5 ms·

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

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.

ant6n 12y ago
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.
- vilhelm_s 12y ago
  I guess the usual counterpoint is: they have to build a new track anyway (the existing one is getting saturated). Building a rail track or a maglev track costs about the same (almost all the cost is making the tunnels), and the maglev track is better, so why not go with the maglev. It was discussed a little bit for the new high speed train line in Britain, but rejected for the reasons you state in your first paragraph. But Japan seems much less worried about reusing trains (different lines are usually operated by different companies with different rolling stock). And somehow they were able to get this project funded even though it will be many years until first service---maybe they just are more competent than the west when it comes long-term investments? :) So maybe the trade-off came out differently there...
  - ant6n 12y ago
    Maybe it's a tech-fetish. The Germans tried the same thing with Transrapid for many years (between Hamburg and Berlin), but just ended up upgrading conventional rail.

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.

ant6n 12y ago

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.

vilhelm_s 12y ago
I guess the usual counterpoint is: they have to build a new track anyway (the existing one is getting saturated). Building a rail track or a maglev track costs about the same (almost all the cost is making the tunnels), and the maglev track is better, so why not go with the maglev. It was discussed a little bit for the new high speed train line in Britain, but rejected for the reasons you state in your first paragraph. But Japan seems much less worried about reusing trains (different lines are usually operated by different companies with different rolling stock). And somehow they were able to get this project funded even though it will be many years until first service---maybe they just are more competent than the west when it comes long-term investments? :) So maybe the trade-off came out differently there...
- ant6n 12y ago
  Maybe it's a tech-fetish. The Germans tried the same thing with Transrapid for many years (between Hamburg and Berlin), but just ended up upgrading conventional rail.