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Japan's MagLev Gets Go Ahead
ThinkPad760 writes "The Japanese government has finally given approval to build the long awaited MagLev train linking Tokyo and Osaka via Nagoya. But don't hold your breath. Construction will start in 2014. The Tokyo Nagoya section will be completed in 2027 with the final section to Osaka complete by 2045. I was hoping my wife could buy me a ticket as my retirement present, but looks like I have a wait a couple of years after that."
It's funny because the technology will be long outdated by then.
Let's point to the many long term development projects right here in the United States. Crickets. Enjoy.
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A faster trip to the funeral home you'll never find, unless they bring back the Concorde..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Always with the magnets.
TFA mentions 67 minutes travel time. The Shinkansen takes 155 minutes for the same distance, so this would be a significant improvement. The cities are 500 km apart, even an airplane would not take significantly less than an hour.
we can all get crammed into a tin can that runs at 300 mph rather than 150!
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
You say this now - but when they shoot down your orbital space-elevator, you won't be laughing.
Why would they have to raise our taxes? Invade one less third world shithole per presidency, and the budget wouldn't be balanced, we'd have a fucking surplus that could see us with goddamned maglev trains to the goddamned doorstep.
But of course, THAT'S SOCIALISM. And we don't stand for none of that there socialism here in 'murrica.
They kept saying that maglev trains will be everywhere by 1985, and that there will be cities in space by 2010.
The illustrations showed them using black land-line telephones and mainframes that spit out hexadecimal ticker-tape, too.
Well, Congress may actually have to raise our taxes (gasp) and not contract the lowest bidder, but progress isn't free.
Raising taxes: given.
Then it's not the lowest bidder - it's the one who has donated the most money to the political party in power.
Then that company builds out a half-assed train that no-one ends up using because it goes right to some congressman's home town instead of somewhere useful.
Do you seriously expect anything else out of congress?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Really, 30 years from start to finish? Why? Are they using that new contraption they came out with last year? The shovel they call it, will revolutionize the way we build. But seriously....30 years......
China experimented with MagLev technology in Shanghai and found that ultimately it used too much power and required too much maintenance and ultimately abandoned it in favour of the CRH trains. These alternative trains (designed by a combination of French, German and - ironically - Japanese companies) currently operate between Beijing and Nanjing (and other major cities in the region) at will eventually be running to Beijing. These have a lower top speed (theoretically can reach 380kms/hr) than the MagLev, but they run on reinforced rail and cost far less to run. It's interesting that the Japanese are pursuing MagLev technology in light of its shortcomings.
Just saying, first things first.
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It's interesting that the Japanese are pursuing MagLev technology in light of its shortcomings.
I'm no expert, but maglev of course has advantages and disadvantages. It is much more expensive to build the line, but because there's basically no wear (there's no physical contact, either with the rails, or with overhead catenary), it's much cheaper to maintain (maintenance on a heavily used conventional HSR line is quite demanding, as there's a lot of wear, and the line must be kept within strict tolerances). When using super-conducting magnets, the train can also be lighter (much of the motor mechanism is part of the track, not the train), and it's simpler to reach very high speeds and very high acceleration.
Anyway, JR has more experience running conventional HSR lines than anybody else, so their judgement is not to be sneezed at -- and they're paying for the line themselves, so clearly they're putting their money where their mouth is...
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Over here, at least, one of Greenpeace's main arguments is that nuclear power plants take too long to build - 5 years.
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From Maglev project gets go-ahead:
The first leg is specified at 340km, and the total appears to be roughly 500km. At nearly 9 trillion yen, that would be 18*10^9 yen/km, or about 350 million dollars a mile. That looks ridiculously expensive, though a significant part of that may be drilling through mountain ranges. Often the maglev components themselves are insignificant compared to the necessary ground work, or securing rights of way.
Still, I'm curious how much of that cost could be avoided by opting for an Inductrack based system instead. Inductrack is an elegant passive magnetic levitation system, which is vastly cheaper than conventional systems due to its profound simplicity. It also seems likely that they chose a nearly straight path, exactly because of the excessive track cost. If that is the case, the path flexibility afforded by using a cheaper technology, may have allowed for significantly less ground work and a more attractively priced system.
In a country like the US with large flat expanses, Inductrack would make for an excellent intercity transit network. The costs are very reasonable, even when compared with conventional high-speed rail.
Switzerland too.
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The real world. Sorry.
Also note that the Japanese maglev uses fairly different technology than the Chinese maglev did -- repulsive levitation instead of attractive (allowing a much greater gap size), super-conducting magnets rather than conventional ones (less power, less weight), and propulsion that's an integral part of the levitation system (avoiding the need for a separate propulsion mechanism) -- so they can't be compared directly as easily as it might seem.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Let's hope it won't become a horrendously overpriced money pit like the German Transrapid.
