possible, but sometimes it's not possible)
The ICE at Eschede didn't have the luck of point 2.
I really don't want to be in the first TGV to derail 1.5km before the entrance of a tunnel.
OTOH, I love the damn thing. Too bad they are still at the big yellow Caterpillar stage near the A4! (and still at the political bickering stage for the Dijon-Mulhouse-Basel, damn, damn, damn)
The degree minute thing probably came from the Sumerians who actually used base 60 for their counting systems. It is postulated that they regularly traded with another race and so came up with a base which could be used equally to translate from their 'old' units and those of their fellow traders.
Base 60 makes it easy to divide values by common fractions, a half, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Hence 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an degree and 6 x 60 degrees in a circle. The sumerians also gave us positional notation (ie. that the same symbol in different positions in a number means a difference value) which is where our hundreds, tens and units comes from. Some even believe that they invented 0 (in which case it was lost for some thousands of years afterwards) and it's shape comes from drawing () with a stylus in a clay tablet (their write once memory). You can find out more here.
Totally off topic but never mind.
In fact, most of the large railroads were relieved to be rid of passenger traffic, as it barely broke even, and generally lost money. They maintained it as long as they did because passenger trains served to keep the railroad name in the public eye, and in hope that 'brand recognition' would lead them to choose that road for freight shipment.
The airlines easily bested the railroads after WWII because of the the condition of the railroads. Between the Great Depression and WWII very little new equipment was purchased. During WWII the massive amounts of traffic served to wear out what equipment there was. As a result, when it came time to compete, the railroads were in a hole because of the amounts of capital investment required to repair the damage, while airlines needed only buy equipment.
That highlights a key difference that continues to handicap railroads. Airports and seaports are generally built by goverments (local/state/federal) who hope to recoup construction costs via a higher tax base. Only operations costs are paid for by user fees, (every time you fly, some of the money you paid goes to the airport you depart from and arrive at). Highways are built and maintained the same way. Thus shipping lines, truck lines, and airlines only need pay for their operating equipment, and some overhead. Their capital costs are far lower than that of the railroads. OTOH, railroads own and maintain their own physical plant, as well as their own operating equipment, thus vastly increasing their capital costs.
Don't bother, I've seen them. 99% of them make the same mistake you are, they confuse the passenger services of the big railroads with the passenger operations of the intraurbans. These are two very different markets, despite superficial similarities.Everyone thinks they know it, and the enviromentalist lobby uses these myths in their fight against the automobile. But again, this is a result of the confusion between the local intraurban services and the long haul services.