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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."
Let's point to the many long term development projects right here in the United States. Crickets. Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
Knowing Japan, by 2014 they'll have found a way to build it in 1/3 of the time.
Meanwhile the rest of the world will continue to lag 10+ years behind them in technology like we have for decades.
You can't take the sky from me.
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.
Will it? Where's your nearest thing to a 1964 bullet train?
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.
Naw, compared to Dubai, Japan is living in the middle ages.
because swimming in SHIT on the streets is so futuristic
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
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
Just saying, first things first.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
As opposed to being groped or scanned, and then stuck in a 1 foot by 1 foot seat on an aluminum can that can fall out of the sky? Or be stuck going about 5x slower than said tin can in a car? o.o
I don't know of any transportation method in the world other than maglev that can get you from the downtown area of one city, 300 miles away, to the down town area of another city in 70 minutes. Much less one that could acomplish that while not requiring security scans or invasive groping, and a scan of your luggage, or heck, any luggage weight limits whatsoever.
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....
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.
There's something about the plan that the summary isn't telling you: they're not linking Tokyo and Osaka by bullet train for the first time. It's more of a technology upgrade. They've had nozomi shinkansen (pronounced "no-zo-me-sheen-kahn-sane") making said trip in under two and a half hours, reaching speeds somewhere in the (rough estimate alert) neighborhood of 200 mph (though they can't average their top speed due to curves and acceleration and stuff), since the early nineties. You pay through the nose for the fastest train service, but it's available if you've got money. Before the current fastest service was introduced there were slower versions, going back to the sixties. Some of the slower lines are still in operation and are naturally somewhat more affordable to ride than the newest fastest one.
According to the linked article, the new line will allow speeds over 300 mph and make the trip in under 100 minutes. I assume the quoted speed is a minimum for when the service is rolled out initially and that they'll find ways to improve it and shave a few minutes off the trip after they get it initially working (as they have done in the past with existing train services).
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Wait, are you making an offensive Muslim joke or an offensive tsunami joke?
He is referring to the fact that the city has grown so fast that they don't have a decent sewer system, much of the sewage goes into septic tanks which are drained and then tankers drive it to a sewage processing plant. But some tankers illegally dump it so it ends up in the sea.
Perhaps you should learn some history of Dubai. The city largely exists as is specifically because they understand the oil money won't last forever. That city specifically exists as is knowing full well the money will run out. Dubai is their answer, not the question.
It's more of a technology upgrade. They've had nozomi shinkansen (pronounced "no-zo-me-sheen-kahn-sane") making said trip in under two and a half hours, reaching speeds somewhere in the (rough estimate alert) neighborhood of 200 mph (though they can't average their top speed due to curves and acceleration and stuff), since the early nineties.
I live in Japan and speak Japanese. That's definitely not how you pronounce shinkansen. :-)
This is not simply a technology upgrade, like previous shinkansen improvements. This is a new set of tracks following a new inland route, of which around 60% is expected to be tunnel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen has more details. Interestingly, it will be funded privately.
This type of vast infrastructure investment is why Japan's economy works so well despite western economists talking it down for decades now. The problem is that short term econometrics don't account for ongoing infrastructure benefits that keep delivering for decades. Japan has been investing like this since the 50's and that's why the standard of living here is streets ahead of anywhere else I've seen.
No it isn't...
If you want to see the answer to what one does with such a large source of oil wealth in a small country, on looks to Norway. When brand new desalination plants are built that run on oil you know there's a serious lack of forward-thinking.
- These characters were randomly selected.
I should rephrase then. I don't know of many transportation methods that can get you in the door of your departure station and out the door of your destination station traveling 300 miles from downtown to downtown in an hour and a half.
(Disclaimer, I live in Japan)
This is part of why the shinkansen is so succesfull. Note that I realize my previous analogy is maglev to planes, and this is shinkansen to planes. So this is a seperate discussion.
But the reason why the shinkansen has been succesfull is that generally airports aren't built downtown. They're built far away, where the noise pollution and traffic would be undesirable to put smack dab in the middle of town.
however, in Japan, trainstations are generally as close as possible to the heart of town, and as such, you can merely enter the station, buy your ticket in five minutes, board in another 5, be on your way, and at your destination be out in five minutes.
However the same process takes nearly an hour (counting both departure and arrival) in a best case scenario with an airplane. Thus, for shorthaul flights the planes don't make any more sense than a train. And Japan is shorthaul travel centric due to the size of the country. Going from the northern most island (Hokkaido) to the southern most island (kyuushuu), airplanes make total sense. But if you're just hopping a flight from Tokyo to Osaka, which is ALMOST possible to do in a straight line, there's just no point in bothering with aircraft because, even WITH the costs and journey times being similar, people generally dislike airports, you generally have to pay for parking at the airport (where as rail stations are close enough that bicycle access is highly practical) and there are many many more places to get into the rail network. I live pretty far from downtown in my area but I can technically start a rail journey to Tokyo with a ten minute bike ride to the local train station, on a complete whim. (The last part is important, I feel that air travel is less flexible than rail, I rarley if ever have a problem getting a ticket with 0 advanced notice unless it's newyears.)
Having a working maglev line between Tokyo and Osaka may tip the scales enough that even if it is slightly more expensive than the shinkansen (and I can guarantee you it will be), it will STILL be the fastest way to get between the two points, thus probably gobbling up most of the passengers that would have otherwise flown. That's probably why this line is being constructed. I think the Tokyo Osaka route is one of the most heavily traveled non local train routes in the world, so there's probably enough traffic to make it pay.