Magnetic Levitating Trains Get Go-Ahead In Japan 425
An anonymous reader writes "They've been on the drawing board for 40 years but the politicos have finally approved routes for the 500kph maglev trains to replace bullet trains." I wonder if they'll let me test out maglev rollerblades on the track.
Population Density (Score:5, Interesting)
This sort of project makes a lot of sense in a place like Japan where there are a few places with very dense population separated by rural areas.
America is one of very few places in the world with sprawling suburbs that make transportation projects like this unfeasible. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it will be exponentially more difficult than for us than for a country like Japan, or even most Eastern European countries.
Efficiency (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh Fast (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Population Density (Score:4, Interesting)
Most, if not 95%+ of all rail traffic in the US is in small, highly populated corridors - think BosWash or through Californian cities. If this was a viable alternative to air travel, I think most folk would hop on it in an instant to avoid the hassles of modern air travel.
Re:good idea, maybe the island is to small for it (Score:5, Interesting)
except being far apart you have the problem of getting the track actually built. While I don't know much of the Russian frontier, or much of rural US... I know there is a whole LOT of empty land in Canada, rocky, swampy, forest covered nothing. Plowing a train route through the Canadian Shield is not just difficult, in many places it's pretty damn impossible. The hardest rocks in the world cover most of eastern Canada, and despite not being a steep as the Japanese Alps, the sheer hardness of the rocks would make blasting/tunneling prohibitively expensive. On the flip side of that, one would need MASSIVE bridges to cover many of the dips and rivers in Quebec and Ontario.... It is just all around cheaper to fly over it all.
The Tokyo/Nagoya run was likely picked as a first attempt as it is fairly flat and there is an absurd amount of travel between the two centers. At about 20 million people in the greater Tokyo area, and over 8 in the area around Nagoya, these are two of the thee largest cities centers in the country... add the two together and you have almost as many people as there are in ALL of Canada.
They have the demand, money, and geology for it.
Re:Population Density (Score:5, Interesting)
America is one of very few places in the world with sprawling suburbs that make transportation projects like this unfeasible.
Not necissarily true. I think the important thing is to get people thinking of a maglev more the way they think of airplanes than the way they think of trains. Americans in general are very resistant to rail travel for some reason, mostly because the only experience they have with it is a friend of a friend who rode Amtrak once. Why not have non-stop routs between the major cities of each region (LA, Chicago, Houston, Miami, New York). Put the Maglev terminals at the airport and consider them another part of the air transportation network.
Alternatively, put maglev lines between airports that are close together but still see lots of traffic. I'm thinking something like Mineapolis to Chicago since that is what I am familiar with. Generally, if you want to fly into or out of Minneapolis, it is cheaper to go through Chicago. It would save a lot of time, money, and polution if you could ride the maglev between them. If it worked out and was profitable, it would also be a powerful proof of concept for longer lines in the future.
Transport Tycoon Deluxe (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, looks like Transport Tycoon Deluxe is a few years late in its estimates, strangely. I guess that makes up for SimCity 2000 being (apparently) more than a few years early with microwave power.
Re:The US already has a maglev (Score:5, Interesting)
US in the dust... (Score:3, Interesting)
Great, it finally looks like we might start catching up [ca.gov] to where the Japanese were 40 years ago [wikipedia.org], and now they have to go and make the jump to MagLev.
Yeah, I'm voting for Prop 1A - been following it since '97 or so (the proposition was originally supposed to appear back in 2000 or so, but they keep pushing it back). Expensive, and I doubt it will get the ridership they are projecting until a lot of additional work has gone into local transit in the destination cities, but I'm hopeful that it will kick-start our state and local governments into looking at options besides "build more roads".
Re:Population Density (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember reading a report that said that for the cost of the "stimulus checks" that the government wrote last spring (150billion), they could have built a 300+mph train from SF to Chicago, using 2 tracks, one for eastbound, one for westbound. Future projects would be cheaper, since that included wiggle room to iron out a few problems. so that's what, 5-6 hours from SF-Chicago, with all the legroom you could want, large bathrooms, dinner cars, etc? No more feeling like cattle, no more airport body cavity searches. Something 600-1000 people per train, trains leaving every hour or less.. My god that would clear up roads and airports.
