Slashdot Mirror
Maglev On the Drawing Boards
longacre sends along a Popular Mechanics article on the growing interest in magnetic levitation trains in the US. It's unclear how many will actually get built here, at $100 million per track mile. (In recent years we've discussed maglev projects in China and Germany.) The article has a map of many proposed transportation projects in the US, some of them maglev, and a video of a General Atomics maglev prototype in action. On a related note, an anonymous reader recommends this article on a proposed maglev wind-power turbine, said to offer the promise of replacing 1,000 conventional wind turbines.
Windmills do not work that way!
Geez. As if finding money to throw around was ever a problem for politicians. And building a coast-to-coast maglev line would be a much less dangerous waste of money than some other, er, projects.
The Japanese, who probably ride more miles of rail than any other country in the world, rely on plain old rails. Even the famous Bullet Trains run on rails.
Sometimes it feels like Americans are trying to put the cart before the horse when they don't even have anything to put on the cart.
Maybe this technology is still 20 years away from being feasible at all. Why not spend money on regular trains and install extra isolated windows in cities at only a fraction of the cost?
Full Tilt
The US Rail system needs a track upgrade. The east coast is going from horrible to better, but beyond the great divide, track conditions are apalling. Seems to me the best way to go would be to get more track certified for 120-150mph runs in the northeast corridor, and that would take the demand off of congested airports, and would certainly be more fuel economical.
This is my sig.
A hundred million bucks a mile? Do they have to coat the trains with moon rocks?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Personal Rapid Transit systems would seem to be much smarter.
They fit in with the western "everything personalised" thinking. Because they are a monorail based system, they can be erected alongside existing street plans thus increasing people-throughput by actually adding another conduit of transit. Street-level trams and bus lanes remove a conduit of transit for cars and are thus never popular. Underground trains have expensive (or impossible) infrastructure requirements. In contrast, the only onsite construction for a monorail is driving pylons. The rest can be prefabricated and hung in a short time.
For intra-city travel, the idea seems to be ideal.
... not very promising.
At $100 million per mile, I can't see how these would be cost effective. I think the money would be better spent improving existing railway and bus infrastructure, and fixing traffic problems caused by poorly designed highways.
Of course, a comprehensive plan of improving infrastructure isn't nearly as sexy as a fancy, space-age flying train.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
The key difference between Japanese and German maglev trains is that the Japanese trains use super-cooled, superconducting electromagnets. This kind of electromagnet can conduct electricity even after the power supply has been shut off. In the EMS system, which uses standard electromagnets, the coils only conduct electricity when a power supply is present. By chilling the coils at frigid temperatures, Japan's system saves energy.
Another difference between the systems is that the Japanese trains levitate nearly 10 cm above the guideway. One potential drawback in using the EDS system is that maglev trains must roll on rubber tires until they reach a liftoff speed of about 100 kph. Japanese engineers say the wheels are an advantage if a power failure caused a shutdown of the system. Germany's Transrapid train is equipped with an emergency battery power supply.
Anyway, this is a very new technology, so there is A LOT place for innovation here.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
... for fleas!
can someone do the mats how many miles of maglev can we built across america for a similar amount thats spent in Iraq so far?
And I don't mean just the government -- it seems to be a culture around here from the public on up to the government that they have to just find something, anything, to spend money on. If the Christmas season isn't proof enough of that, this is another perfect example.
Why even waste money talking about maglev trains when they could improve existing infrastructure using technology a generation or two ahead of the antiquated stuff we have in the US and get the same result using five percent of the money?
Its seriously like the whole damn country has this attitude of "oh, we can still borrow more money, so lets find something to spend it on before they stop lending it to us!"
We need a good place for our bread and circuses. Maglev trains? Space exploration? Genetics research? These things do not entertain. We, the people, would instead like distraction. If you give it to us, you can continue plundering us blind while decaying our nation into third world misery, as Plato predicted you would. If you don't treat us like mushrooms, we will not elect you, and you will not become a millionaire and will be reduced to walking among us.
Google for the cost of highway construction and one of the gems you find is this http://www-pam.usc.edu/volume2/v2i1a3s2.html link.
Read it and weep. 100 million per mile? Most costly project was 1 billion per mile and plenty of other projects are higher as well.
Now google a bit further and you find more "reasonable" costs of 20 million per mile being quoted but it makes it bloody clear that roads are very expensive indeed.
Yes sometimes they are cheap at a 1-3 million per mile, if the highway is simple and the conditions are ideal. This is however rarely the case. If you follow these kinds of projects you will also know that there are always complicating factors. For instance the straight road sections might be cheap, but the points where they connect to the rest of the road network, that is where the money really starts to bleed away. As for when you need a bridge or a tunnel. Just forget it.
Also offcourse not all highways are the same. One going through open desert vs one going through a city has huge extra costs in the form of safety, sound reduction and landcosts.
A further thing you might want to ask, how costly is maintenance, and what is the capacity of this network? It is less hassle to replace tradiotional rails then it is too resurface a road. How long is this 100 million per mile going to last you before more millions are needed to maintain it?
Then there is the question of what you get for it, if this 100 million dollar per mile track means you don['t have to construct/upgrade 10 road systems per say 20 million dollar per mile, then you are actually saving money.
But please slashdotters, next time you feel like posting about how costly something is, do a bit of research first. Although I really wish reporters would do it as well.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Hmmm. Maglev seems like a very nice idea. But financing is my sticking point. It's a train system that probably will not run through my state; and if it did, it would probably be on the other extreme. So it would be a $100million/mile train line that I wouldn't benefit from, yet I would have to pay for! I'm getting the same feeling I got in college whenever they would want to build a new sports complex. Screwed!
The game.
And what's the deal with "1000 times the power"? The power is proportional to the swept area, so you'd need a windmill 33 times bigger. And its weight would go up as the cube of 33, which wul dbe mighty unweildly.
