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Chinese MagLev Train Opens Next Week
lupa1420 writes "The Guardian reports on the launch next week of the world's fastest train, 430kph, in China, which uses magnetic levitation technology. Includes instructions on how to make your own maglev demo at home."
I'm no expert on magnetic levitation, but won't the fields totally screw with any electronic device in or near the train? Laptop hard-drives, PDA-memory, IPod disk...
Or is there an obvious and easy way to shield that stuff?
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Alas, the maglev's official home page (I think; at least they sell tickets) is all Chinese and out of date to boot. In the meantime, the best place to go is Wangjianshuo's blog, in particular the well-illustrated Maglev in depth story.
Things that suck about the maglev:
- It only runs every half hour, which kind of defeats the point of having a superfast train.
- Tickets cost 75 RMB (~$9) a pop, this in a country where 800 RMB a month is considered a decent wage.
- It doesn't go into the city, you have to transfer to a subway and ride another 6 stops just to get on the Puxi side of the river.
Not that any of this will stop me from going for a ride next time I'm in Shanghai!Cheers,
-j.
how feasible is a maglev system in the US? yeah, it's a pipe dream, but imagine...
Boston to NYC. LA to San Fran. maybe even a network of the major cities.
As it is now, it's cheaper and sometimes faster to take Greyhound than Amtrack! The US spent so much on railroad tracks and most aren't used anymore. Sure the costs would be expensive, but would it be worth it if some of those tracks were replaced to support maglevs?
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
... of the world's fastest train, 430kph...
French TGV does 515 km/h.
Iraq: war to save the U
Probably the world's fastest train
China's superfast express launches next week. Sean Dodson reports on a revolution in public transport
Sean Dodson
Thursday January 15, 2004
The Guardian
On the southern bank of the Yangtze river, about 30km north of Shanghai, lies Pudong international airport. Since it opened its first terminal in 1999 it has served China's irrepressible 21st-century megalopolis with nothing more futuristic than a fleet of taxis and a schedule of buses.
If you are lucky, and the roads are clear, you can be in the city centre in 40 minutes. But as of next week, to coincide with the Chinese New Year, passengers arriving at Pudong will be able to reach the centre of town in a fraction of the time.
The world's first commercial high-speed maglev now connects Pudong with downtown Shanghai in a very, very nimble seven minutes 20 seconds. Shanghai's new express can reach a top speed of 430kph (267mph) in just under two minutes.
Maglev - shorthand for magnetic levitation - is basically a train that floats on an electromagnetic cushion, which is propelled along a guideway at incredible speeds. Magnetic levitation has been a long-standing dream of railway engineers - the first patent was issued in 1934 - but the first new mass transit system since the advent of the aeroplane has suffered more delays than the average London commuter train.
Little wonder. At first glance, maglev technology appears extortionately expensive when compared with conventional rail: a mile of track costs at least 3.5m to build and that's not including the cost of the giant electricity substations. But, say its advocates, the long-term benefits are many. Not only can it cut journey times in half, maglev is cleaner and cheaper to run than passenger aircraft. According to Transrapid, the German manufacturer of the Shanghai maglev, the technology uses five times less energy - per passenger mile - than jet aircraft. Maglev trains cost a few million pounds per vehicle, compared with $200m for the average Boeing 747.
Moreover, maglev schedules should also be less affected by bad weather or congestion than air travel and are cheaper to maintain. As the maglev has no wheels there is far less erosion of track, radically cutting operating costs. "Maglev offers the prospect of first-class style for a lower cost than economy air travel," explains Robert Budell of Transrapid, "there will be less need to pack you in like sardines".
But for a maglev fast enough to compete seriously with passenger aircraft you must travel to Japan. In the foothills of Mount Fuji, 100km west of Tokyo, lies the tourist town of Tsuru. Why would anyone build a test track for the future of mass transit in such mountainous terrain? "Because Japan is a mountainous country," answers Tadao Okai, a senior engineer for Japan Rail. "The vast majority of 18.4km of our test track is underground because when we come to build the maglev network we must build it beneath our cities."
At Tsuru there is a small observation deck and visitor centre that overlooks the single kilometre where the maglev emerges from its tunnel. In December, the Japanese maglev reached 581kph, breaking its own Guinness World Record of 552kph (with passengers aboard) set in 1999. However, most analysts believe that Japan's proposed inter-city maglev could be decades away from being built. Even in China, maglev has suffered setbacks. Plans for a 1,290km Shanghai-to-Beijing line are officially on hold. While in Transrapid's back yard, plans for a maglev line between Hamburg and Berlin were derailed by the Green Party. As part of Gerhard Schroder's ruling coalition, it argued that the proposed line would damage wildlife with electromagnetic radiation, and that its concrete track-supports would spoil forests.
