Transrapid (MagLev) Test Successful In China: 405 317
theBunkinator writes "Use your favorite translator (+ unit converter) to read about the first successful beyond 400km/h (~250MPH) test of the MagLev train in China. News Blurp in German at tagesschau.de. The offical Transrapid site is bilingual, with choice of German/English. Pictures & Video, too. Beats the Autobahn any day. Probably beats a plane in many situations as well."
Does not beat the French TGV (Score:5, Informative)
TGV (Score:5, Informative)
Please note that you can already travel at 300Kmh using the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, 'High Speed Train'), in France, since since 1980...
Not 400Kmh, but it works very well.
More informations can be found here [tgv.com].
(There is a nice flash map of the french railways).
And ... ?? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm missing something ???
The French TGV [sterlingot.com] already drove over 515km/h.
And that was in 1990 !!!
For sake of comparison (Score:5, Informative)
The speed of sound is about 761 mph [fiu.edu] (sea level, bleah bleah.)
Re:What's the real speed of this? (Score:3, Informative)
Maglev trains usually run on elevated platforms high enough to let roads and the like pass underneath while still low enough to avoid most birds. That, and it simply looks cooler on an elevated platform as these pictures [transrapid.de] show... :)
Not cost-effective (Score:5, Informative)
The Transrapid would've cost us about $38 million per kilometer and additional annual costs of $215K. For comparison, ICE train tracks (Inter-City Europe express tracks) cost $16.5 million per km and around $165K annually.
It gets worse. There's a 30km test track in Emden, and the train has never been up to it's supposed max speed of 500 km/h. The distance from the Munich airport to the city center is only about 20km, and the thing needs 5km just to get up to 300 km/h. Planned costs were set at $1.6 billion (with a "B" as in, "bwooaaaahhh!") -- expected costs around 50% more. Planned completion was 2006 and expected 2008-2010.
Munich dodged a bullet, but now faces over a year of public transport hell as the main through-tunnel for all S-Bahns is upgraded to increase capacity from 20 to 30 trains an hour. (All S-Bahn trains pass through this tunnel, resulting in massive delays whenever there's a problem even near the tunnel, which extends some seven stations, 5 in the tunnel and end points.) To make things worse, the video schedule displays along the lines run Windows and crash at least once a week. Luckily, the trains don't.
woof.
Before any gets into "why not in US?"... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem becomes one of how you define straight. These tracks need to be really straight for long lengths to get such numbers, and while your typical subway or Amtrak route looks straight, that's only when viewed at lower speeds (under 60MPH). Even then, lots of these routes are shaky. Take it up to over 100 and suddenly, it's not so straight anymore.
Anyone who's taken their car to really high speeds on public roads can usually attest that a straight road at 70 isn't as straight at 120.
Transrapid in Germany... (Score:4, Informative)
Germany, being a rather small country, yet with a very high density of population, has a very good and highly accepted high-speed railtrack system. (Japan and France are still far better, but still.) The Transrapid offers very little time benefit per direction, yet requires massive construction work for its tracks. Most people here say - why bother? Why do we have to pay billions of tax Euros for a 30 minute benefit?
The Transrapid consortium has struggled during the last years to find an excuse on where to build its track in Germany and why, and so far, plans are still going back and forth.
Re:Does not beat the French TGV (Score:1, Informative)
Running at over 500 km/h (311 mph) with a specially prepared trainset on brand new track is an accomplishment, but one should not expect such speeds to be possible in commercial service anytime soon.
The 400kmh of the Transrapid in china are its standard speed, and that is more than a standard TGV in public service achieves currently.
TGV is faster, but only in test conditions. (Score:4, Informative)
This story implies that the maglev was running at the same speeds it would operate at commercially. There's a big differance between that and the world speed record. To quote TGV themselves from their site [unipi.it]
"Running at over 500 km/h (311 mph) with a specially prepared trainset on brand new track is an accomplishment, but one should not expect such speeds to be possible in commercial service anytime soon."
If the maglev speeds are reproducable in a production - ie passenger carrying - environment then this is a major achievement and certainly seems to be what they are aiming for.
Re:Autobahn? (Score:3, Informative)
This amounts to a throughput of 5754 persons/h.
For a single lane Autobahn: 130km/h, distance between two cars, 170m. This amounts to 765 cars per hour. A typical car carries up to 4 persons.