The article says 1 gigawatt (that's 1 billion [US] watts) from a structure that would cost ~$53 million to build. What are the drawbacks? Why hasn't someone built one yet? That seems a lot cheaper than mining, shipping, and burning coal. Expensive maintenance costs? May not be cheaper than the status quo for the current energy manufacturers, but what about some Richard Branson type?
I think that the level of power needed to produce reliable results will inflate the costs beyond what is acceptable for the forseeable future.
$100 million per track mile can buy a lot a wars.
As someone living in Munich... I can tell you the German Maglev train is going nowhere. Everyone is opposed to it, except one politician who wants it as his 'swan song'.
They can either put in a Maglev for 1.2 billion euro for a 10 minute trip, or build a normal express S-bahn for 1 million for a 20 minute trip.
Maglev really makes no sense at all, but what do I know, maybe its more of a Shelbyville thing
If Shelbyville and North Haverbrook can afford it we can too!
-nick
- I hear those things are awfully loud...
- It glides as softly as a cloud.
- Is there a chance the track could bend?
- Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
- What about us brain-dead slobs?
- You'll be given cushy jobs.
- Were you sent here by the devil?
- No, good sir, I'm on the level.
- The ring came off my pudding can.
- Take my pen knife, my good man.
I swear it's Springfield's only choice...
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
- Monorail!
- What's it called?
- Monorail!
- Once again...
- Monorail!
- But Main Street's still all cracked and broken...
- Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!
Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
Mono... D'oh!
A maglev project at Old Dominion University has been a boondoggle and an embarrassment to the community:
http://www.odu.edu/webroot/orgs/IA/university_news.nsf/articles/11152006091139AM
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=122680&ran=183404
It's such a shame.
Now local officials want to construct a light rail line linking two non-residential areas. More colossal waste.
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=136584&ran=226930&tref=rss
The miracle is that these decision makers keep their jobs. There must be a bright future in wasting money.
It's easy (and somewhat logical) to say that rail infrastructure should be funded through state and federal taxes. The problem, though, is that all that such a funding model accomplishes is shift money from rural to urban areas.
Here in Pennsylvania, Gov. (Fast Eddie) Rendell wants to toll I-80 and basically send all of that revenue to Philidelphia and Pittsburgh. That's a pretty piss-poor way of selling mass-transit to the people when the bottom line is that it's just another tax subsidy for urban areas.
Get some good, worthwhile rural rail systems in place, and then we'll talk. Right now it's a non-starter.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
A key advantage is that trains travel from city center to city center. That means you get off work at 5:30pm, walk a couple blocks to the station, and you're off to your weekend getaway in Marin or Montreal. There's no searching for a taxi or airport shuttle or sitting in miles of stand-still traffic with all the other folks trying to get away for the weekend. That's a lot of time, expense, and aggravation saved.
Then there's the passenger experience. You could be cramped in an airline seat like veal, or you could have a seat that's the equivalent of business class or even a private compartment if you roll that way. You could be trapped in a car seat in said bumper-to-bumper traffic with your legs slowly going numb, or be able to get up and stretch your legs on a walk to the observation or dining car.
As a bonus for those who need fear as a motivator, a train can't be hijacked and crashed into the twin towers. If the train is maglev, then it's even safer because if any shenanigans did occur aboard then authorities could just switch off power to the track; the train will sit there until help arrives.
Anyone who's ever ridden on the TGV in France or the Shinkansen in Japan can testify to this. High-speed rail is awesome, and the United States would do well to implement it.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Full Tilt
Earnshaw's theorem probably has something to do with it.
In a nutshell, it's impossible to levitate something statically using only static magnetic fields. You will either need dynamic feedback (electromagnets, power required), mechanical constraints (friction) or rotational stabilization (tricky to get right so you can't rely on wind power to do it, also requires power)
The only other option is diamagnetic materials, but the magnetic fields you would need to levitate something that massive using only diamagnetic effects would be ungodly strong and probably pose a severe hazard to anything nearby, with noticeable effects hundreds or maybe thousands of feet away.
=Smidge=
but here is the real issue.
How many votes per mile of track can a Congressman buy?
Answer that instead.
The amount of money just wasted in earmarks alone could solve a multitude of problems, from medical care, rehabilitation for our vets, maglev, NASA, and more. You name it, we have the money for it.
The problem is, not all of the above garner vote buying opportunities.
The real reason the Iraq war annoys Congressmen is that it deprives them of money they could have used in directed vote buying campaigns. Instead of a monument to a living Congressman (read: new pool in your neighborhood or library - etc) it went overseas and is lost to them. Now it does garner votes in a negative way but Congressmen prefer postive vote buying expenditures.
Now the problem I see with the maglev tower is, who is going to want it in their backyard? It looks more palatable than a windfarm but its so damn tall that that the land area may be moot versus the "sight pollution". Of course we already have giant cooling towers but this thing looks larger.
We really need a new Mahattan project for our generation - one that frees us of fossil fuel generated power. Of course our next problem will be heat pollution - all that power does have a side effect (green power or not)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Where you need them, you have too much population and land is too pricey, to build 200 mph trains. Where you have the room and cheap land, there's no people to move.
Even if there was a maglev from NY to LA, it would still take a day to get there at full speed - for probably no less than a flight. Once everyone started taking the maglev, the Gubmint would have all sorts of onerous ID checks like airplanes, so you'd save no time there either.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I don't think rail will be able to compete with air travel and Interstate roads for city-to-city routes in the US. To survive, they would need heavy gov't subsidies, as Amtrak does today. I do believe that light rail commuter systems can run close to the break-even point even in smaller (1-2 million) metro areas. The common wisdom is that urban sprawl prohibits mass transit in the US, but in all the sprawled cities I'm familiar with, the "sprawl" is pretty congested along several spoke roads radiating from the center of the city. So one could run the rail system along the main spoke, and have regular shuttle service at main interchanges to get people to/from offices and neighborhoods.
