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Japanese Maglev Train Hits 500kph
An anonymous reader writes Japan has now put 100 passengers on a Maglev train doing over 500kph. That's well over twice as fast as the fastest U.S. train can manage, and that only manages 240kph on small sections of its route. The Japanese Shinkansen is now running over 7 times times as fast as the average U.S. express passenger train. 500kph is moving towards the average speed of an airliner. Add the convenience of no boarding issues, and city-centre to city-centre travel, and the case for trains as mass-transport begins to look stronger.
Thanks for pointing that out. However, considering the amount of time it takes to board/de-board a plane, the exact speed isn't as important as the total time spent between leaving your door, and arriving at your destination.
Indeed they probably take a train to go to the train station :-)
> But, I ask, what is the point of a slow passenger train for commuting?
Two points--
(1) it reduces traffic congestion
(2) it still may be faster than driving.
If everyone who tooks trains into NY drove, we wouldn't have needed a large hadron collider. The Cross Bronx would have collapsed into a black hole.
The problem at this point is building trains, not that trains don't make sense. It's politically sensitive to expropriate property.
Just at the federal level alone (think just the interstate highways), along with any taxes you're paying, we're incurring $10,000 per person of debt each year.
Well, you may think about the interstate highways, and yeah I do that occasionally too, but I more commonly think about bank bailouts or dropping bombs on brown people as places where the money goes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Can any other country boast a top political leader who has a STEM leader . . . ?
Sure: China. Practically everyone on the top for the last 5 decades was a STEM person.