3060 persons/h.
A typical Autobahn has at least 2 lanes, several have 3.
This makes roughly 6kP/h or 9kP/h. So one could say a Autobahn with 3 lanes has twice the troughput than the Transrapid.
But, this is the theoretical limit. The numbers for the Transrapid is devised from the implementation with two trains on the tracks.
Double the number of trains you get the the same throughput.
I've seen this train myself (Score:3, Informative)
Shanghai, BTW, is a very nice city- at least the areas I saw. I got the impression there is, relative to many other Chinese cities, a lot of money there.
Re:And ... ?? (Score:2, Informative)
Travel speed will be about 430 km/h.
515 km/h is a record, not the travel speed!
--
Stefan
DevCounter ( http://devcounter.berlios.de/ [berlios.de] )
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Re:For sake of comparison (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong! Sound travels 741.1 [demon.co.uk] mph at STP. I knew memorizing that value way back in 7th grade would pay off some day! I never imagined I'd be able to troll Slashdot with it, though...
Re:Not cost-effective (Score:2, Informative)
You state that the maglev needs "5km just to get up to 300 km/h." While correct, you neglect to compare this to ICE, which takes 30km to reach the same speed. Since there's no wheel/rail friction, maglevs can accelerate much more quickly than conventional high-speed trains.
Furthermore, maglev trains use less power than conventional high-speed trains once you get past about 200km/h. At 300km/h, ICE trains use 71 Wh/km. Maglevs use 47 Wh/km; a maglev could go 400km/h on the same amount of power it takes to get the ICE up to 300km/h.
Maglevs are also quieter, safer, easier to maintain (no moving parts!), and so on.
Re:Before any gets into "why not in US?"... (Score:3, Informative)
This sectioned construction is, of course, the reason for the familiar "click-clack" noise that trains make as they go along their merry way. It allows for thermal expansion, and makes construction modular and repair relatively easy. Unfortunately, this type of construction isn't suited for traveling at high speeds, the small discontinuity between each section causes a lot of vibration and stress on the train's suspension (see example: Acela).
These tracks are also shared with freight trains, which place a huge amount of stress on the rails when compared to a (much lighter) passenger train, pushing the rails slightly out of alignment and level each time a train passes by, requiring frequent checks and maintenance.
Bullet train systems throughout the world use continuous welded rails (CWR) for high speed travel. This is just as important as long, straight, properly banked tracks for high speed travel. Unfortunately you cannot simply upgrade freight tracks to CWR, because the frequent mainenance required would become more difficult and expensive. High speed trains in other countries do travel on regular tracks in some places, but they cannot approach the "normal" cruising speed that they can on their dedicated, continuous tracks.
I seriously think that the best solution for the US is a whole new rail network for passenger traffic. Expensive, yes. But the benifit of having an alternative transportation system is worth the increase in cost over upgrading an interstate highway from 2 lanes each way to 4. The price increase isn't even too enormous. For example- a typical interstate improving project, widening I-40 to 4 lanes in Greensboro, NC is costing taxpayers $22m per mile, whereas according to the California High Speed Rail network's homepage, a high speed rail network would cost an average of $38m per mile, including stations and trains.
Maglev is of course another option, but it's largely untested, especially in commercial service. Welded steel rails are, to this day, just as fast, safe, proven, and less expensive. The choice seems clear to me.
More like 60-80m (use the two-second rule!) (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I don't know about germany, but here in america we certanly driver closer then 170 meters! Perhaps 170 decimeters :P
Ever learn the two-second rule for driving? The trick is, you're supposed to always be at least two seconds behind the car in front of you, three or four seconds if the roads are slippery or it's raining or dark (or all three).
You measure this by using bridges, signs, etc. as benchmarks -- wait until the car in front of you has passed the landmark, count "one-onethousand two-onethousand", and only then should you reach the same landmark. If you pass it beforehand, you're too close.
So suppose you're driving 120 kph (the usual speed limit on the Autobahn, if there is one defined). 120 kph ~= 33 m/s. So by the two-second rule, you'd have to be at least 67m away from the car in front of you.
Suppose you're doing a more typical speed on the Autobahn (even when there's a speed limit, it usually is roundly ignored). Most people drive around 140 kph (though you usually are getting run over by Mercedes and BMWs doing 200). That's a minimum distance of about 78m, assuming it's a bright sunny day with dry roads.