Rail travel is nice, as you say, and it is a shame that Amtrak does not market itself well. We use it periodically, but the station is dark, dingy, and in a questionable part of town. Many of our friends didn't even know you could take the train for travel: "where do you get on?". If Amtrak were to move its routes slightly or offer shuttle pickup in the newer areas of town, they would probably have a lot more traffic.
can't seem to make money on the current economies of rail travel. Even at the lowest estimates ($5 million a track mile) I doubt either of these rail systems could make this technology profitable.
Public transportation all over the world requires government funding. Here in the US we seem to think that private companies and capitalism are the answer for everything. Unfortunately for us, this system usually enriches a select few people, provides goods and services that are mediocre at best, and cost quite a bit of money for the users of those goods and services.
The Northeast is particularly bad. Years ago, my wife was commuting to North Jersey - for the cost of her monthly train pass, (nj transit and path) and her monthly parking pass - she could have bought a nice BMW. (Instead she drove a VW Jetta to the train station).
If these companies can't make the current economics work with that kind of revenue, maglev has no hope of ever becoming a reality.
-ted
Lyle Lanley: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail!
What'd I say?
Ned Flanders: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What's it called?
Patty+Selma: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: That's right! Monorail!
[crowd chants `Monorail' softly and rhythmically
Does any of this sound familiar??
it's impossible to levitate something statically using only static magnetic fields.
So how does this thing work?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8nCg0n0zXM
No sig today...
I still remember the article in 1961 on flying cars.....
Contrary to what's been posted in the original link, there are systems such as Indutrac and MDS that do not require any power to activate magnets.
The RUF makes more sense. http://www.ruf.dk/ Cheaper by an order of magnitude per mile and you can drive on and off it. The lesson of the internet is that the first and last mile matter.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
What I don't understand about Mag-Lev's, is how they don't consume an inordinate amount of power - which isn't to say that they don't, I just don't see how they can't. If they worked with natural magnets on the train, and natural magnets on the track, I could see them being efficient, but everything I've seen shows the trains using electromagnets. Unlike a wheeled train which uses no energy to sit above the track, you'll need gobs of continuous power just to float the train, and you haven't even left the station yet. Am I wrong?
You people and your slight differences disgust me! - Prof. Farnsworth
For god sake, screw the pie in the sky stuff... just build some high speed rails between all the major cities like Chicago, Atlanta, KC, St Louis, Cleveland, etc..
Use the Interstate medians for all I care, just do it.
Flying sucks so much now, people will use it.
And when the oil runs out we can run the trains on cheap nuclear electricity and they will provide fast transportation that will be 1000x cheaper than flying using fossil fuels.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
The "Big Dig" in Boston is 3.5 miles and cost around $15,000,000,000. That's about 5 billion per mile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig_(Boston,_Massachusetts)/
Maglev and High speed rail is better city to city travel. Monorail, subways, el and lower speed rail is better for inter city and small city to city runs.
Passenger rail transport in the US does not need MagLev it just needs fast conventional trains and more of them ... ... The fastest train in use in the US goes at a maximum of 150 mph? (Acela Express between Boston and Washington) the international definition of "High Speed Rail" is 155 mph, so this does not even qualify?
France meanwhile has 1166 miles of High speed track that run at 200+ mph
The Japanese use conventional high speed trains where they can but want to use MagLev because it is fast AND quiet, they want to run high speed trains into the centre of large, densely populated cities and conventional trains are too noisy to run at high speed through densely populated areas.
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
The French have proved conventional contact-rail trains are more than capable of matching current Maglev trains....
World records:
TGV: 574.8 Kph
JR Maglev MLX01: 581 Kph
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6521295.stm
That's a whole 6-7 kph difference between the technology now and of the future.
That and a huge magnet.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Just out of curiosity, I looked up a couple of things you can buy for a hundred million bucks.. That amount of money will buy three airplanes like this one, for a start.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
A fleet of state funded 747s would get everybody there quicker/cheaper.
Plus, what about all the new power cables and power stations it would need. A project this big would cause a worldwide shortage of copper (which would push the "price per mile" through the roof).
America is simply too big for this sort of project. Building vast stretches of maglev track doesn't add up.
No sig today...
You could distribute power the old fashion way with a distribution rail or overhead wire and a contact pickup on the cars. Then put the linear motor with transformers and power control electronics inside the rail cars instead of the track. Not so neat but much more economical overall.
About the maglev windmill; Buzzword? Stupid. Why not use a oilpressure bearing instead, little more friction but lots less power needed. You want to *generate* power, right?
I realize I'm a broke ass, but how can one mile of anything cost 100 million ?
I could build a mile of naked people gently carrying bodysurfers along for less than 100 mil per mile.
Maybe instead of having these mag trains, we could just increase bandwidth the old-fashioned way: parallelism. Stick four train tracks where there was previous one, and you can move 4 times more people. Tech is nice, but it seems like this sort of outlay would cripple funding in more pressing areas. Transit is just transit, and today's jacked-in lifestyle makes much of it redundant.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
and I'm sure Chicagoans would prefer if it could be buried if it could be done cheaply. It's ugly, it's loud, it drips rusty water, it obstructs views of an already rarely seen sun, and it's not handicap accessible.
The parts of the L that are buried [the loop, for example] are far more pleasant.
P.S. Yes, it's L and not El. (source)
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Taken from NJ Transit's web site:
History & Structure
Created by the Public Transportation Act of 1979, NJ TRANSIT was established to "acquire, operate and contract for transportation service in the public interest."
In 1980, NJ TRANSIT purchased Transport of New Jersey, the State's largest private bus company at that time. Between 1981-85, the services of several other bus companies were incorporated into NJ TRANSIT Bus Operations, Inc. On January 1, 1983, a second subsidiary, NJ TRANSIT Rail Operations, Inc. was launched to assume operations of commuter rail in the State after Congress ordered Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) to cease its passenger operations. A third subsidiary, NJ TRANSIT Mercer, Inc., was established in 1984 when the agency assumed operation of bus service in the Trenton/Mercer County area. In 1992, following a full reorganization, all three subsidiaries were unified and operations were significantly streamlined.
