Magnetic Levitating Trains Get Go-Ahead In Japan

An anonymous reader writes "They've been on the drawing board for 40 years but the politicos have finally approved routes for the 500kph maglev trains to replace bullet trains." I wonder if they'll let me test out maglev rollerblades on the track.

Comments

The US already has a maglev

[AnEducatedNegro]

Our university has had this technology on our campus for almost 10 years now. If you're wondering how it works check out Dr Lawrence Weinstein's page on maglevs. Our current problem is vibration which makes riding at any speed intolerable. AEN

Re:The US already has a maglev

[jmichaelg]

The Japanese have solved the vibration problem along with a host of others. There have been a few other problems that crept up like quenching and the not insignificant problem of cost.

Quenching appears in magnets when they're jiggled enough that the atoms lose their orientation and the material stops being magnetic. According to their blog, that happened to them at least once a few years back (around 2001-2002). At the time, one of the American inventors, Jim Powell, told me that his partner and co-inventor of superconducting maglev, Gordon Danby, thought that the Japanese had not used pure enough aluminum. Using purer aluminum, of course, drives up the already high cost of the technology.

Contrary to what you might think, the roadbed is not magnetic as that would have made the cost far too high. Instead, they line the roadbed with aluminum plates that become magnetic in the presence of a moving magnetic field. The magnetic field is provided by superconductors on the train. When the train is moving slowly, it runs on rubber tires as the roadbed can't generate enough lift to support the train.

Cost has been the key factor that his stalled this technology. I've seen cost estimates as high as almost $1 billion/mile. The Tokyo-Osaka link was estimated at $200 billion. This proposal coming in at $50 billion for the short route from Tokyo to Nagoya of 160 miles is saying they can build it at .3 $billion/mile. The detours, of course, will drive the cost up as well as slow the train down.

So if nothing else, the Japanese will provide the world with real data for both construction and operating costs. Their test bed already provides lots of interesting video. Best part is at 5:30.

Re:Efficiency

[bdenton42]

From http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/transportation/4232548.html?page=2 they appear to be saying maglev is about 36% the energy cost of airplanes and about 43% of conventional trains.

Stupid blog post is slashdotted

[level4]

And I hate those stupid blog stories anyway.

Here's a real article with actual information:

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20081022a1.html

Re:Population Density

[camperdave]

The TSA has no need to declare levitating trains as aircraft. They already have authority over rail traffic and mass transit sytems like subways and busses.

Re:Population Density

[Rakshasa Taisab]

This sort of project makes a lot of sense in a place like Japan where there are a few places with very dense population separated by rural areas.

No... NO IT DOESN'T!!!

It makes sense only in the minds of people who only know the image Japan wants to project to the world.

They don't need _even faster_ trains using Ãbertech, they already got the shinkansen. Shaving off 30 minutes of the ride from Tokyo to Osaka isn't worth it, when the effort should really be spent on making what they have _affordable_.

Wasting enormous sums of money (that they don't have, most of it is funneled out of the postal savings and pension funds... Which, btw forced the previous prime minister to resign cause they 'lost' all the records of how much people had deposited) on unneeded construction projects is the _LAST_ thing Japan needs.

They should try to bury all the cables hanging around everywhere... Seriously, only place in the country where they bury cables are Shinjuku and Harajuku; as a pilot program. It's so ugly that after a while you just learn to ignore it, yet still it lingers in the back of your head.

Or they could build people real houses, instead of these un-isolated plastic... things. Winter here isn't _that_ warm.