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Props to China, but for time being Japan both holds the maglev speed record (603 kph) and is actually building the world's first long-distance maglev between To

Props to China, but for time being Japan both holds the maglev speed record (603 kph) and is actually building the world's first long-distance maglev between Tokyo and Nagoya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Shinkansen A shame it's a largely useless and incredibly expensive prestige prospect that's not even projected to become profitable until 2070, but that's another story.

scrose 5y ago
> not even projected to become profitable until 2070, but that's another story. I wish that’s how we looked at public transit in the US. Amtrak would be taking us coast to coast in a matter of hours at this point.
- opinion-is-bad 5y ago
  Well Japan has a little bit of a population density advantage over the US. This seems to be an important factor when looking at where rail has been most successful for commuters.
  - scrose 5y ago
    I wonder if access to better transportation options plays a role in their higher population density. I don’t know enough about Japan to really make any calls towards that though.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    High speed rail isn't for commuters - certainly not daily ones. You need cities appropriate distance apart that can occupy the tracks at a decent rate (so 1000 passengers at 20tph). Commuter trains barely need to go much above 200, maybe 250kph. If you can supply say 20,000 passengers a hour for 15 hours a day - 300,000 passengers a day - then you just need the population centres. A 600kph maglev from New York to LA would take 7.5 hours. A flight takes 5.5 hours, so not much in it, especially if it were downtown to downtown. For New York to Chicago it would take about 2h10, same as a plane. Unlikely to provide 300k passengers, but if you added branches at each end and were routed Boston, NY, Washington branches meeting in western PA, then heading to Chicago (meeting a Toronto branch perhaps), Denver, Vegas then at the Western end splitting to LA, San Diego, Phoenix, San Francisco you might be able to occupy the bulk of the route tracks enough. Crucially you don't need to stop every train at every stop, as that adds big time penalties. Of course you're talking 6000km of maglev track minimum, and maglev means you can't just run it on traditional lines for the last 10 miles into the city.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> that's not even projected to become profitable until 2070 JR will make up the difference renting space at the new rail stations. It also isn’t very useless, a lot of people go between Tokyo and Nagoya (and I assume they plan to extend to Osaka), so this will just make those trips faster, creating even more integration in the corridor.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  The termini are Tokyo-Shinagawa and Nagoya, which are both existing stations and are already connected via the Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train, taking 97 minutes today. Shaving that down to 40 (if all goes as planned) is nice, but not earth-shattering.
  - soperj 5y ago
    Cutting the time by nearly 60% is definitely more than nice. You could actually have people commute daily on the 40 minute ride, the 97 minute ride not so much.
    - maxgashkov 5y ago
      Large scale commuting adoption seems unlikely. Usually JR sells commuter passes at approximately 50% of price of daily roundtrips between destinations, for Nagoya-Tokyo on current shinkansen this will come to ~$2.5k/mo. No way this is going to be approved by companies even for middle management positions.
      - soperj 5y ago
        Thanks for that info. Would make sense to go home though at that point instead of staying the night in a hotel if there's a series of business meetings.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    More people, more traffic through the stations. That sort of speed has to increase daily capacity/throughput. If that capacity is used, they will do OK.
droopyEyelids 5y ago
To a government, the direct profitability of an infrastructure project should be a secondary concern. The actual concern is whether it helps the people and business of the country to thrive. Like think of the US highways... extremely not profitable to the government, but our country would fall apart without them.
rorykoehler 5y ago
Some things should be done because they are the right thing to do and not just because they are profitable. We're only hurting ourselves with this myopic approach to infrastructure especially.
- clairity 5y ago
  alternatively, it is likely profitable when you count the positive externalities to society.
  - rorykoehler 5y ago
    Yes, perfect way to put it. We’re great at hiding negative and positive externalities.
iso1210 5y ago
How profitable is the US interstate system?
fomine3 5y ago
Another reason why build maglev in parallel with current Shinkansen is because current Tokaido Shinkansen was built in 1960s so the infrastructure is getting old. After the maglev built, old Shinkansen line can be used to different use case like cheaper HSR line, and backup. * Shinkansen is Shin/kan/sen, shin means new, so old shinkansen is a bit funny. Another reason was Tokaido Shinkansen was extremely utilized (it goes every a few minutes) before covid. Now this era with remote work, big companies (primary customer in workday) become realizing that they don't have to pay for train to meeting but just able to use Zoom. There are doubt is before-covid level demand reviving while we're in population decreasing situation..

