Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Japanese Maglev Train Hits 500kph

Posted by timothy on from the for-amtrak-that-takes-negligence dept.

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.

2 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Re:240km/hr? by ekimd · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yeah, and population density certainly has nothing to do with it.

    Given that Japan has a population density of 337.1 per sq. km, and the United States has 34.2 per sq. km, maybe when the U.S. has a population of 3.2 billion we'll start to see some maglevs here, too.

    --
    'Impossible' is a word that humans use far too often. -- Seven of Nine
  2. Re:kph.. by ladoga · · Score: 1, Troll

    kph is routinely used in many metric countries. it's not at all unusual to see it.

    Then they do it wrong. Do they also not begin their sentences with capital letters?

    I guess we agree that kilometre (or kilometer for the US) is an SI unit. So in the International System of Units:

    k = kilo (prefix for one thousand)
    m = metre (base unit of length)
    h = hour (unit of time)

    Thus the correct unit symbol for kilometre(s) per hour is either km/h or kmh^-1. It's really that simple.