Part of the problem is that both Japan and Germany already have enviable high-speed rail networks. Japan's pioneering shinkansen - or bullet train - carries 300,000 people every day from Tokyo to Osaka in two hours 30 minutes a
Smart bank cards, GSM in Europe beats US crdit/debit cards and cell phone standards. Now commercial high-speed maglev train.
Why is that? Is there anything wrong with US that it doesn't let the country to lead hi-techs anymore?
Less is more !
Boston to NYC: 211 miles / 50 minutes
Boston to Washington, DC: 465 miles / 1.75 hours
Boston to Orlando, FL: 1,320 miles / 5 hours
Los Angeles to San Francisco: 387 miles / 1.5 hours
NYC to Washington, DC: 258 miles / 1 hour
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
This thing looks amazing, but I think it was only built for rich businessmen wanting to feel important as they zip from their luxury hotel suite in Pudong to the airport.
I had friends over for Christmas in Shanghai, and we all planed to ride the maglev when they left. Thing is, the cost is not only prohibitive for locals - it's also ridiculous to charge 75 RMB per person, when you consider a taxi ride from Puxi is approximately 180 RMB. Cram 4 people in a taxi, and you get there for half the price. (And considering how the taxis drive in SH, thrice the excitement!)
I also heard you can get 'luxury' tickets for 150 RMB/person. Why you wouldn't endure an 'economy' ticket considering the ride takes 20 minutes and is bumpless, is, well, not entirely beyond me considering how people will pay for such useless nonsense.
In the end, we took a cab to the airport, and as the driver was driving down the highway at 120 km/h, we saw the maglev zip by us as if we were immobile. It looked like something out of Star Trek... Damn impressive... from the outside.
- There are many advantages for Transrapid tracks:
- Steep slopes: Transrapid trains can easily climb 6 to 10 percent slopes (6-10ft height difference on 100ft), because the magnets are strong enough to pull the train up and there is no limit posed by the rail-wheel contact.
- Small curves: The Transrapid train can travel in curves with 2km (1,3mls) radius at 200 kph (130mph), in curves with 2,5km (1,6mls) with 250 kph (160mph), because the track can be slanted up to 12 degrees. Normal rail tracks can't use those slants, because you have always to consider the possibility, that a train may have to stop there.
- The track doesn't need much space of the landscape, because it runs mostly on pylons. You have to found those pylons every 100-200m (300-600ft), but you don't cut the landscape in half as with traditional tracks. People and animals can roam freely around the track.
- With the above cited properties you can build Transrapid tracks in densely settled environments like cities and thus build the train stations in the town centers. So you don't need to provide extra means to get to the stations, quite different than with airports, which consume much space and thus need to be built outside the towns.
With all those advantages: Why don't we have plenty of Transrapid tracks? There are two principal answers:- Maglev trains like the Transrapid are VERY expensive to build. Basicly the whole track is a continious bridge, this makes the construction not even cheap. Switches between tracks are even more complicated, Transrapid for instance uses a 250m long steel frame which can be bended over the full length to provide smooth connections from one track to the next.
- Maglev trains are yet another infrastructure completely independend from the existing infrastructures for roads, tracks, rivers, channels and airports. You can't use anything already existing, you have to start completely anew. That means even for a single relation you have to put a complete chain of constructions in place, starting from power substations and tracks to maintenance buildings and passenger access. This makes the initial investions high without guaranteering an early return on investment. It also means that in the beginning without a complete net of relations the passengers have to use at least one other transport system for their travel, thus making it necessary to connect to the existing transportation infrastructure.
Maglev trains fill a very small ecological niche fitting inbetween conventional trains and airplanes. To get a sufficient amount of revenue you have to look at potential relations that are insufficiently served by current systems, where the conventional systems can't simply be expanded. The Pudong-Shanghai relation was such an example: The busses and cabs are at their capacity limit due to traffic jams, a conventional train was not available for the whole distance, and it was not easy to connect the old train tracks to the town center.Maglev trains may be also an option for emerging economies, which don't have yet a complete traffic system in place, especially if airports and rail tracks are missing. Here you could put a system in place that serves both: commuter traffic and long distance travel. It would be more expensive than conventional trains. But it will be much cheaper than trains+airports, and sooner or later you will need both of them.