scrose 5y ago

> not even projected to become profitable until 2070, but that's another story. I wish that’s how we looked at public transit in the US. Amtrak would be taking us coast to coast in a matter of hours at this point.

opinion-is-bad 5y ago
Well Japan has a little bit of a population density advantage over the US. This seems to be an important factor when looking at where rail has been most successful for commuters.
- scrose 5y ago
  I wonder if access to better transportation options plays a role in their higher population density. I don’t know enough about Japan to really make any calls towards that though.
- iso1210 5y ago
  High speed rail isn't for commuters - certainly not daily ones. You need cities appropriate distance apart that can occupy the tracks at a decent rate (so 1000 passengers at 20tph). Commuter trains barely need to go much above 200, maybe 250kph. If you can supply say 20,000 passengers a hour for 15 hours a day - 300,000 passengers a day - then you just need the population centres. A 600kph maglev from New York to LA would take 7.5 hours. A flight takes 5.5 hours, so not much in it, especially if it were downtown to downtown. For New York to Chicago it would take about 2h10, same as a plane. Unlikely to provide 300k passengers, but if you added branches at each end and were routed Boston, NY, Washington branches meeting in western PA, then heading to Chicago (meeting a Toronto branch perhaps), Denver, Vegas then at the Western end splitting to LA, San Diego, Phoenix, San Francisco you might be able to occupy the bulk of the route tracks enough. Crucially you don't need to stop every train at every stop, as that adds big time penalties. Of course you're talking 6000km of maglev track minimum, and maglev means you can't just run it on traditional lines for the last 10 miles into the city.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

> that's not even projected to become profitable until 2070 JR will make up the difference renting space at the new rail stations. It also isn’t very useless, a lot of people go between Tokyo and Nagoya (and I assume they plan to extend to Osaka), so this will just make those trips faster, creating even more integration in the corridor.

Clewza313 5y ago
The termini are Tokyo-Shinagawa and Nagoya, which are both existing stations and are already connected via the Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train, taking 97 minutes today. Shaving that down to 40 (if all goes as planned) is nice, but not earth-shattering.
- soperj 5y ago
  Cutting the time by nearly 60% is definitely more than nice. You could actually have people commute daily on the 40 minute ride, the 97 minute ride not so much.
  - maxgashkov 5y ago
    Large scale commuting adoption seems unlikely. Usually JR sells commuter passes at approximately 50% of price of daily roundtrips between destinations, for Nagoya-Tokyo on current shinkansen this will come to ~$2.5k/mo. No way this is going to be approved by companies even for middle management positions.
    - soperj 5y ago
      Thanks for that info. Would make sense to go home though at that point instead of staying the night in a hotel if there's a series of business meetings.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  More people, more traffic through the stations. That sort of speed has to increase daily capacity/throughput. If that capacity is used, they will do OK.

droopyEyelids 5y ago

To a government, the direct profitability of an infrastructure project should be a secondary concern. The actual concern is whether it helps the people and business of the country to thrive. Like think of the US highways... extremely not profitable to the government, but our country would fall apart without them.

rorykoehler 5y ago

Some things should be done because they are the right thing to do and not just because they are profitable. We're only hurting ourselves with this myopic approach to infrastructure especially.

clairity 5y ago
alternatively, it is likely profitable when you count the positive externalities to society.
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  Yes, perfect way to put it. We’re great at hiding negative and positive externalities.

iso1210 5y ago

How profitable is the US interstate system?

fomine3 5y ago

Another reason why build maglev in parallel with current Shinkansen is because current Tokaido Shinkansen was built in 1960s so the infrastructure is getting old. After the maglev built, old Shinkansen line can be used to different use case like cheaper HSR line, and backup. * Shinkansen is Shin/kan/sen, shin means new, so old shinkansen is a bit funny. Another reason was Tokaido Shinkansen was extremely utilized (it goes every a few minutes) before covid. Now this era with remote work, big companies (primary customer in workday) become realizing that they don't have to pay for train to meeting but just able to use Zoom. There are doubt is before-covid level demand reviving while we're in population decreasing situation..