January 21, 2003

Maglev Trains

Category:

Shanghai: The worlds first commercial maglev train is about to start running from Shanghai airport to the city center at an astonishing 250mph. Magnetically Levitated trains like this are straight out of Buck Rogers and bring new meaning to the term 'high-speed-rail'. Apparantly the airport journey will now take something like 8 minutes.

The biggest drawback to maglev, of course, is that it's incredibly expensive to build. The 18-mile Shanghai project cost over a billion dollars. Despite that, the US government is about to grant a chunk of change to either Pittsburgh or Baltimore/DC for a similar airport system. Whether or not maglev proves to be better than a less expensive high speed train system remains to be seen, so it will certainly be interesting to watch what happens in China.

Links: [Transrapid][Cal maglev]

Posted by Nick at January 21, 2003 10:33 AM | TrackBack

Comments:

will this realy work? is it cost effective?

Posted by: jontahu on February 26, 2003 06:56 PM

My guess:

Yes, it will work, and apparantly is working great... and no, it's definitely not cost effective. For now, it's just an expensive showpiece, but down the line it may become cost effective. We shall see.

Posted by: Nick on February 27, 2003 09:53 AM

Canada really needs something like this from British Columbia to Ontario. Do you know how much time we will save and how much safer it is then a plane? And then we can add a route from Vancouver
to Los Angeles.Wow what a great system. It's the way of the future for transit. please let me know if there is such a plan for Canada.

Posted by: Alan on March 11, 2003 09:26 AM

they should go for Pittsburgh because the traffic is congested up there

Posted by: kev on August 27, 2003 04:52 PM

actually it is very cost effective. Nick, studies show that maglev travel cost 20 to 40 million bucks per mile, but what most people don't know that a four lane highway, which are small highways, costs thirty million dollars per mile.

Posted by: jim on August 27, 2003 04:58 PM

maglevs need to be in Pittsburgh, the roads appear to be clogged beyond belief

Posted by: creator of this site on August 27, 2003 05:00 PM

I need study material related to magLev technology for my research work. I will be thankfull if anybody helps me.

Posted by: Hassan Chohan on January 12, 2004 10:06 AM

hey this is a good effort . can u send me more details in.ppt format about maglev train?

Posted by: sachin kush on March 10, 2004 05:16 PM
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