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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.
You need to remember that you don't have that costly climb to 10 km. It will probably be a lot cleaner.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
2) You don't have to carry an entire trip's worth of fuel with you.
If this was a viable alternative to air travel
The airliners have nothing to fear. Since the trains levitate, the TSA will simply declare that they have authority over security for them, and they'll make sure its just as much of a hassle as flying.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Yeah, we are really being pummeled with terrorist attacks over here in the US. All of the place. They are something we should definitely not advance our horrid land-based transit system for.
Two thoughts on this. First, yeah, why do you guys do that? What is it about Americans that they want their towns to be so mindbogglingly inconvenient? I don't know about you, but I like to be able to, I don't know, pop out for some milk and fresh tomatoes, stroll down to the fountain where the pretty girls walk by, go for a coffee or a beer or an ice cream, perhaps even walk to work! This is supposed to be a democracy—why build such misery for yourselves?
Second, HSTs, like aircraft, connect hubs, not suburbs. Starting and stopping works better than with a plane, but it still puts a hell of a dent in your average speed, which is your selling point. The population density of the US is more than a quarter of that of the EU; that means that the distance between hubs is on average only doubled—and the fact that there's nothing much happening in the midwest only argues in favour of trains by pushing up the density on the sides. Indeed, if we take the (sadly American) argument that we cannot take any risks and we can only deploy technology where we are sure it is justified, well, France has HSTs. If you need a population distribution like that of France to do this thing, then—if I read these maps right—there ought to be HSTs (and I mean like TGV, not Acela) from Boston to DC, from New York to Chicago, and within the states of California and Florida.
Of course, what's really going on is that America just doesn't do infrastructure, because the country is hung up on a psychological model of 'winning' against the 'competition' by holding back your neighbours. That's why businesses talk all the time about 'market share' and in times of difficulty fire R&D and boost marketing. If you built a train system, other people could use it! Perhaps even—OMG—poor people! Then how would I know I was better than them?
(And I'm not making this up. I'm living in San Jose and hearing what the people around me are saying about the light rail, the BART extension, the HST project.)
Exactly, but so long as AMTRAK is in charge of managing this it will never happen. Acela had the potential to steal massive amounts of travel from the airlines. If you could do Boston to NYC in 2 hours by train it would be faster/cheaper than flying.
Its the politics and half-assed shortcuts that are preventing it. Would it take financial capital to start up? Sure. But if done RIGHT it would return on its investment pretty quickly. However Amtrak is constantly doing it wrong. They need a dedicated line, with maybe 2 inter city stops. The train needs to run full out the entire time its not stopped. I'm not 100% certain of the route Acela uses, but if it stopped once in RI and once in CT you could be doing 150mph the entire time in between. Even at $100 per ticket thats far better than flying. How many Boston to NY flights are their daily?
In general the US just has a broken view of how train infrastructures should work. The best model for a place like the US is a hub system. You designate major metros that have inter city traffic as hubs (NYC, Boston, DC, Philly) You run limited highspeed inter city trains between them. Dedicated lines for the majority/all of the trip. Once a person gets to the city they can use conventional rail to travel to surrounding areas if they so choose. Having intercity trains slowed waiting on local traffic or making local stops is just a terrible idea.
I ran an itinerary of a Boston to LA train trip on Amtrak and the number of stops was just silly. Amtrak just needs to realize its cheaper to ignore some areas and improve travel times and they will be able to be competitive with airlines. If I could do Boston or NYC to Chicago with say 4-5 stops Same thing for Boston->NYC->DC, and be able to do it at 150mph on average, then $100/ticket 1 way would be more than reasonable, considering you'd be looking at double that for a plan ticket.
As mentioned in one of the above posts, the key is flight time + airport time + 20% > train time between 2 cities. The 20% makes up for the fact that people will consider slightly longer for a significant savings in cost.