As stakeholders in NJ TRANSIT, State residents are represented by a seven member Board of Directors, appointed by the Governor. Four members are from the general public and three are State officials. The agency is structured to encourage broad public participation in the formation of transit policy for the State. NJ TRANSIT's board meets monthly at NJ TRANSIT headquarters in Newark. The Governor can override board actions by vetoing the board meeting's minutes.
NJ TRANSIT Corporation's Board selects an Executive Director to administer the entire agency. The Executive Director serves as President of all three subsidiaries (NJ TRANSIT Bus Operations, NJ TRANSIT Rail Operations, Inc. and NJ TRANSIT Mercer, Inc.). In addition, NJ TRANSIT employs a Chief Operating Officer to coordinate operations.
Two transit advisory committees provide the agency with additional input from the public. The North Jersey Transit Advisory Committee and the South Jersey Transit Advisory Committee are each comprised of fourteen unsalaried members. Members of the North Jersey Transit Advisory Committee serve four-year terms. Members of the South Jersey Transit Advisory Committee serve three-year terms.
It is a government mandated corporation. NJ transit is clearly not a federal institution, and it services three states (NY, NJ, and PA), so what state Government agency pays NJ transit employees?
It's a private corporation - one mandated by law - the worst type of corporation you can have. Corporations typically have to respond to market conditions - as a corporation mandated by law, they are immune to market forces.
Here's some more info:
Company Info for njtransit.com:
New Jersey Transit
1 Penn Plaza E
Newark, NJ
07105
US
Phone: +1 973 491 8152
Fax: +1 973 491 7511
mslack [at] njtransit.com
Employees: 100 - 250
Ownership: Private
Revenue: $1 - 10M
Ticker: (No Data)
Downtown to the University in 2 minutes
3 miles of track
estimated start date: 2012
estimated end date: 2014
actual end date: 2029
estimated cost: 45 billion plus interest
expected ridership: 200 paying customers per day round trip, plus 500 vagrants who will use the train for shelter
Press conferences touting Seattle's uniquely green vision and can-do abilities: 2 per week during life of project
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Oh mate, when can we have some good old-fashioned guitar-based rock? Never mind your disco pop-music monorail, here's 2 4 6 8 Motorway Rock on!
Stick Men
Well, if there was a proposal to run a maglev train under a major city in tunnels that are below sea level, with it being a government project to boot, I could see the cost being that high.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
One also has to keep in mind that costs are hard to compare because of math differences: LANES (quotes are often for 1 lane), contractors, unions, graft, bridges, maintenance, quality/type, CO2, and often buying the LAND is left out... that could be the most expensive part too.
Some googles:
Light Rail biased
Extremely car biased; almost crazy
AK State Estimated Costs, excluding land
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Earnshaw's theorem only applies to a static configuration of magnets, which this is not.
Go read about Inductrack for a more detailed description of the idea. It is dynamically stable with no electromagnets or feedback systems. It is an exceptionally clever/simple design, and the only energy required is to overcome a small amount of electromagnetic drag.
The only drawbacks, are that the electromagnetic drag force in Inductrack varies inversely with speed, and also the lower efficiency of the vertical design. Given how much easier it is to create designs of enormously larger surface area though, these drawbacks are likely negligible. In addition, it has a huge advantage from a maintenance perspective, having (more or less) no moving parts.
However the details work out, it at least sounds plausible.
That will be dictated by the economics of price discrimination (at least, that's what I think). I expect that you will be cramped in like easyJet or RyanAir unless you pay like a coke addict. One of the reasons economy is such a crappy experience is to prevent business class customers from being tempted to save 90% of their ticket price by switching to economy class. To think that the train operators won't take a lesson from the very profitable airlines (think SouthWest in the US) isn't cynical enough.
As for terror attacks: I'm sure citizens of Tokyo haven't forgotten (as you have) the Savrin gas attack. As for destruction of other building and property, I'd image that the high speed impact of a hijacked maglev with the center city terminal would cause huge disruption and affect a large number of people. The hijackers don't have to apply the brakes when they're supposed to; remember that the first tower on 9-11 was hit before anyone knew the planes were hijacked).
To CommandNotFound, who said
I can only say "Wow". Rail can't compete with air travel which receives subsidies for
Rail can't compete with Interstate roads which is nothing but a subsidy. Even toll roads are built with pork. But the existence of all those private vehicles is supported by local subsidies for parking and local travel.
Rail can't compete? Just let it try!
I'm not for subsidies in general, so I'd be more supportive of
Thus, maybe the USA will finaly have some user-friendly mass transportation that is
BOTH 1. very fast *AND* 2. doesn't require mandatory body cavities search because of some post 9/11 paranoia.
Cumbersome regulations like the limit of transported liquids are the main reason why I prefer trains when travelling through europe (It's much faster here, thanks to TGV in France and similar projects in other countries).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In Pittsburgh, the Feds approved an extension of the light rail system to the NorthShore which is home to football and baseball teams and... a casino. The politicians didn't even want it! But since the money was already appropriated... they are building it anyways.
That goes along with a billion dollar airport which is basically EMPTY. Only in America!
In the 21st century, do we really need something this expensive when we lack a national scale urban and rural modern broadband infrastructure, and our water and sewer and normal highway bridge infrastructure is falling apart? Where is the US now, a notch above Zimbabwe or something with broadband? Should they be considering moving electrons and data for government office workers instead of humans? Let us face reality, this would be used in the northeast corridor, moving office workers/bureaucrats/lobbiests-bribers around primarily. 100 million per mile? And in the article. to haul gamblers to Vegas faster? WTF? This is a national priority that untold billions should be spent on?
Cool tech and all, really, quite impressive, but not seeing any huge need for it, an expensive solution looking for a problem. Let's fix what is broken first across the entire nation before adding in new gee-whizz tech that will only be used for a very limited subset of the population. I mean, look at the economy now with the mortgage meltdown, and know that next year those numbers are set to go up sixfold. Think about it... we need to start conserving cash and be thinking about cheaper ways to do stuff, not more expensive.
