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Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#11

Post by tormeh »

Shivetya wrote: post #7
zachalexander wrote: post #3

Amazing. Writing this from Berlin, which doesn't have maglev trains, but has phenomenal public transit. It's sad to be going back to the US soon where the infrastructure is so primitive.

Primitive? Really? Doesn't seem to affect usage rates does it? Its a myth really, one that is perpetuated simply because people think its correct and far too many who like the idea of it being correct don't want to know otherwise. Maybe Berlin and Germany stand out amongst Europe, but with regards to passenger miles trains are less that seven percent of all travel within the EU [1]. High speed rail does two things, e…

I think it's inner-city transport the parent is referring to. It really is fantastic in Berlin. Nothing beats a good metro for inner-city transport, and Berlin has it. Tokyo and New York is better, though, but then again those are vastly bigger cities.

And yeah, long-range train passenger transport generally sucks but it's not really relevant, as it's not inner-city.

Besides, train travel doesn't need to suck - Maglev may just go fast enough and be cheap enough to maintain to fix most of the problems. The train in the article will go for 40 minutes - that's far less than you need just to check in at the airport. And it will cover 330km - that's 4 hours by car. it would be foolish to pick any other means of transport between the two cities. It could go from SF to LA in 1h15m. Depending on how bad the airports are, it could even be competitive with air between NY and LA. But it won't become truly interesting until these trains go faster than planes (and I believe they will do so, eventually)

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#12

Post by ant6n »

What's interesting, the speed record for conventional bullet trains is 574.8 km/h, about 30km/h less! This was a TGV train, largely unmodified (although they did increase the tension in the caternary). The wiki article about the speed record is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record

Makes you wonder whether the overhead of maglev is really worth it.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#13

Post by tokenadult »

The article by Kiyotaka Matsuda in Bloomberg Business[1] makes the important point that "Whether any of this makes a shred of economic sense is another matter." Japan has a declining population, and the level of investment required to build a maglev train line is enormous. Countries with growing populations have decided against building high-speed rail lines, and Japan does not appear to have any export market for this technology. Even the first phase of Japan's proposed maglev train line project, running from Tokyo to Nagoya if built, would not be completed until 2027.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-21/world-s-fa...

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#14

Post by wahsd »

zachalexander wrote: post #3

Amazing. Writing this from Berlin, which doesn't have maglev trains, but has phenomenal public transit. It's sad to be going back to the US soon where the infrastructure is so primitive.

Don't be such an idiot. I get it, you enjoy European infrastructure and social democracy. Remember though that you will pay half of the taxes you pay in Germany ... oh, did you just enjoy all the benefits of German infrastructure and society without actually paying any taxes, let alone your whole life? No one is keeping you from remaining in Germany, are they? I can guarantee you they will approve your work permit and you can become a resident and eventual citizen.

Sure, we have a "primitive" public transportation system, but owning a car is cheaper, and also remember Berlin's system is essentially new and was rebuilt after reunification so you are looking at a modern system. And also remember that it's pretty fucking expensive to link up places with public transportation in the USA. What? You want a double digit billion dollar MagLev train that connects Boise, Idaho with, St. Louise Missouri? That will be another 10% of your income since we maxed out our credit line giving free money to the crooks that robbed the vault. How about you simply enjoy that almost every single even moderately sized town in the USA has an airport and you can fly around for relatively cheap, even if the airlines have used regulatory capture to artificially inflate their revenues outside of market conditions.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#15

Post by raverbashing »

Shivetya wrote: post #7
zachalexander wrote: post #3

Amazing. Writing this from Berlin, which doesn't have maglev trains, but has phenomenal public transit. It's sad to be going back to the US soon where the infrastructure is so primitive.

Primitive? Really? Doesn't seem to affect usage rates does it? Its a myth really, one that is perpetuated simply because people think its correct and far too many who like the idea of it being correct don't want to know otherwise. Maybe Berlin and Germany stand out amongst Europe, but with regards to passenger miles trains are less that seven percent of all travel within the EU [1]. High speed rail does two things, e…

>Slower than flying except over short distances

Not really if you count door to door. 1h15 Paris to Brussels, city-center to city-center and less time wasted.