If it's raining, you should double that; near or below freezing, at least double that again; low visibility, double that once more. IOW if it's raining, freezing and foggy, you probably shouldn't be on the road at all. ;-)
Seriously, if you follow the two-second rule and keep in mind that you're supposed to double it in some circumstances, you're never rear-end anyone, and probably never get rear-ended either (since the person behind you *also* has more warning as a result).
Cheers,
Ethelred [grantham.de]
Re:Not cost-effective (Score:4, Informative)
If you could take the subway to the rail station, in, for instance, NYC, then take a maglev to chicago (750 miles) at 250 miles per hour, then go from the rail station to downtown on the El, you are talking about a 3.5 hour trip, doorstep to doorstep. As opposed to 5 or 6 on an airplane, even if it only takes 1.5 hours flying time.
I wouldn't want to go from NY to LA on a train, but for transit amonst the centers of the east coast megacity, I don't think they can be beaten- unless airplanes get a whole lot more time-efficient (they may be, in Europe, but they currently suck here in the US).
Re:Before any gets into "why not in US?"... (Score:3, Informative)
Additional dings against rail in this country are mostly political.
Most of the "middle of nowhere" stops for Amtrak were due to pork-barrelling in the 70's to get Amtrak approval. With Amtrak bleeding cash, it becomes less clear whether rail is a business or a public service. Nobody asks the CTA in Chicago, for example, to be fully self-sufficient (heavy subsidies).
Roads and air travel are also heavily subsidized, but those subsidies are buried deeper and aren't as apparent. For example, the millions of dollars spent in widening an expressway leading to an airport might be paid for with not only gas taxes, but also general taxes diverted for the purpose. United Airlines would have no additional outlay, but would benefit.
The additional bugaboo is that most travel is designed around the car. Suburbs are planted in the middle of nowhere with grocery and retail "a short drive away", but a long and dangerous walk or bike. Similarly, jobs are also being located without other amenities, but simply "cheap land" and "near a highway". It's like building a Sim City with Residential units in one corner and Commercial in the opposite, then connecting them with roads only. People then have a vested interest in their cars (fueled by commercials of people driving badly on empty roads and also low gas prices) and will fight most attempts at rail that don't connect them to their "current" job's doorstep.
US Gov't dropped the ball (Score:3, Informative)
How come there aren't any of these in the U.S? I would have thought that U.S being ahead in technology (or atleast money), they would have one of these running somewhere by now.
I wrote about this in a previous article [slashdot.org] (see the final paragraph). One of the problems (in addition to those already listed by others) is that the US Government wasn't willing to put up any research dollars to fund development of the MagLev train -- the idea for which was actually created at MIT (there's even an old videotape of the minature prototype experiment somewhere). Other governments were more than willing to fund the research even though it was going to benefit private companies. Needless to say, the combination of government money and private companies that look beyond the next fiscal reporting period to determine the allocation of their R&D budgets resulted in the US quickly being left in the dust.
GMD
You need to research before you post (Score:3, Informative)
You really need to learn more about the MagLev train and what advantages it would offer over "200 year old technology" before you post (and someone mods you as Insightful???). Here's a very brief primer on MagLev [mit.edu] that will hopefully help you realize the importance of MagLev. You should do a google search and find out more.
What would you trust more, a well developped and well researched almost 200 year old technology (the first steam train ran in 1804 [schoolnet.co.uk]), or a new, extremely complex technology that has yet to carry it's first passenger???
Who the hell modded this as Insightful? Sheesh!
GMD
Re:Magnets: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Does not beat the French TGV (Score:2, Informative)
Picknit: In what way is that a perfectly normal TGV? Thats like saying I am going to go get a Chevy Monte Carlo, because the stock-car version, which is a PERFECTLY NORMAL Monte Carlo (with the exdception of body, engine, wheels, frame, etc., etc.) can go in excess of 200 mph. Or was this your point? Were you just being sarcastic or something? I can't even tell.
Oh, and speed isn't the only measure of performance. To get a more complete picture, you would have to look at energy required to get this kind of performance, the effect on the track (how much maintenance you have to do when traveling at these speeds), and many other factors. So saying that the TGV is better because it once went faster on special track with heaveily modified power units is pointless. This isn't to say that the TGV isn't better, just that there are more things to look at than the speed of a specially modified version.