Japan to Launch Maglev Trains by 2025

SpeedyTrain writes with a link to a story on the Mainichi Daily News site about the future of mass transit in Japan. Despite problems with Maglev technology in test-bed scenarios around the world, Japan has committed to building a line between Tokyo and Nagoya by 2025. The experimental system will allow trains to run at up to 310 miles an hour. "The new magnetically levitated, or "maglev," trains would slash the 100-minute travel time down the country's busiest transportation corridor and are envisioned as a successor for Japan's iconic bullet trains, or shinkansen, first introduced to the world in 1964 ... [a] spokeswoman declined to give an estimate for the cost of linking the capital with the Nagoya area about 269 kilometers (168 miles) to the west. But Kyodo News agency said the whole project would cost about 9 trillion yen (US$76.3 billion) and be divided between the company and the central and local governments."

Comments

Japan gets maglev trains, we get a war in Iraq

[tap]

I think I'd rather have the trains.

Re:Japan gets maglev trains, we get a war in Iraq

[Y-Crate]

What about the cost of bailing out MAGTrak every couple years because no one uses trains?

When your national rail company's trains are largely at the mercy of the scheduling whims of private freight companies there is a strong disincentive to use them.

Add to that the pitiful funding for everything from food to maintenance and what do you expect? Amtrak barely gets enough money to keep the lights on.

Never Underestimate the Japanese

[tecker]

Never underestimate the Japanese. If they set a firm goal that is obtainable then watch out. In the past when they set a goal for themselves they usually achieve it. 20 years is plenty of time to get the technology figured out. The interesting thing will be how they pull it off.

Here is another thing to think about. This opens the door for small startup or research groups that could potentially win a contract if they can create a viable working and safe system. If the little guy can do that then there is some money to be made from the technology both there and around the world. By announcing this the get the people who think they can do it better then the others. Think of the chance and getting your technology in place there like the Xprize for space flight.

I would be more surprised if they didn't pull this one off looking back at history.

Re:Slash 100 minuite travel time to what?

[Timesprout]

I'm sure plenty of Japanese companies see this shortened commute as a great opportunity to get an extra hours work out of their employees.

Re:Expensive

[Diamond Tree]

Cost is no object. Profit is unnecessary. All that matters is that construction continue. Japan has dammed all but maybe one river (many of them multiple times), built tunnells through mountains so that villages of less than 100 people can have a bullet-train stop(!! move over Sen. Stevens !!), paved many a riverbed in concrete, eliminated dirt from the cities (almost every square inch is paved), etc., etc.

I recall visiting a dam in Nagano that had special turbines so the water could be pumped back *up* into the reservoir behind the dam during the night (luckily the next dam was less than a mile below!) so that extra power could be generated by this dam in the day during the summer so Tokyoites could have air-conditioning. This dam used more power than it made, obviously. (Economically, this scenario might actually make sense, but it is interesting to think about ... could this happen in the US?).

When I lived in Tokyo they tore up my street every few months relaying pipes. First gas, then water, who knows what else. Then a few months later, since the street had been patched so many times, they repaved it. Streets that are 3 years old are routinely torn up (including the concrete kerb) and repaved. They always looked like they still had years and years left of service in them. In the 30 years my family's lived in Northern Virginia (affluent, high-traffic area) I can only think of 1 or 2 times certain major roads in town were repaved.
      From small: http://regex.info/blog/2007-03-25/403
      To large: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashi-Kaikyo_Bridge
The likelihood of the projects (for instance the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge) recouping investments is papered over and never taken seriously, except to BS the public or to rationalize the hidden logrolling which is required to acquire the budgets necessary to build the projects.

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learnjapanese.poddedcell.net (Step Up Nihongo)