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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

#161

Post by elmarschraml »

jusben1369 wrote: post #47
jasonkester wrote: post #27

I wonder if we'll ever get back to "High Speed Air" in my lifetime. Back in the 70s, you could rock up at the airport twenty minutes before your flight left, jump on with minimal hassle, and cruise along at 600mph to your destination. Now, you need to endure two hours of having your fingernail clippers confiscated so that you can fly at 500mph to save on fuel costs. That seems to be the true advantage of rail travel.…

In the US we really don't have any rail alternative to flying. I'd love to know how European travellers thinks and weigh up rail (which seems relatively fast and efficient) vs flying. Do you think the two are interchangeable services? Is there a magical breaking point (more than 500km's distance etc) ?

Rails is faster for a rail trip duration of up to 4 hours (no security, no lines, no checkin, plus you arrive right in the city centre). Which, depending on the route, comes to somewhere between 200 and 450 miles of distance.

As for me personally, I prefer to go by train even if it takes a little longer. Flying means most of the time spent is lost in queues and transit, whereas a train trip means a single long stretch of uninterrupted time, which is much more relaxing and/or productive.

In terms of price, it's usually pretty much the same. If you book ahead and get a good deal, a flight might actually be cheaper. On the other hand, if you need to travel a popular route on short notice, a flight will be outrageously expensive, whereas a train ticket costs the same even if booked 5 minutes before departure.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#162

Post by nightcracker »

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.

That makes a lot of sense, since almost all of the resistance the train faces is air resistance.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#163

Post by joss82 »

masklinn wrote: post #146
joss82 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SNCF actually prints on their tickets "try to arrive 2 minutes before the trains departs" Pretty sure it's marketing though, the TGV can be veeery long sometimes, so it takes a while to walk to your assigned car. EDIT: source: http://tgv.lu.voyages-sncf.com/fr/avant-depart

> Pretty sure it's marketing though, the TGV can be veeery long sometimes, so it takes a while to walk to your assigned car. Each trainset is a single unit though, so you can just step in at the first car and walk through the train to your seat. The only "danger" is paired trainsets (16 cars), if you're in the further one you have to walk a whole trainset to reach your own train (and even then it's only 200m/660ft),…

Yup, exactly, it's not comfortable, but still a possibility.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#164

Post by joshguthrie »

joss82 wrote: post #93
jasonkester wrote: post #27

I wonder if we'll ever get back to "High Speed Air" in my lifetime. Back in the 70s, you could rock up at the airport twenty minutes before your flight left, jump on with minimal hassle, and cruise along at 600mph to your destination. Now, you need to endure two hours of having your fingernail clippers confiscated so that you can fly at 500mph to save on fuel costs. That seems to be the true advantage of rail travel.…

SNCF actually prints on their tickets "try to arrive 2 minutes before the trains departs" Pretty sure it's marketing though, the TGV can be veeery long sometimes, so it takes a while to walk to your assigned car. EDIT: source: http://tgv.lu.voyages-sncf.com/fr/avant-depart

Not marketing, I've seen people being allowed to get on trains while the controllers where whistling for the train's departure.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#165

Post by mmaldacker »

wahsd wrote: post #142
mmaldacker wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and also remember Berlin's system is essentially new and was rebuilt after reunification so you are looking at a modern system. After the reunification, they only had to reconnect the lines that were separated by the wall. Only a few places needed some extensive work. You probably meant WW2 where most lines were destroyed. Note that Berlin was also one of the first cities in the world to have a metro system. >No one…

No, they didn't simply have to connect some disconnected lines. Not only did the eastern infrastructure, have to largely be rebuilt from the ground up, but even the western part was outdated and old and reunification meant that billions were spent on upgrading infrastructure.

Upgrading and maintaining a transport infrastructure is necessary for big cities regardless of the wall circumstances. You don't think London, Paris and other big metropolitan cities in Europe spend billions on upgrading and maintaining their public transport infrastructure? I don't see Berlin having a completely automated metro like the DLR in London, or NFC cards like pretty much any other metro in Europe.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#167

Post by worklogin »

melling wrote: post #79
worklogin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure paying off our debts,educating our kids and fixing the bridges that might collapse at any moment should come before a federally funded train that won't benefit more than 1% of the population.

