3 ms·

You can't simply "swap" out trains for maglev, it's a completely different infrastructure with different requirements.

viscanti 15y ago
The biggest hurdle is probably property rights. The second biggest would be clearing a path (building bridges, leveling the ground, etc). Those two would be solved now, and the rest could essentially be "swapped" out. It wouldn't be trivial, but you'd have the two toughest problems already solved.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  The faster something goes, the less turning radius it has, and the tighter your manufacturing tolerances gets. It's more than likely that track designed for 200mph HSR will be completely incompatible with 400mph maglevs. Unless you want to cap the maglevs at 200mph. The maglev will easily fly off the rails trying to take a 200mph curve at 300mph.
  - Anechoic 15y ago
    >It's more than likely that track designed for 200mph HSR will be completely incompatible with 400mph maglevs. Again, it's completely different infrastructure, so yes, it's completely incompatible in the sense that a bicycle trail is incompatible with motor boats. If you have an HSR ROW that you want to change over to maglev, you have to rip up the tracks, rip up the catenary, rip up the power-substations, and build a completely new guideway.
    - potatolicious 15y ago
      viscanti's main point is that infrastructure costs aren't the bulk of the difficulty, but rather acquiring the right of way. But it's extremely unlikely that the right of way acquired for HSR will ever be recyclable to a faster system, even if we ignore the problems of tearing down a system and rebuilding it in-place with no service to mitigate the downtime.
      - HnNoPassMailer 15y ago
        > viscanti's main point is that infrastructure costs aren't the bulk of the difficulty, but rather acquiring the right of way. UltraSpeed's proposal solves this by using 100% elevated tracks. You'd still have landuse, but minimized to pillars.
  - viscanti 15y ago
    Property rights might not directly translate over, and there may be some need for new acquisitions, but it's still (likely) a much easier sell. It's a bigger step to do something once than to do it in a slightly different way. I don't mean to trivialize the "swapping" process. There would be significant political and capital costs with any kind of "swap". But I think those are smaller hurdles than getting the land rights and processing the land.
melling 15y ago
Yes, I do completely understand that. The right of way is the hardest part once you have a large population in the way. The rest is trivial in comparison in the US. All the lawsuits, etc because HSR will inconvenience people. We are simply implementing 50 year old technology(pre-moon landing). China, on the other hand, built the world's largest HSR system in a decade (about 5000 miles), as opposed to 400 miles that will take 20-30 years between LA and SF. Of course people in the US have branded it a failure after the first accident. The fact remains they have built infrastructure that will pay dividends for centuries.
- mc32 15y ago
  I think the failure is speculated to be caused by buggy reverse-engineered railway control systems --so not a problem with the system, but rather the implementation.

The biggest hurdle is probably property rights. The second biggest would be clearing a path (building bridges, leveling the ground, etc). Those two would be solved now, and the rest could essentially be "swapped" out. It wouldn't be trivial, but you'd have the two toughest problems already solved.

potatolicious 15y ago
The faster something goes, the less turning radius it has, and the tighter your manufacturing tolerances gets. It's more than likely that track designed for 200mph HSR will be completely incompatible with 400mph maglevs. Unless you want to cap the maglevs at 200mph. The maglev will easily fly off the rails trying to take a 200mph curve at 300mph.
- Anechoic 15y ago
  >It's more than likely that track designed for 200mph HSR will be completely incompatible with 400mph maglevs. Again, it's completely different infrastructure, so yes, it's completely incompatible in the sense that a bicycle trail is incompatible with motor boats. If you have an HSR ROW that you want to change over to maglev, you have to rip up the tracks, rip up the catenary, rip up the power-substations, and build a completely new guideway.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    viscanti's main point is that infrastructure costs aren't the bulk of the difficulty, but rather acquiring the right of way. But it's extremely unlikely that the right of way acquired for HSR will ever be recyclable to a faster system, even if we ignore the problems of tearing down a system and rebuilding it in-place with no service to mitigate the downtime.
    - HnNoPassMailer 15y ago
      > viscanti's main point is that infrastructure costs aren't the bulk of the difficulty, but rather acquiring the right of way. UltraSpeed's proposal solves this by using 100% elevated tracks. You'd still have landuse, but minimized to pillars.
- viscanti 15y ago
  Property rights might not directly translate over, and there may be some need for new acquisitions, but it's still (likely) a much easier sell. It's a bigger step to do something once than to do it in a slightly different way. I don't mean to trivialize the "swapping" process. There would be significant political and capital costs with any kind of "swap". But I think those are smaller hurdles than getting the land rights and processing the land.

melling 15y ago

Yes, I do completely understand that. The right of way is the hardest part once you have a large population in the way. The rest is trivial in comparison in the US. All the lawsuits, etc because HSR will inconvenience people. We are simply implementing 50 year old technology(pre-moon landing). China, on the other hand, built the world's largest HSR system in a decade (about 5000 miles), as opposed to 400 miles that will take 20-30 years between LA and SF. Of course people in the US have branded it a failure after the first accident. The fact remains they have built infrastructure that will pay dividends for centuries.

mc32 15y ago
I think the failure is speculated to be caused by buggy reverse-engineered railway control systems --so not a problem with the system, but rather the implementation.