Japan's L-Zero Maglev Train Reaches 310 mph In Trials

coolnumbr12 writes with this excerpt from IBTimes: "Japan's magnetic-levitation train is still more than decade away from completion, but the L-Zero recently proved that it really is the world's fastest train. On a 15-mile stretch of test track, the L-Zero reached speeds of 310 miles per hour. After the successful trials, Central Japan Railway Co. is going ahead with a 5.1 trillion yen ($52 billion) plan to build a 177-mile maglev line between Tokyo and Nagoya. CJR says the trip will take just 40 minutes on the L-Zero." There are other fast trains in the world, but the L-Zero edges out the others on this list.

Comments

Re:Hate to hit

[JustOK]

It would be an udder catastrophe

Re:Hate to hit

[MightyYar]

Hoove GOT to be cudding me.

Re:Hate to hit

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Now observe people milking the pun as long as it holds together.

A me too case?

[Ateocinico]

If every kilometer of it's tracks is about as costly as the German's maglev, what is the economic justification? China balked at the cost of a Shanghai-Beijing maglev line and built a wheeled system instead. And nobody has built a maglev after the Shanghai's airport to city center line.

Re:A me too case?

[h4rr4r]

Why does everything have to make a profit?
Can nothing be done for national pride or to push forward the cutting edge?

Re:A me too case?

[ArcadeMan]

Why a profit at all anyway? Shouldn't everything done by the governments be done at break-even costs?

Re:A me too case?

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, let's see.

Assuming the train travels between Tokyo and Nagoya, a distance of 177 miles according to the summary, and travels at 310 MPH that comes up with 34 minutes from Tokyo to Nagoya. What the heck, we'll make it 45 minutes, what with acceleration and deceleration and all.

Tokyo is one of the most densely populated areas in Japan and is pretty high up there in world rankings. Areas of high population density, of course, tend to be expensive places to live. Sure, you can have a place outside Tokyo for much cheaper but then you spend your life in traffic or on a train--not an attractive prospect.

Imagine if I could live in Nagoya and work in Tokyo and not have to spend hours a day commuting or living in a tube during the week and only being home on the weekends. Imagine that an employer might be more interested in hiring me as I could work "cheaper" since my living expenses could be far less in Nagoya. I remember reading how New York City's economy improved by creating infrastructure (i.e., bridges, trains) allowing people who lived in Brooklyn to conveniently get to New York City.

Also, Nagoya has a pretty big airport that is arguably under-utilized. Making it more convenient to access from Tokyo may improve that situation.

Re:A me too case?

[simtel]

Don't assume that the only profit to be made is via the act itself - NASA's space program ended up giving birth to a lot of technology that is widely used in society these days, but could not have been measured in a pre-estimate of the profitability of the space program.

Re:A me too case?

[noh8rz10]

fair enough. but what's the economic justification for the train to make sure the gov't breaks even? how do you make sure you don't build a billion dollar white elephant?

Re:A me too case?

[serviscope_minor]

but what's the economic justification for the train to make sure the gov't breaks even?

Since when is "break even" even necessary: the US governmant for example doesn't charge people to use the interstates. From that narrow point of view, they made a massive loss.

Clearly the wider economic benefits of good trnsport is sufficiently clear that few people debate the need to have such a system.

the key with the train, just like road is to put it where people like to go.

Re:A me too case?

[AmiMoJo]

Well, in Japan there is definitely demand for this service. A lot of people already travel that route and the trains are often full to capacity. They go every 15 minutes and can't be sent out any faster for safety reasons.

Japanese companies tend to take a long term view, so don't expect a full return in the first five years. Also they expect to be able to export the technology for additional profit. There will also be additional economic benefits for Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka as people are more easily able to move between them. From businesses wanting to send employees to another office or go for a meeting in another city to consumers who enjoy taking a shopping trip or a weekend visit to the Kansai cultural centre.

As for why they don't just expand the existing lines the main issue is noise. The current trains are limited to 320KPH but could easily do 360 or more, if it were not for noise problems. The maglev will be quieter and take a route that uses more tunnels and avoids populated areas so that it can maintain 510KPH for most of the journey.

Re:The sabot train

[dgatwood]

Like the shoe? As in, "If someone throws his shoe on the rails, we'll have a nasty case of sabotage?"

TFA from Wired

[nojayuk]

TFA is a cut-n-paste from a badly-written and poorly-researched Wired article some staffer wrote to fill in a blank space on the website last week.

The Japanese maglev trains (there are two parallel tracks) have been running consistently at 500km/h (310 mph in old money) for over a decade and more in testing. Its actual record speed is 580km/h (about 360mph). In addition the test track is 40km long, not 26km as stated in the article; it was extended a few years back. Etc., etc.