Re:Population Density (Score:5, Interesting)
actually, in the last amtrak bill that passed, their was money in there to extend the high speed rail between chicago and milwaukee (one of the most reliable and most profitable routes for amtrak, airport to airport). They are going to extend it to Madison, then up to St. Paul Not Maglev, but 100+mph trains, with limited stops. Even without Maglev, the diesel electric trains are the most efficient and environmentally friendly way to move cargo or people around.
Much better than 500 kph... (Score:4, Interesting)
... would be only 250 kph with zero wait, nonstop direct. The huge expense (and questionable success... see what happened at ODU) of maglev would not be necessary.
To do that, you have a main line, and then side branches with stations. On the side branches, people get on, and an engineer takes them out onto the main line in front of the train. The trains dock (basically at full speed), and lock together.
Meanwhile, the back unit drops off the back, to proceed to the next station. Trains could go through, basically every half hour, and all rides would be one way, nonstop, direct at 250 kph (150 mph).
When you get on the train, you slide your ticket through a reader, and are instructed which car to proceed to. Additional color coding can also help.
That's for Japan, which would use a basically linear system.
It's slightly more complicated for continental countries, requiring the main trains to travel in circuits -- but basically the same.
With electric propulsion, and today's computers, GPS, and measurement, the system shouldn't be all that difficult.
You end up with less wait than a nonstop flight, much cheaper transport, a lower carbon footprint, and comfortable travel.
Add into that the possibilities for ordering meals and having them delivered piping hot, and it would replace most of your short-hop air travel. Now use the meals to make the tickets significantly cheaper the way Vanderbilt did on his NJ-NYC ferry, and you'd have a huge commercial success.
That's not to say that one wouldn't need to design in certain protections, and that there wouldn't be hurdles to overcome, but the design would far outperform a 500 mph train that travels twice a day, at costs close to that of airfare.
Predicting since 1982 (Score:1, Interesting)
Wow. I did maglev trains as a science fair project in 1982. I predicted they would reach speeds of 400kph and radically alter the real estate markets.
I almost killed myself making one seriously intense transformer while making a metre long magnet from flat bar and plugging it into the wall. Pop! A 12v car battery was the better solution.
It's about time!
Re:good idea, maybe the island is to small for it (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, perhaps, but until when? Oil spiked to almost $150 a barrel this year. If it goes up to $150 and STAYS THERE, the airline industry as we know it will simply disappear.
you had damn well better have a VERY effective train system installed BEFORE that happens.
RS
Re:Efficiency (Score:3, Interesting)
HW
Re:Population Density (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll tell you why we are resistant to rail: it's expensive and slow.
NYC to Philly (or the other way) by car is about 2 hours. If you are traveling ALONE in the car, it will cost you about $20 in gas, $15 in tolls. Throw in $30 for parking.
Rail options are about $60 for Amtrak, $100 for the Express. Already your as expensive as car travel, and double the cost if you are traveling with someone else. Time is about the same when you consider that your final destination is very unlikely to be Penn Center or 30th St. Station.
Amtrak's competition? A Chinatown bus can get you there for $12. Subsidized transit can get you there for about $20, but you have to change trains in Trenton and the trip then takes more like 3 hours.
Re:Much better than 500 kph... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's done in LEO several times a year at 17,000 MPH, in 3 axes.
Managing it in one axis in a more controlled environment at 2% of that speed, should not be difficult.
Look at those magnets (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it safe to bring my laptop or any magnetic media storage device?
Re:Population Density (Score:3, Interesting)
We shouldn't try (Score:5, Interesting)
America is one of very few places in the world with sprawling suburbs that make transportation projects like this unfeasible. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it will be exponentially more difficult than for us than for a country like Japan, or even most Eastern European countries.
The 'exponentially more difficult' part is why we shouldn't try to use rail to solve transportation problems. We're just too spread out. Rail only connects a very narrow corridor of people, and moreover, fixes their location indefinitely. If cities re-configure, the rail can't be reconfigured without lots of money.
If, on the other hand, we reconfigured cars so that they were capable of forming dynamic trains, we could get a lot of the benefit of trains without the drawbacks. For instance, trains move lots of vehicles more cheaply than a single vehicle because the locomotive bears the cost of pushing air out of the way. That not inconsiderable expense rises exponentially with speed. In a train, it's spread out over the vehicles following the locomotive but in a car, the single car bears the entire expense.