That doesn't really have any bearing on my point. People complain about complexity of endeavors whenever it comes to upgrading our infrastructure. Canada had adverse conditions to running rail, and yet the succeeded. It seems pretty clear to me that rail can be used effectively in just about any environment, given proper planning and execution.
Also, relying solely on one form of transportation, whether it be air, rail, ship, or car, is a mistake. Continuously improving all forms of transportation is in the best interests of our society and economy. Remember 9/11? Every plane grounded. How many flights are delayed due to weather? Likewise for rail and roads with earthquakes. IMHO America is embarrassingly behind on rail. We used to be known for our daring innovation and technological know-how. Now it seems like we just want to whine and collect profits.
Have you traveled around the United States? In many places we have geology for that too. Unfortunately, many of these cutting edge ideas won't get off the ground because of the current deficits and millions of Joe Plumbers who will fight for every cent spent outside their pocket. I will not be surprised to hear that things like high speed trains and ability to use cell phones for purchases will be linked to socialism and "'em Asians." While the whole world is trying to march forward this country seems to be taking one step back at a time.
But let's focus on geology for now. There are many valleys and flat places around the U.S. that scream "give me a train!" You can put a train between San Francisco and Los Angeles without fighting the terrain too much. Will Californians do it? Does not look like it because nobody wants to give money. Mid-west and Eastern U.S. are prime candidates for more rails as well. Hell, even if somebody put a high speed train between Silicon Valley and some place in low Sierra I would love to commute on that every day. If I can spend one hour on a train and live 250 miles away from my place of work, that would be awesome. We don't have to focus on extremely long distances. Why not build trains to connect places that can be connected? Fewer cars on the road, shorter lines in airports. It is not about building socialism or taking away your car. It is all about leverage. If we ground our aircraft for some reason or if there is a problem with a major highway it will only make sense to take a train. Currently we put all our eggs in one basket and when oil shoots past $140pbl everybody goes ape shit because we are simply forced to pay the price. We can't avoid it. We can't say "Gee dear, I will be taking a train today since there is no need to stop by for groceries after work."
But yeah, leave it to Japan and other socialist countries to leave the world. Let's focus on 9/11, terrorism and THAT ONE with his ties to Arabs and Muslims.
I remember reading a report that said that for the cost of the "stimulus checks" that the government wrote last spring (150billion), they could have built a 300+mph train from SF to Chicago, using 2 tracks, one for eastbound, one for westbound. Future projects would be cheaper, since that included wiggle room to iron out a few problems. so that's what, 5-6 hours from SF-Chicago, with all the legroom you could want, large bathrooms, dinner cars, etc? No more feeling like cattle, no more airport body cavity searches. Something 600-1000 people per train, trains leaving every hour or less.. My god that would clear up roads and airports.
I was just thinking about that yesterday. If we stimulated the economy by way of good old fashioned public works projects instead of just cutting checks for everyone, we'd leave a much more useful legacy to society than a few million houses with an extra plasma TV each. On the other hand I suppose it's good that people got a chance to pay down credit card bills and take some debt out of the system.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
you'd first have to address the problem of (sub)urban sprawl. public transportation is incredibly efficient with good urban planning. but since the 1950's urban sprawl caused a shift away from transit-oriented development. people began relying more and more on personal transportation. with the advent of the superhighway, introduced by Eisenhower's Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, people began commuting 50-60 miles to work and population density began to thin out.
but now that private vehicle ownership is considered the social norm, with public transportation out of vogue, the public highway system is being stretched to its limit. traffic congestion has become a major problem in most urban areas. and with skyrocketing gas prices, many people are finally starting to realize the stupidity of dreaming of living in sprawling suburbs and bedroom communities far and removed from job opportunities.
the rise of car-dependent communities basically makes it impossible to walk anywhere. and everything is too spread out due to leapfrog development and single-use zoning for public transportation to be practical. add on top of this the incompetent management of commercial transit systems in many areas, and you end up with completely unusable public transportation. in my area it takes me 2 hours to get to a medical clinic by bus when it only takes me 10-15 minutes driving my car.