Re:TFA from Wired

[Zyrill]

I'm sorry to have to say that, but that is a very ignorant and claptrap post. Maglev trains by design cannot be derailed. Even the non-superconducting Transrapid by Siemens (Germany) that commutes between Shanghai Airport and Downtown cannot leave his tracks instead of catastrophic failure of the whole track. That's because the tracks are shaped like this c-× so the magnets push the "c"-shaped guides away from the "-"-shaped track in every direction. The worst that can happen is that the "c" hits the track in which case the train simply brakes because of friction. In the case of the L0, consider this picture: http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/51b73df36bb3f78825000002-2238-1678-400-/japan-maglev-train-may-2010.jpg Yes, the track is almost straight. No, there are no sharp curves as in Spain, else it couldn't go that fast. For a more informed article with some tech specs, check here: http://www.dailytech.com/Japanese+Maglev+Train+Begins+Full+Speed+Testing+at+310+mph/article33281.htm Please don't ask questions just for the sake of asking something. A very academic thing to do, but trust me, everybody hates the frustrated postdocs who do this.

Re:TFA from Wired

[nojayuk]

The French TGV steel-wheel record holder was a heavily-modified racecar version of their regular 300km/h trainsets, running higher voltages and damaging track and overhead as it reached its peak speed (pictures of the TGV trainset setting the record show a cloud of track ballast being sucked up behind it). The maglev record was taken by a regular test carset with some modifications and did not damage the track which is regularly operated at 500km/h plus anyway. The maglev holds another speed record TGV and other trains can't even get close to, the passing speed record of 1026km/h when they ran two maglevs past each other on adjacent tracks at over 500km/h.

Earthquakes?

[Em Adespoton]

What are they using to protect the track against earthquakes? I'd hate to be speeding along at those speeds and have the track shift/vanish from under me.. or even the "mag" suddenly cut out for that matter.

Re:Earthquakes?

[Anachragnome]

"... or even the "mag" suddenly cut out for that matter."

Don't worry--we've worked diligently to address this issue by placing plutonium-core, self-contained electric cells every 500 meters along the track. Each section is self powered.

I hope that alleviates your concerns regarding a steady supply of safe, reliable power. I appreciate this opportunity to answer all your questions.

Bob, Senior Design Administrator
TEPCO

Re:Earthquakes?

[Ichijo]

Remote seismic sensors can detect earthquakes (which move at a little over the speed of sound) and transmit a signal to the trains (at the speed of light) which then immediately brake to a stop before the seismic wave hits.

Will it outrun the tentacles?

[sandbagger]

Just curious.

As an aside, this is truly amazing technology. In case you're interested, look up how the acceleration and braking is controlled for a smooth ride. It's ethernet all the way down the trains for very small on the fly adjustments for ride smoothness.

Re:why not in the USA or Russia

[mill3d]

This documentary should shed some light on this issue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taken_for_a_Ride

It's available for free on youtube here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob2bYUtxlxs

Energy efficiency?

[antifoidulus]

While the speed is all well and good, I have to wonder how much more energy this consumes than the current technology(or perhaps it's more efficient?) With the proliferation of mobile internet technology, I don't really see a whole lot of advantage in shaving off a few minutes on my travel time if it makes the ticket much more expensive(due to increased energy costs). I can get almost as much work/play done on the train as I can on the ground...

Also, from TFA:
Despite the falling national population, Tokyo continues to grow. Japan is hoping that the L-Zero maglev train will persuade millions of people to fly and drive less.

People would take the train more and fly/drive less if JR weren't stupidly inflexible about ticket prices. Unlike planes(and high speed trains in places like Europe for that matter), there is basically 0 flexibility in their prices. Going during prime hours costs the same as going early in the morning or on weekends etc. The reason people fly instead of taking the trains is simple, the trains are often times more expensive. It's already faster to take the train in most cases(esp. if you are going from Tokyo to Nagoya), but since the train is often times 2x as expensive as flying, even when the train is almost empty, I'm willing to put up with the extra time required to fly. So maybe instead of pouring massive amounts of money into faster trains, they should maybe think about hiring a couple of good logisticians who can actually work out a pricing system that actually takes advantage of these newfangled devices called "computers" to dynamically adjust prices to make JR more money AND give better customer satisfaction...... Meh, knowing JR, that's just a pipe dream. Bring on the maglevs!

Re:Hate to hit

[Cryacin]

Well, you wouldn't be on the moooooove anymore.

Re:why not in the USA or Russia

[myowntrueself]

It is weird i don't see any USA or Russian trains, they both got a vast country and a knack of looking for grandour.
How come that much smaller countries like Taiwan got faster trains, heh.

The Russian train system is very heavily used. People 'commute' on the trans-siberian.

A trans-siberian mag-lev would be awesome. The existing tracks are so fucked up its a very bumpy ride. The passenger and freight service shares the same tracks and those freight cars are the size of houses (Russian gauge is wider than the rest of the world, the freight cars are fucking HUGE) and visibly bend the tracks as they roll along... needless to say the rails don't bend back to straightness.