Same thing with London-Paris, even if you fly to LCY, you're still going at least to Orly.

> and less convenient and timely over that short distance compared to cars

But not everybody can have a car or can drive or even want to bother with that.

"Less convenient", sure, let me worry about where to park my rented car, how to drive in an unknown city (even with GPS), etc. In Europe this is really not worth it in some cities (even in cities like Toronto, you shouldn't bother if you're going to the city center, trains beat flying for nearby cities (Ottawa/Montreal)

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#16

Post by dkhenry »

zachalexander wrote: post #3

Amazing. Writing this from Berlin, which doesn't have maglev trains, but has phenomenal public transit. It's sad to be going back to the US soon where the infrastructure is so primitive.

If you look at Washington DC's metro its pretty much the same QoS as you get off the Berlin metro. So I am not quite sure how its considered "primitive"

Berlin - 4 - 5 minute trains DC - 6 minute trains

Berlin - 9 lines, 170 stations DC - 6 lines, 91 stations

and thats not even the biggest metro system in the US. So really the problem isn't going back to the US, its going back to whatever place you're going to in the US. I am sure if you moved out to Zwiesel you would be in the same situation

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#17

Post by m_mueller »

ant6n wrote: post #12

What's interesting, the speed record for conventional bullet trains is 574.8 km/h, about 30km/h less! This was a TGV train, largely unmodified (although they did increase the tension in the caternary). The wiki article about the speed record is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record Makes you wonder whether the overhead of maglev is really worth it.

I'd imagine that the wear on rolling stock and tracks as well as the power lost to friction makes Maglev worth it if you actually want to operate close to such speeds.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#18

Post by pbz »

wahsd wrote: post #14
zachalexander wrote: post #3

Amazing. Writing this from Berlin, which doesn't have maglev trains, but has phenomenal public transit. It's sad to be going back to the US soon where the infrastructure is so primitive.

Don't be such an idiot. I get it, you enjoy European infrastructure and social democracy. Remember though that you will pay half of the taxes you pay in Germany ... oh, did you just enjoy all the benefits of German infrastructure and society without actually paying any taxes, let alone your whole life? No one is keeping you from remaining in Germany, are they? I can guarantee you they will approve your work permit an…

> You want a double digit billion dollar MagLev train that connects Boise, Idaho with, St. Louise Missouri? That will be another 10% of your income

No, just reallocate some of the hundreds of billions spent on wars / military and make something productive.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#19

Post by vilhelm_s »

ant6n wrote: post #12

What's interesting, the speed record for conventional bullet trains is 574.8 km/h, about 30km/h less! This was a TGV train, largely unmodified (although they did increase the tension in the caternary). The wiki article about the speed record is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record Makes you wonder whether the overhead of maglev is really worth it.

I think I've read somewhere that it's possible to run trains of steel rails really fast, but doing so creates lots of wear, so it would not be economical to do it routinely. That the big advantage of the maglev technology is not the absolute top speed, but the fact that the maintenance is cheap even at high speeds.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#20

Post by ant6n »

m_mueller wrote: post #17
ant6n wrote: post #12

What's interesting, the speed record for conventional bullet trains is 574.8 km/h, about 30km/h less! This was a TGV train, largely unmodified (although they did increase the tension in the caternary). The wiki article about the speed record is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record Makes you wonder whether the overhead of maglev is really worth it.

I'd imagine that the wear on rolling stock and tracks as well as the power lost to friction makes Maglev worth it if you actually want to operate close to such speeds.

I'm not convinced. Some conventional rail operates at close to 400km/h today. This will operate at 500km/h - in 15 years. But it's completely incompatible with existing infrastructure, and thus doesn't allow incremental updates of either the infrastructure or the trains (i.e. no service in the mean time, and no ability to reuse existing tracks and stations in cities).

Then consider the amount of research that's been put into this, and the complex problems that needed to be solved -- it would probably cheaper to invest research into track that allows higher speeds with less maintenance (again incremental improvements possible).

Then consider that most of the speed from this maglev comes from the geometry of the track. It's all tunnels and bridges. That's a giant investment needed to get to those speeds; and conventional rail with that track geometry could be similarly fast.

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