Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
He was trying to make the point that at higher speeds the train would be more likely to derail. but he's wrong anyway as the bottom of the train wraps around the track. In order to derail the mag-lev train would have to rip the track apart. Additionally, since the train is wrapped around the track and doesnt just sit on it like conventional trains do, its possible to superelevate the track (track rises on one side as it turns). Superelevation is used to counteract the centrifugal forces as a vehicles makes a tight turn at fast speeds.
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!
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.
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.
Safety is only obtained by rigorous track maintenance and inspection. In Japan they have the earthquake hazard, nothing they can do about that. If the track buckles, at that sort of speed, disaster is inevitable.
One good thing is that this particularly fine piece of engineering is not maintained by either Balfour-Beatty or Jarvis, who between them are responsible for quite a few disasters and near-disasters in the UK. Basic things like not putting a piece of track back, and not telling the signaller it was not there (Twice!)
The Japanese are more meticulous than most when it comes to carrying out regular inspections, even so this is fairly risky.