Yes, we are discussing putting a maglev from St. Louis to Boise, Idaho because someone wanted to show you why it wouldn't work in the U.S. I bet if we thought about it for another second, we'd come up with more suitable places. Los Angeles to San Francisco 400 miles Los Angeles to San Diego 150 miles NYC to Philadelphia 92 miles NYC to Boston 220 miles NYC to Washington DC 226 miles Chicago to St Louis 260 miles Dall…

To be clear, I never really thought Boise->MO was realistic. Real options still wouldn't benefit more than a small portion of the country, unless we're going to build a high-speed rail network along side the highway system. Then you're talking hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#168

Post by masklinn »

deciplex wrote: post #159
6t6t6 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't event ask for a piece of ID. It's just a pity that Narita is almost two hours and 30$ far from most parts of Tokyo...

It baffles me that the country famous for high speed trains never bothered to build one between the city where 1/4 of its people live and the airport that handles most of its international flights (and used to handle all of them). Skyliner is pretty fast but it's not a Shinkansen, and Narita Express is basically just an ordinary train. Of course, it's also baffling that they built the airport so far away in the first…

> Of course, it's also baffling that they built the airport so far away in the first place, but that's another story.

The Kanto plain suffers from a dearth of available flat land, even more so enough available flat land to build a major international airport (this being worsened by Japan's weak eminent domain and history of resistance to relocation, half a century later there are still families living on the site and farming in the middle of the runways: http://www.japansubculture.com/the-phantoms-of-narita-airpor...)

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#169

Post by idlewords »

tptacek wrote: post #155
idlewords wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would really compare German intercity travel to Acela (i.e., rail service on the Boston-NYC-Philly-DC route)? Three differences that immediately come to mind: 1) Severely limited track speeds through the entire NE corridor. 2) A boarding experience that seems to be modeled on air travel, with security gates, ID checks and waiting rooms. 3) Very infrequent service compared to main intercity routes in Europe. Calli…

1) Totally fair: average speed from DC to BOS is half of Berlin-Hamburg. 2) That's not my Acela experience at all; last time I took it (a few years ago) it was no more involved than boarding a Metra train in Chicago. 3) Totally fair. I guess this is just knee-jerkism on my part. The topic comes up on HN every once in awhile about how backwards the US is w/r/t/ rail transport, and while you could still make a lot of s…

I wonder if my experience with 2) was somehow special to Penn Station and Boston.

Re: Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again

#170

Post by vidarh »

wahsd wrote: post #144
vidarh wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's exaggerating. Or is just making silly assumptions. I don't know about Germany, but when I was considering moving from the UK to California, the total tax difference I was looking at was 1-2 percentage points at my (high) salary level. Even compared to Norway which hardly has the reputation as a low tax country, my then salary and consumption would only lead to 3-4 percentage point more tax. This was when I inclu…

Either you are full of BS or have plain no idea what you are talking about. Did you ever look at your pay or earnings statements? I know what they are in both the USA, France, Germany, and the UK and I can assure you that income taxes for middle class income earners is significantly lower in the US on average.

> I know what they are in both the USA, France, Germany, and the UK and I can assure you that income taxes for middle class income earners is significantly lower in the US on average.

For France and Germany you are right, but that was not something I disputed. I specifically pointed out that I did not know the specifics of Germany, but disputed the claim that German taxes are twice those of California.

Yes, I've looked at my earnings statements. In detail. And no, my tax burdens have not been all that different.

I can't speak to your experience, as it obviously depends on what tax brackets you end up in and what deductions you get, and for the US it depends massively on where in the US you live. Specifically to the argument at hand, tax levels in California are amongst the highest in the US, which also makes them amongst the highest in the world, given that the US average places the US as a whole amongst the highest taxation countries in the world.

As for the averages, Germany and France near the very top world wide.

According to the OECD numbers for 2014, they're 3rd and 5th in highest tax burden respectively. But even then, Germany ends up at slightly below 50%, and the US as a whole slightly above 30% when combining income tax, employer and employee social security contributions.

Given that California tax rates are far above US average, with both a payroll tax and being one of only 3 states as far as I can tell that have state income taxes that goes beyond 10%, I can safely stand by my statement that the claim that it was an exaggeration to claim that German taxes are twice California taxes without even bothering to dig up the actual averages for California.

In terms of the UK, fully loaded taxes are actually lower than the US average according to the OECD (US was for 2014 ranked as having the 24th highest taxes in the world, UK 26th; and since I mentioned Norway: 21st)

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