China Abandons Long-Distance Maglev Effort

Ralph Lee writes "China has chosen to abandon its Maglev train effort from Beijing-Shanghai, according to this AP story: 'Besides cost, "the maglev technique was excluded because it does not match the wheel-track technique used by railways in China," the report said, citing Wang Derong, vice-chairman of the China Transport Association.... The scrapping of the 9-year-old maglev project - two weeks after the country's first maglev, a short stretch in Shanghai, began regular operation - represents a setback for the development of the technology in China, which many had seen as one of its key markets.'" The short 18-mile MagLev run mentioned earlier remains in operation, but China is not going to use magnetic levitation for the planned 750-mile Beijing-Shanghai link.

Comments

Re:Inevitable?

[jabberjaw]

If I recall correctly, maglev trains are extremely difficult to derail due to the high walls surrounding them. They can also go really, really fast, as in some have proposed 650 km/h fast (This is just a number I recall hearing, if anyone has any more info. please post). In addition to this they could revolutionize travel due to the fact that, let's face it, airports suck. If I could show up at a train-station spend a few minutes there and then be on my way to where-ever, I think that would be wonderful.

Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

If you put a fast train on a 100year old track, you will never be able to reach 300km/h.

Yes you will, but only once. The French did speed trials in the 70s with conventional train engines and cars (well, apart the engine that had more power), to test the limits of conventional railways, and they reached about 300Km with that train, but the rail track behind the train was all bent out of shape as a result. I saw a very impressive photo of that bent track once, but I can't seem to find it anymore.

Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive

[Cochonou]

When building a new TGV line, the RFF (railtrack infrastructure division of the french railroad company) not only buys the lands needed to build the high-speed line, but also proposes to buy the surrounding lands in a 200m radius.
As they don't want the construction to be delayed furthermore, the prices are usually very interesting.
However, I believe the noise of the TGV goes farther than 200m away...

High Speed trains use different track

[thebes]

I have read that a number of you are arguing that "regular" highspeed trains are better, and one of the arguments is that it can interconnect with the tracks in other country, the infrastructure is already in place, etc.

The true high speed trains (like some in france, and the new one going under the mountain chain in Europe, I don't remember what it's called) have to use specially layed track. Those sorts of high speed trains (due to the speed and the wave in the track that it generates ahead of the train) cannot handle the "flaws" used in regular track. It needs track that is bound much more securely to the ground to limit the wave generated in the rail, requires a sturdier railbed, require very strait track (only very gradual curves due to the speed) and many of them are electric requiring lines to be run anyways.

It's not as simple as everyone thinks to just slap a high speed train on regular track.

Re:High Speed trains use different track

[Wudbaer]

Yes, but still high-speed trains can use the old tracks if there is no new high-speed enabled track around which happens in Germany all the time with the ICE. Of course then it ceases being high-speed and just becomes an ordinary train going sometimes not faster than 70 km/h. But at least it can bridge gaps in the high-speed track network in that way easily.

Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t

[Chep]

Vibration.

Actually, this bent track was more in the sixties, the '70s tests were around 250-280 km/h in a very straight corridor (Mulhouse-Strasbourg), and didn't actually destroy the tracks (with the amount of traffic on that line, they'd better not to :-P) More modern pendular systems such as the ones build by the Swedish, the Italians or the Canadians, achieve 230-250 in commercial speed on reasonably modern classic tracks.

Another challenge the TGV (and ICE) solved is the power supply: conventional electric feeding systems vibrate too much at 300 km/h, and even if you managed to reach that speed despite the poor contact, you'd rip the cables away. (in fact, the TGV 001 prototype, still displayed on the A35/A36 motorway near Belfort (place of construction) and Brumath (large maintenance facility), as well as its commercial predecessor, the Turbotrain (still in little use on Paris-Normandy and a few even more remote regional lines), used a gas turbine specificially to avoid this problem.

X-2000 or Pendolino would probably make a lot of sense given what I perceive should be the state of China's tracks and maintenance procedures.

Patents are a global "asset"

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> Do you think the maglev IP is actually patented in China?

China signed the TRIPS agreement. (as did every developed country and 95% of developing countries.)

The deal was: the rich countries will trade manufactured and agricultural goods with the poor countries, and the poor countries will enforce the patents and copyrights of the rich countries.

The proclaimed trade benefits for the poor countries never happened (and what power do they have to complain?), but the enforcement of patents, trademarks, and copyrights has been enforced (the US threatens to cease trade and cancel IMF and WorldBank funds when the poor get angry). This is why Africa can't manufacture AIDS treatments even though they cost less than 35 cents to manufacture each daily dose.

(For more info, and excellent book is Information Fuedalism, by Peter Drahos)

Re:Price per _half_ mile?

[jrumney]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was REALLY the price per half kilometer, and some journalist just plain got it wrong. The Chinese have a unit of measurement called the "li", which last century was standardized to 500m, or half a kilometer to be easily interchangable with metric units (before that was 576m).

Re:Inevitable?

[Walterk]

Why would you have to search everyone for bombs and weapons? What are they going to do? Shoot the passengers? Blow up the train? These are no more threats than they are on a TGV, or ICE. All one does it kill a couple hundred passengers at most, and destroy a piece of track (if at all).

It is impossible for any maglev to take off into the air, and fly into an important building. The Maglev also does not carry extreme amounts of flammable liquids, so it is not a bomb in itself. Remember, the former WTC did withstand the impact of the plane flying it, but the fuel burning melted the steel structure which collapsed after a certain period. Even if terrorists managed to get a Maglev airborne, then they would at most cause a dent in most buildings.

This of course if no more possible than getting a TGV airbourne, and using it to bomb the French president, or using the ICE to bomb Berlin.