As to rails, I like trains, but people need to know they have been going way out of their way the past..years, I forget how many.. ripping out track all over. Miles and miles and miles of it. They could have just maintained the normal track and made better "normal" trains, had them go more places, for a much smaller amount of cash by far. As to travel in general, how about getting motor vehicles that actually get good mileage out there,combined with smarter traffic light systems? Why is it you can get fantastic mileage autos every place in the world *except* the US? It's only lately that we have a very limited selection of conventional hybrid cars on the dealers lots, where are the cleaner diesel hybrid electric plug in cars, and the all electric vehicles? With average commute being 33 miles, conventional and relatively cheap battery tech is "good enough" right now for that, no need for 100 grand lithium ion battery packs and cars only the most wealthy could afford, NiMH and AGM lead acid are perfectly fine for that purpose and loads cheaper, many home builders/gear heads have examples of this that are being driven daily. But what makes the headlines? "Hydrogen economy" cars that cost a million bucks apiece and would require a trillion dollars (some huge number) in infrastructure additions just to fuel them up and require scrapping every single vehicle out there to be replaced with some fuel cell thing that would get contaminated anyway in a short time frame and be undriveable. Nuts. We need cheap and efficient fixes and upgrades, and spread out all over for all the citizens, not this boondoggle stuff that only goes to a very few rich people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductrack
The track itself is completely passive and unpowered, removing the need for additional power infrastructure. The train itself contains permanent magnets (or powered superconducting electromagnets) and the rail system is made up of shorted coils of wire or layers of copper/aluminum sheet metal. As the train passes over the track, an EM field is induced in the track with the same polarity as the magnets in the train, causing the two to repel one another. It's a delightfully simple concept/design that I wish received more R&D money. I first heard of it almost ten years ago and I'm surprised it isn't being more widely used today.
I think (and I could be mistaken) that the only thing holding back this technology is that if the train isn't coupled to the track in any way, how do you propel the train without using noisy forms of propulsion like rockets or jet engines? I suppose you could ignite a rocket or jet engine for short bursts in rural areas to produce tremendous speeds and then coast until the next "burst zone" (or whatever you'd call it). But then what do you do in urban areas? Maybe have a mile or two of "acceleration tunnel" to build up initial speed? In an ideal world (hell, if we're spending $100m on every mile of track...) we could totally enclose the train in a tube, depressurize it, and send the thing cross-country at supersonic speeds.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
"A maglev train is essentially a plane without wings, so speeds of 300+MPH are not unreasonable right now. In theory, though, a Maglev can reach the 500+MPH of a commercial jet."
Sure, in theory.
But how do you police the lines so that a herd of deer or buffalo aren't on the tracks? How do you handle the fact that the train has to slow down to about 30 MPH as it goes through towns and over grade crossings?
Not to mention running into people and their vehicles. If you're going to have something hurtling through the countryside at 300 MPH, things get pretty complicated pretty quick.
Neither RayanAir nor Southwest have business class: there is no choice for business travellers to pay extra. Also, the train operators in Europe still provide a much nicer passenger experience.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Here in Seattle, we're paying over 3 times that for a light rail system getting built now. And looking to pay 5 times that to add another 2 mile spur (yes, $300 million and $1.5 billion). Maybe in perfectly flat Nebraska could you build for $100 million per mile, but anywhere where the topology is "interesting" in the least you're looking at a LOT more.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Inductrack doesn't work in a static configuration either, so there is absolutely nothing new there. It's certainly not magic.
The problem is this IS a static configuration. At least it must be considered as such unless it can be guaranteed that a minimum wind will be present 100% of the time. Below a certain threshhold, you will either need a system that can support a static condition or supply energy to the structure to keep it spinning just enough to prevent collapse.
=Smidge=
And when there is not enough wind to spin it?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Trains are OK. Trains where the track costs $100million/mile I have a problem with.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
There is no need for levitation when the system is idle, and in that case it will rest on wheels, just like the train. Wear and tear is not an issue, as the wheels must only accommodate very low speed operation, and are rarely in use.
There may be issues with the idea, but Earnshaw's theorem is completely irrelevant. The mere mention of it suggests complete ignorance of the technology involved. That is not unexpected, since the article makes no mention of Inductrack, but why continue with this?
Americans like their cars and won't give them up for short trips. The one exception might be going to Vegas where once you get there you generally just stay in the hotels and use the inter-hotel shuttle system anyways. Every weekend the road from LA to Vegas turns into a parking lot on Friday and another parking lot on Sunday going the other way. It's taken me 10 hours to go what is normally a 4 hour drive.
If they had a train that made this route quickly, it would be filled to capacity all the time. The best part is you could probably get Nevada or the casino's to help cover a good chunk of the cost.
Ahh, but compared to the Shelbyville Bullet, our new maglev kicks butt. Therefore, it must be done.
Shelbyville, n: Town in The Simpsons, in Japan, or in any country other which arrogance tells us we have to be better than.
Maglev, n: nice idea, for some ideal country where people actually realise that public transport is potentially better than the private variety.
We have a system in Southern California called Metrolink that basically hooks up the Los Angeles and surrounding counties. Given I am from the east coast and would *love* to be able to take the train/subway to work; I always try to make excuses to use it. However, given the structure of the communities in not only Southern California, but also any city that does not have rail systems; makes this almost a pointless issue. You will still have to drive to whatever station, take the train (if your lucky point to point) and then find alternate transport to the final destination.
I been planning a trip from OC to San Diego and I only wanted to take the train. I have two options currently. I can take Metrolink to Oceanside, then transfer to the Breeze system (could be wrong about the name), then get on the SD Trolley to finish getting downtown. Three train system transfers alone between two neighboring majorly populated areas. Not station transfers on the same system. This of course is minus driving to the station and then taking taxi or walking a mile or two atleast in downtown SD to the final destination.
