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Hasn't the last 50 years of attempting these shown that they're uneconomic in the extreme, and probably will continue to be even if China puts its admittedly he
by supernova87a 7y ago
Hasn't the last 50 years of attempting these shown that they're uneconomic in the extreme, and probably will continue to be even if China puts its admittedly heavily state-subsidized rail-building prowess behind it?
- justinzollars 7y agoThey are amazing. There is one in Shanghai that connects the airport to the city. Imagine a ride from SFO to Salesforce tower in 7 minutes.
- brandmeyer 7y agoIts also a money pit. They keep it running as a matter of nationalistic pride, not because its economical. Most folks in the area take the ordinary metro to the airport, not the maglev.
- gok 7y agoThe Shanghai Airport Maglev was built by a German company trying to prove the concept for longer distance maglev construction. It was a failure; it was way too expensive and not meaningfully faster than conventional high speed rail.
- briandear 7y agoThat use case is perfect for Maglev. Essentially replace Caltrain.
- justinzollars 7y ago^ This guy has an imagination! This is what I like to see on HN. positive about technology. Thank you.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoIt doesn’t really go to the city, but some far out suburb in pudong. Faster to take a cab than subway + maglev transfer. Unless you specifically want to ride the maglev.
- kiba 7y agoThey are? I thought the unprofitable ones were subsidized by profitable lines and for strategic reasons.
- NamTaf 7y agoThis doesn’t particularly matter to China. The cost of current HSR tickets isn’t even a free market. It’s all price-regulated so that every ticket for the same journey at the same class costs the same (Not pricing tiers like airlines). They’ll probably just eat the cost at the state-subsidised level in my mind.