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China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

asiatimes.com

111–120 of 503 posts

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#111
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like China so much...

This is a horrible attitude to have. You're telling them that rather than push their country to be the best it can be, they should accept it for what it is and move if they don't like it? That's not what America is about my friend.

Nothing wrong with recommending that people who hold harmful views leave for their own good.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the density a bad excuse since you can add the infrastructure only in regions with large density like California?

Yeah - this is why I find that argument very specious. Florida has a higher population density than France but there's no TGV equivalent running from Jacksonville to Miami

It's only one of the arguments. Florida has neither the political incentive nor the restrictions on air traffic to put pressure on government to build these things.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#114
post #52

1,000km/h is within what is conventionally considered transonic (965-1235km/h). I wonder how practical these speeds are without a containing tunnel, particularly on the ground where there is potential for damage to buildings, structures, wildlife, etc. from sonic booms. Additionally, as I understand it, reflecting objects and terrain at ground level increase the potential for generation of sonic booms at transonic sp…

At these speeds, the train would need to drive in a low pressure tunnel.

I'm not sure it's strictly necessary to have the tunnel be low pressure. It's nice for the sake of less resistance, but the speed of sound is actually lower at lower pressures, and so would more readily produce a sonic boom.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#115

So, as someone that lived in New York for 6 years and California for 6 years, stories like this are incredibly depressing. The US is the world's largest economy and should be the shining example of amazing infrastructure, high-tech, green cities, and forward thinking policies. California is an especially egregious example in terms of infrastructure investment: If California was a country it would be the world's fifth…

It's not that hard to understand and it's not something to lament. To carry out a project on this scale you need people who in effect have no free will and are willing to function as machines for you for years on end. Most people in repressive regimes fit that description (i.e. essentially robots), and most people in democracies do not, and that's a good thing.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked at the particulars for this project, but typically the practical limit of high speed rail is 300-500 miles. Beyond that, it's cheaper and greener to fly. If you aren't concerned with cheap or green, and want to focus on fast... Then high speed rail might be a better option until the TSA is involved.

Since when is air ever greener than rail? Everything I've seen puts air at a hugely higher carbon impact.

Modern passenger jets are incredibly efficient. 1000-mile rail ROWs take a ton of resources to maintain and capacity does not scale well, especially as speed increases.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#117
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like China so much...

This is a horrible attitude to have. You're telling them that rather than push their country to be the best it can be, they should accept it for what it is and move if they don't like it? That's not what America is about my friend.

China, due to the nature of the country, has options at it's disposal that the US does not. Norway, the socialist paradise (where I live) , also does not have high speed rail BTW.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't looked at the particulars for this project, but typically the practical limit of high speed rail is 300-500 miles. Beyond that, it's cheaper and greener to fly. If you aren't concerned with cheap or green, and want to focus on fast... Then high speed rail might be a better option until the TSA is involved.

Since when is air ever greener than rail? Everything I've seen puts air at a hugely higher carbon impact.

I can't find anything online that suggests air is ever cleaner than rail. The discrepancy is a factor of 20¹, so it would be surprising if circumstances overcame that, unless you are traveling across an ocean.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transp...

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - this is why I find that argument very specious. Florida has a higher population density than France but there's no TGV equivalent running from Jacksonville to Miami

It's only one of the arguments. Florida has neither the political incentive nor the restrictions on air traffic to put pressure on government to build these things.

But the excuse is wrongly used, nobody is expecting bullet trains in Alaska or low populated places. So mostly people/politics are to blame and not terrain or density.

Re: China laying tracks for 1,000km/h maglev trains

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a heads-up: This person has posted at least 12 pro-China comments in the past year by my count. Extremely suspicious.

I strongly disagreed with them on this particular thread, but I don't get why having pro-China views should be automatically considered "extremely suspicious"?

Obviously i am not "pro-China" lol. And i don't advocate actually destroying market economy and (less confidently), democracy.

All i am trying to show is that public transport in the U.S. is such failure only as an undesirable externality of strong market and democratic institutions. We should probably bear with it because trying to fix risks, or directly requires, breaking too many other, important things.

I would much rather live in the U.S. than God forbid, China. I still prefer EU where i do live which seems to be good middle ground. And yeah, in my place (Cyprus), public transport sucks, and mainly because of democracy/good institutions (taxi drivers union won't let improve buses) and high living standards (low density - most can afford a detached house with a big plot - but it makes buses routes long and not dense, and their ridership low).

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