There have been many proposals about Maglev and other trains to Vegas which again would be great. However, the most promising and realistic option would end the line in like Ontario or Victorville or similar area. The issue here is, the bulk of the drive is coming and leaving from OC (if we are only talking about taking 55 to 91 to 15), so once your out past Victorville, long as there is no accident its usually ok. Literally half or more then the average time is just getting the show on the road or the final 10% (don't forget 87% of statistics are made up, but any SoCal'er will know what I am talking about).
About the best I could think of, atleast for the area is high speed link between the airports, to Vegas, and maybe up the coast. Then also make the trains available at real hours. I could take Metrolink to Union Station, then um, red line (maybe?) to Hollywood to party. However, last trains run very early on weekend so it is of no advantage. Even my aforementioned trip to SD, very few trains on weekend are scheduled. I realize why, but thats also part of why its not used as much on the weekend.
Sorry to diverge, but just wanting to point out, SoCal, like many areas of the country will have many other infrastructure issues to overcome first before adding Maglev on top of it, no matter how great I think it is.
The whole point of levetation was to reduce friction. You put the thing on wheels, you add friction. This added friction will be present until it is spinning fast enough to achieve stable levitation. You keep mentioning Inductrack, which as I said is not at all magical. It is irrelevant how the thing is levitated once it's in motion (that's the easy part), the problem is getting it to that state and keeping it there. Inductrack does jack squat unless things are moving.
With talk of "giant" devices, how strong a wind will you need to get that thing going? Inertia is a bitch.
After some googling I found this: "The MaglLev is able to utilize winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s), and cut-in speeds of 3 m/s, the chief of Zhongke Energy was quoted as saying at the exhibition."
They already have designs that beat that performance.
=Smidge=
From the wind turbine Maglev Article:
The full-permanent magnet system employs neodymium ("rare earth") magnets and there is no energy loss through friction.
Uhhhhh . . . no.
No such thing as a frictionless system. Even air itself in a maglev system provides efficiency hogging friction. Yeah the friction is much less than bearings but it isn't zero.
Maybe the article is a little bit too hype and this is a big clue?
-- Mean People Suck
You probably missed the news then, because congress just had the very first override of a presidential veto over a big water infrastructure bill, said bill being so important the bulk of the nations governors and senators and reps are mostly for it and it isn't because the water system is in great shape and they want to just polish the chrome faucet handles. And you probably have been missing the news of the huge droughts all over and how we don't have good enough storage capacity, and how the big everglades reclamation effort(the Florida water sponge) is stalled dead in the tracks from lack of funding, even with the new bill passed.
Really, I am not blowing smoke here, the national water infrastructure is severely stretched right now, google is your friend there,all over the nation really, along with the bridges and a lot of the normal roads. I could provide a lot more links to prove this point, but just run your own keyword searches there. Estimates for just reppairing what we have now to fix fall betweeen the OMG! and How many zeroes??!! levels. Want just a tiny example of how weird it is getting? Just in the past few months over 90,000 horses have been literally abandoned in the southeast US as people who have them no longer have the grass nor the water to keep them. I am contemplating getting a couple myself, but still not sure if we have adequate needs right now for our small cow herd (I live in north georgia on a big farm, but the drought over all has been bad here, although we did get 1.5 inches of rain this last weekend so that is welcome)(we only harvested 20% of our normal average haycrop this year), going to see how it goes the next month before making a decision. Long range weather is looking bad with la nina, real bad. And look at the mess going on with atlants water supply and water needs further downstream for power plants and to keep some fisheries going in florida. they are goping to run out! they are *mining* water now, it is not being replensihed at anywhere's near the rate it needs to be, and even with emergency restrictions there is a good chance that sucker is going down. There just isn't enough, and we needed a thousand(whatever, bignum there) more huge reservoirs built ten years ago all over the country. And they want billions to build a high speed maglev train to move plutocrats and gamblers around?? And my other point of the dismal state of national broadband still stands as well, we are way down the list on every ranking index I have seen and dropping yearly.
As to getting better cars out there, I agree, totally. They need to drastically increase cafe standards beyond a joke level and shake detroit to its very roots to get them to pay attention, and offer something like eliminating ad valorem and sales tax for plugin hybrids that achieve 60 mpg or better, or pure electrics, and stuff like that. I am also in favor of a national 100% tax credit for installation of active alternative energy solutions for homeowners and small business, to get a lot more points of production out there, and to keep it in place for at least a decade. a manhattan project or moonrace project effort, something of that scale, massive and *now*, right now, pass the damn bill as an emergency measure. If we wait for the economy to collapse further and oil get closer to two hundred a barrel than one hundred like now...well..we just won't be able to do it. The second (or third) worlding of the US will follow.
In other words, we don't need any more dumb fixes, we need smart fixes, cheap fixes, and multi billion wasted dollar magleve trains aren't even a fix, they are just rich peoples toys.
"After some googling I found this: "The MaglLev is able to utilize winds with starting speeds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s), and cut-in speeds of 3 m/s, the chief of Zhongke Energy was quoted as saying at the exhibition."
They already have designs that beat that performance."
Agreed, there are turbines that start spinning sooner and cut-in before that. The problem...
When it starts spinning and where it cuts-in don't tell the whole story. What's more important is 'dollars spent for watts produced'. That's the "efficiency" that really matters.
If these guys are close to truthful (I kind of doubt it) then 1 of these levitating turbines will produce as much power as 1000 conventional turbines. The last time I checked, 1 turbine that size is roughly 1.2-2 million dollars installed. In order for the levitating turbine to be more efficient (where it counts) it only needs to replace 50 or so conventional turbines...with some give or take.
If the levitating turbine only achieves 1/10th of the output they estimate (and it does so on-budget) then it can replace 100 conventional turbines....$53m vs $120m-200m.
1) Radar? Then what? Deer can come and go in an instant. It will take MILES to slow down the train or stop it.
2) If you don't route the train through towns, how do you propose picking up passengers?
3) Imagine building these overpasses for 300-500 MPH. These things will have to be miles long or the train will look like Evil Kneivel as it exits the ramps.