If cars drafted behind each other, they could share that savings that trains have. For that to work, it would require the cars to be able to communicate between themselves to sort out common destinations and speeds.
In practice, you'd jump on the highway per normal and your car would start querying other cars how far down the road they're going. When it found another car that was headed the same way for more than a mile or so, they'd sort out who would be lead car and who would draft and arrange themselves accordingly. The person in the lead car would continue to drive, but all the cars trailing him would be tucked in within an inch or two of each other. Their car's computers would be telegraphing to each other what the lead car was doing in terms of accelerating/decelerating so that they would do the same at the same time. When someone's destination exit arrived, the car would telegraph to the following cars that it was peeling off and the other cars would momentarily disconnect while the car pulled out of the train and then the remaining cars would re-connect. In the case of the leader, second car up would become the leader. Tail car peeling off wouldn't affect the train at all.
For a car to be allowed to join a train, it would have to carry a digitally signed certificate saying when the last time it was checked out for safety so members of the train would be confident that one of the cars wouldn't fall apart while they're within inches of it and that it was able to stop itself within a standard distance. If you didn't want to join a train, or you joined a train that made you uncomfortable for some reason, you'd turn off the feature and just drive yourself. But if you're a commuter, letting someone else drive the same route day after day, has a lot of appeal. A common commute of 20 miles would give you 20 minutes to yourself to do whatever while someone else drove.
With reaction times removed and cars bunched up within inches of each other, highways can carry more cars at higher speeds. Currently, we slow down when the highways get congested because we have to account for reaction times to propagate down the road. With the cars handling reaction time issues, they can speed up quite a bit.
Add a little intelligence to our cars and suddenly our highways become much greener.
Re:Population Density (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about you, but I like to be able to, I don't know, pop out for some milk and fresh tomatoes, stroll down to the fountain where the pretty girls walk by, go for a coffee or a beer or an ice cream, perhaps even walk to work! This is supposed to be a democracyâ"why build such misery for yourselves?
I like those things also. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. There are a number of factors that drive urban sprawl in the US:
1) Housing is expensive in the city and land is much cheaper away from the city.
2) People enjoy the freedom of an automobile (something they have to give up living in the city)
3) There is a belief that the city is dangerous and not suitable for raising children.
4) There is a belief that children need a backyard (I honestly never understood this one at all, what good is a backyard when your friends live 10 miles away?)
5) There is a belief that the city is unhealthy so they move away for the "fresh air"
In the end I think it has to do with an American desire to live in 1950s small town America, but all of the jobs are in major cities. I've noticed that there has been a recent shift toward moving into the city among recent college graduates. I think well planned colleges have made people aware of the fact that they don't have to rely on a car to go everywhere, and services like Zipcar have made people realize that a car is available if they need it.
Re:good idea, maybe the island is to small for it (Score:2, Interesting)
Building a rail system - even one that runs on tracks - is expensive. It only makes sense to build one where it will get used.
A line between Tokyo and Nagoya, the largest and the third largest cities in Japan, will see lots of passengers. The shinkansen line between them gets plenty of use by business travelers just going for the day. A train across the Russian wastelands, not so much.
Re:Population Density (Score:4, Interesting)
I always thought that the American destruction of the cities in lieu of building sprawl was stupid, but then I realized that there really was one good reason for doing it that way. The suburbs were built in the cold war, and suburbs are much harder to nuke.
Luckily, suburbs are widely being shown to be a failure. You mention checking out the pretty girls by the fountain, how about having any incidental contact with anyone ever? Suburbs are a nightmare of tinted windshields and road rage, hour long commutes and no pride of place.
In the misguided attempt at "safety" we have given away our humanity. Now there's a nice eulogy for America.
Re:good idea, maybe the island is to small for it (Score:3, Interesting)
"wouldn't that be more useful in places with HUGE distances to trek"
Not really. Airplanes work best over long distances. The reason is the cost of the track.
Trains work best for medium distances. Airplanes don't work well for 200 mile runs because you have to wait so long to board the plane that you might as well drive a car but a train can make stops and then zip back up to high speed and only take five minutes at each stop.
Re:good idea, maybe the island is to small for it (Score:2, Interesting)