But they even killed duplo...now it's lego "explore" and they have special stuff for children ~1.5 years and for children ~9 months etc.etc. when everything you really need are these plain duplo blocks - i know this: my son is 14 months old and loves it to throw around the things i build for him....:) i think they just wanted to get into the "playmobil" market which had turned out to be a very bad idea. the high prices are ok if you can use the parts for a long time, but i don't pay 50 Euro for some 20 specialized "Bob-The-Builder" -wallpieces with printed bricks on it... HarHarHar (starts evil laughing): somewhere in my parent's house waits a HUGE number of lego from the mid-70ties up to the mid-80ties to be unleashed......(stops laughing) i just have to dig through the cellar and find the right boxes....*sigh* i haven't done this yet because i know how it looks down there.....*breakdown*
In germany the transrapid wasn't build exept a demonstration installation. the problem is
1. the time you win using a maglev over a given distance compared to a "normal" high-speed train isn't so big, but the costs are much much higher
2. the maglev is completely incompatible to everything else on rails. that means: all new tracks, all new stations, all new technic; in berlin (when there was a long discussion about building a Transrapid Hamburg-Berlin) they would have to break down a lot of buildings to get into the heart of the city and the inhabitants of the flats next to the track (a lot - in a dense city area!) would have suffered from strong noise emissions while there already exists a complete up-to-date railway system
3. the max speed of the maglev can't be reached all the time - if the train goes to a curve it has to reduce speed as any other vehicle does. you can build only VERY big curves to reduce this effect, but you use up much more land (irrelevant to US i know...)etc. while intelligent features on modern trains (like the tilting technique on ICE, Pendolino, TGV) allows much faster speed in curves...even on not-reconstructed railway tracks!
so it's a nice technic but may just too expensive for common use...(by the way: i think the chinese maglev is german transrapid technic)
and one final note: AFAIK in california there was at the beginning of the last century a widespread public transportation system based on trains etc. which was bought by the big car companies and just closed down...
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But they even killed duplo...now it's lego "explore" and they have special stuff for children ~1.5 years and for children ~9 months etc.etc. when everything you really need are these plain duplo blocks - i know this: my son is 14 months old and loves it to throw around the things i build for him.... :)
i think they just wanted to get into the "playmobil" market which had turned out to be a very bad idea.
the high prices are ok if you can use the parts for a long time, but i don't pay 50 Euro for some 20 specialized "Bob-The-Builder" -wallpieces with printed bricks on it...
HarHarHar (starts evil laughing): somewhere in my parent's house waits a HUGE number of lego from the mid-70ties up to the mid-80ties to be unleashed......(stops laughing) i just have to dig through the cellar and find the right boxes....*sigh* i haven't done this yet because i know how it looks down there.....*breakdown*
In germany the transrapid wasn't build exept a demonstration installation. the problem is 1. the time you win using a maglev over a given distance compared to a "normal" high-speed train isn't so big, but the costs are much much higher 2. the maglev is completely incompatible to everything else on rails. that means: all new tracks, all new stations, all new technic; in berlin (when there was a long discussion about building a Transrapid Hamburg-Berlin) they would have to break down a lot of buildings to get into the heart of the city and the inhabitants of the flats next to the track (a lot - in a dense city area!) would have suffered from strong noise emissions while there already exists a complete up-to-date railway system 3. the max speed of the maglev can't be reached all the time - if the train goes to a curve it has to reduce speed as any other vehicle does. you can build only VERY big curves to reduce this effect, but you use up much more land (irrelevant to US i know...)etc. while intelligent features on modern trains (like the tilting technique on ICE, Pendolino, TGV) allows much faster speed in curves ...even on not-reconstructed railway tracks!
so it's a nice technic but may just too expensive for common use...(by the way: i think the chinese maglev is german transrapid technic)
and one final note: AFAIK in california there was at the beginning of the last century a widespread public transportation system based on trains etc. which was bought by the big car companies and just closed down...