Oil will run out before coal. Construction will ramp up when flying becomes less affordable.
How about using that money to buy the empty cities in China for the Japanese people to live in so they don't all die off in one generation from radiation poisoning, cancer, birth defects in the next generation, etc.?
The survival of an entire race of people is more important than a shiny train through a future wasteland.
No, they're magnetic, not electric.
And Japan has been experimenting with Maglev in Yamanishi and Miyazaki since the 70's.
With 40 years of active research behind them, I suspect the Japanese have a very good idea of the issues they're looking at.
Whether they've figured out a way to build and operate the train economically or the track is a political boondoggle remains to be seen though the fact that they've laid out such a leisurely timeline suggests the decision was more political than technological.
I was hoping my wife could buy me a ticket as my retirement present, but looks like I have a wait a couple of years after that
Chinaman says we'll take your money now if you itch to ride.
High speed rail is still backwards in comparison to frictionless transportation. Goods and resources can travel at even higher speeds than humans can. MagLev is able to cut more than half the time for cross continental travel that businesses and the DoD.
In 2006 I had an impressive ride on the Transrapid Maglev in Germany: 440 kmph (273 mph), and you could just walk around in the train. Great.
Exactly two weeks later, the train crashed into a maintenance train on the track, killing a dew dozen people. Brrrrr...
It seems strange how much propaganda is used to attack the maglev projects. From all the numbers I have ever seen, any boost in the speed of transportation between cities creates a large margin of opportunities for individuals. Seems like a few stakeholders don't want to give up any of their free market advantages to allow investments in things that keep the USofA out of the darkages.
The trains get so packed that you have people standing on corridors and doorways. I did that 3 hour trip in the Hikari, and despite having to stand up for around 1 hour and half, it was surprisingly far less bad than what I expected. What americans are thinking of a "train station" is what they have has relics from the 1930's when modern train stations in Japan are in reality big fancy packed malls with railroad tracks as a plus.
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(1) Maglev is NOT energy efficient.
(2) Maglev right-of-way is far more complex (and expensive) to build and maintain than steel wheel technology.
(3) At very high speeds, air resistence, NOT rolling friction, is the primary impediment to forward motion.
(4) Yes, maglev can reach somewhat higher speeds than steel wheel on steel rail, but it is not competitive in regard to energy efficiency, and higher speeds increase costs exponentially while the benefit of each addictional mph is decreased.
It's true that the Japanese Maglev, like the German one, is extremely expensive to build, much like somewhat slower high speed rail, and both these maglev technologies are completely incompatible with existing rail infrastructure, unlike high speed rail, which can use existing rail inside cities and elsewhere, though only at much slower speeds. But high speed rail requires completely new and disruptive rights of way out in open country, which has led to protests against a new line in Provence, for example.
The Japanese and German maglevs are examples of the first generation of maglev technology to come to fruition, but the inventors of the Japanese technology are two Americans who were also consultants in the development of the German technology. These two scientists, James Powell and Gordon Danby, have continued working on their technology in the US and have developed a second generation maglev technology that frankly is as far ahead of the German and Japanese varieties as they are far ahead of conventional rail.
The Powell-Danby G2 maglev is designed to be much less costly to build, to be compatible with existing track (and even roadways) by the use of prefabricated flat panels laid down either side of an existing railway track. Because of a new kind of four-pole (horizontal & vertical) magnet arrangement they developed, G2 maglev can run either on flat track (no walls like the Japanese maglev) or on narrow elevated box monorails approximately the width between the rails on a railway track.
Because of the configuration of the magnets and flat track, G2 maglev is designed to be able to switch tracks at full speed without any moving parts needed, unlike the expensive and complicated mechanical switches needed for the first generation systems. This makes it easy to schedule switch stop service and use single vehicles rather than convoys ("trains") where this is more practical.
The special magnet configuration also allows G2 vehicles to carry heavy freight at full speeds, something the earlier systems cannot do. This would be a highly attractive prospect for shipping companies and would save enormously on money and shipping times over present-day trucking or rail. The inventors expect that with relatively low freight rates, this should generate most of the income for G2 maglev, making it attractive for private investment and not requiring government subsidies beyond the initial testing phase. A situation very different indeed from high speed rail or the Japanese and German first generation maglev systems, which require heavy government investment for construction and maintenance, just like highways.
The success of the Japanese project should inspire people to take a new look at maglev in general and especially to consider the remarkable advances Powell and Danby have made in the past several decades over the original 1960s and 70s technology being used for the Japanese maglev.