Such a steal, too - they include the cockpit sunvisor in your $28,950,000 pricetag!
Evolution ceases when stupidity can no longer be fatal.
a) airlines don't have to pay for the land they fly over. What if I don't want any aircraft flying over my house? That's my land that they are violating.
That's not a subsidy it's an intrinsic advantage of air travel
b) aircraft design is very heavily subsidized by the military. Everything in a commercial aircraft is deritative from bomber design.
Also not a subsidy just a side benefit of military spending that would happen even if there were no 3rd commercial party was incidentally benefiting from it.
c) US airlines are repeatedly bailed out by the government. Look at the how much money the taxpayers forked over to the airlines after 9/11.
Granted, though that one time deal hardly qualifies as "repeatedly" and per passenger mile the worst excesses in corporate welfare in the airline industry can't come close to the subsidies that have kept Amtrak going since 1971.
The "high speed" line between NYC and Washington,D.C. already won't tolerate 90+MPH due to the wind stress that occurs on bridges when the train passes through- at least that's what they told us. Sounds odd to me, but if trains aren't permitted to go >100 for significant portions, then why bother with something faster.
As far as using the trains in the Middle/West of America - there's just not enough of a population density to support this. Something like 80% of the USA's population is located within 200 miles of the coasts.
..........FULL STOP.
$100M/mile sounds low to me. Seattle voters just turned down a ballot measure that would have build ~50 miles of light rail at a cost of approximately $20 billion: $400M/mile. And that was plain old low-speed light rail...
With rail, or maglev or a monorail, an APM, or even a bus you are moving a group of people from A to Z, stopping at B, C, D, E, F.... on the way. This is SLOW. It doesn't matter how fast the top speed is if you have to sit stationary for 30 seconds every 2 miles while people get on and off.
When you have a group of people on the vehicle it has to stop at B at 5 mins past the hour, C at 10mins past, D at 15 mins past etc etc so that people can be there waiting at the station. This is also SLOW. Think about it, you have to leave early, travel to the station and then wait for everyone else to arrive at the scheduled time on the vehicle.
Of course then there's the fact that you want to go south east to your destination but the route which the vehicle must travel only goes east, so you have to switch to another mode in order to make it to your destination.
The result of all this is that any form of travel which moves groups of people is subject to a set of fundamental limitations which make it really SLOW under most circumstances. The optimal circumstances for a group vehicle are point to point from source to destination with no stops in between. Something like an inter city express train. For anything else they suck.
PRT on the other hand is always point to point non stop because it doesn't have to stop at intermediate stations to let passengers on and off.
Deleted
It looks more palatable than a windfarm but its so damn tall that that the land area may be moot versus the "sight pollution".
Don't worry, no one will have to worry about sight pollution anymore once all the lights go out because everyone was busy pissing and moaning for selfish, ignorant, inconsequential reasons about alternative energy.
Random and weird software I've written.
There are many ways to make maglev,
The work of Eric Laithwaite Induct tract methods are expensive, but there are also
Eddy Current levitation and Servo Feedback levitation.
With the last 2 the track could just an aluminum rail. On the train is super magnets, like Neodymium Rare Earth magnets. When you move the train it will generate eddy currents and repel in a manner similar to super conductive levitation this is call Lenz's law.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~scidemos/ElectricityMagnetism/MagneticLevitation/MagneticLevitation.html
Also Electro Magnets could be used with an alternating current to repel the aluminum track and provide lift and also move the train alone a plain (passive) aluminum track using magnetic hysteresis.
The point it the track could be make very cheap and put the more expensive coils or magnets on the train itself. it's possible to do the whole thing purely mechanical too.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Sure - John Woo blows up stuff sometimes, but aside from squibs he doesn't really spend too much money. Doves are only a couple hundred for several dozen.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Seattle geography only allows light rail to be only viable rail solution. Can't do subway. Can't do monorail.
I think mostly you need a city government that doesn't have to deal with pesky voters, right of way, or eminent domain - like Beijing.
They're literally finished with hundreds of kilometers of subway in just 4-5 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Subway#Lines_planned_or_under_construction.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Oops. Tens. Not hundreds of kilometers.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
That would be $300 billion dollars to make a coast to coast maglev. That's actually pretty cheap when you consider the price of flying.
Maglevs also need boarding stations and energy to run.
No sig today...
Now, I apologize for not being an expert on locamotives and such, but are there any Maglev lines that have fright cars running on them? Maintaining the US's current railway system is a pain as it is (mostly because people fail to acknowledge that it is practical.) Maintaining a system dedicated *only* to freight and *only* to people-movers would never pass here.
I'd love to use the railway system here, and hopefully it'll get fixed within my life time. I really want to take Amtrak from my home in Minneapolis to Richmond in a few months when I go out there to go apartment hunting because I don't see any other opportunity to view as much of the landscape with as little of a hassle. Unfortunately, I can't take Amtrak from Madison to Richmond, but would instead have to go to some (relatively) small town about an hour away to get to an Amtrak station (and when I say I want to depart from Madison, Amtrak's website wants me to take Greyhound to Chicago to get to an Amtrak station. In order for me to take a train from Minneapolis to Madison, Amtrak's site wants me to take the train from MSP to Chicago, then Greyhound it from Chicago to Madison for a grand total of 12 hours or so.) It just doesn't make sense.
Earnshaw's Theorem doesn't apply here.
"Earnshaw's theorem states that a collection of point charges cannot be maintained in a stable stationary equilibrium configuration solely by the electrostatic interaction of the charges."
You're forgetting about gravity. All it needs are some fixed, well-secured magnets (they're using rare-earth magnets, not electromagnets), and the weight of the thing will keep it from moving out of its "tracks".
Emphasis mine.
In short, unless there is a mechanical limit somewhere, or a means to vary the field strength, or an inertial stabilization (spinning) the thing will twist, topple and slide any way it can to jam itself up. Go ahead and try it.
=Smidge=
1) You can find the animals all you want. If you spot a bison on the track 100 yards down the road, or a herd, then what do you do? Even if the computer jams on the brakes, you'll still hit it. Imagine what a fun ride for the passengers.
And I'm very aware of what they do in france. They just don't happen to have large animals that will wander on the tracks. Plus, they maintain a fence along the length of the tracks. Think about that for something that goes from NY to LA. Imagine that fence. Imagine maintaining it.
Imagine the operating costs of what you're proposing.
2) If you don't travel through all these minor cities to pick up passengers, you set up a system where people have to drive their cars all over to pick up the train from a major city. How does that help the traffic situation? I'm not proposing stopping at every little hamlet, but if you travel in the Northeast, you've got to stop at DC, Wilmington, Philly, Jersey, NYC, New Haven, Groton, and Boston. If you don't do that, you can't get the critical mass to make passenger service work. You have to do that kind of calculation for every route you do. You can't just build it in New York and Boston and figure everybody will get there on bus.
Imagine the land acquisition costs alone are going to set you back more than the Maglev in this corridor.
3) I'm very familiar with overpasses for trains. They usually have a speed limit of about 60 MPH or less and have very gentle slopes to support this speed. Work the physics as to how you would build that overpass. What you'd end up doing is making the overpass level with the ground, and tunneling everything else underneath. Your costs just went through the roof.
I'm not saying this isn't an interesting idea, but I don't see this is economically viable.
Seattle is not suited for light rail, either. Most of our hills around here have a grade WAY too steep for even light rail. Even buses bog down, but at least they can climb the hills! So rather than going with buses, our wonderful traffic planners have chosen to TUNNEL under hills so we can have a grade suitable for light rail. And that brings massive costs AND extra concern as we're in the middle of Earthquake zone (just had a tiny 4.0 last night near Seattle).
Additionally, the Sounder (our heavy rail transport) regularly shuts down 10-15 days each winter thanks to mudslides over the tracks. We get a bit of rain around here in Seattle, and slides and washouts are a fact of life. So we end up disrupting our heavy rail transit for 16-20% of the winter season.
The problem is that too many people are infatuated with rail or rail-based solutions. If Seattle wanted to solve its transit issues, it would run buses in a highly decentralized system. Half of all commutes in Seattle run counter to the main "into the city in the morning". We have huge working populations outside Seattle thanks to Boeing, Microsoft, and other large employers. So we have a lot of cross-highway commuting.
Rail simply does not make sense in the Everett-to-Olympia corridor. We don't have enough population density (or even population; I think more people live in the Minhang District of Shanghai, where my Chinese apartment is, than live in the entire Seattle metropolitan area!), we do not have enough of a consistent commute pattern, and our geography makes rail nearly impossible to site than other on a few narrow right-of-ways (which already have freight rail lines).
Sometimes, rail just doesn't make sense. Using buses works really well as a substitute. Many here in Seattle demand that we get rail so we become "a world class city". Silly me, I always thought being a "world class city" meant being smart and using the transit solution that ACTUALLY works!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
We can't have modern technology here in the US because of all the terrorists. We are just too insecure. They will use these bullet trains like bullets and shoot our cities in the head if we build them. Run for your lives, run for your money, but whatever you do don't let the terrorists have train shaped bullets.
http://www.google.com/search?sID=50eccc6e2b0d307d5e8a40fb296f6171&pQ=maglev+power+consumption&libr=81ad859f5795b8f8018f2c4405ee1290&btnI&abc=a2735179cb176f5e0c64262a7f03d515&q=slashdot.org&ororo=f3789b3c1be47758203f9e8a4d8c6a2a
Could someone explain to me how this URL works like it does? Is it just submitting an "I'm feeling lucky" for me, or is it doing something else?
It seems that all that is necessary is the code I left here... http://www.google.com/search?source=&q=test&btnI&q=slashdot.org is the rest just obfuscation or does it do something else I am unaware of
I'm sure this is really old stuff, But I have never seen it before (thankfully my PSP has images disabled)
Web Developers: Celebrate to our roots! Animated Gifs and Tiled Backgrounds, dont let our history die!
Hmm, it appears I did. I haven't gone through the math or tested it yet, but I'll assume this Earnshaw fellow knew what he was talking about. Still, one could use diamagnets to stabilize it, rather than ferromagnets. These are an exception to the law in that they violate the assumptions. So these windmills could still work the way the article claims.
You can read about Japan's Maglev project here Yamanashi Maglev.
Wife and I took trains from Hiedelberg to Paris -- the German trains were nice - at the German / French border we switched to the TGV. What a sweet ride --- and yes there is a "little bump" called the Alps we had to go over. So at that point we were only traveling 60-70MPH -- as we got into the rolling hills (farm land) you could feel the acceleration as the engineer(?) rolled on the speed. For long stretches we were really cooking along.
..... but they will make the most sense as the price of fuel continues its upward spiral.
TGV trainsets travel at up to 320 km/h (200 mph) in commercial use. ----- Wikipedia
And the rails / rail bed very smooth -- no clickty-clack. I agree that such trains in the US make the most sense in a regional setting
Its not the years, its the mileage
I was thinking "how do they spend that little"? I still don't believe it.
Los Angeles' abortion of a subway system had a 3 mile extension in 2000. Total cost: $1.5 billion. And subways are an established technology.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
BMW's ultimate service means zero maintenance costs for 50,000 miles:
http://www.bmwusa.com/Owners/BMWUltimateService/default
You are right about the fuel costs - but her commuting costs were about 6 times the fuel cost in your example.
-ted
Maglev works by magnetic repulsion from a metallic surface. Rails are metallic. Someone needs to figure out how to use existing rails for maglev.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
There have been talks about a high-speed/MagLev train between LA and Las Vegas since at least 1985. Twenty-two years later --- nothing.
Clap, clap. You got me sir. Well done.
But Seattle also voted FOUR TIMES FOR a monorail. Voting don't mean shit in Seattle. Glorious Greg will decide what SLUT to spend the money on!
-- I have a private email server in my basement.