Japan's MagLev Gets Go Ahead

ThinkPad760 writes "The Japanese government has finally given approval to build the long awaited MagLev train linking Tokyo and Osaka via Nagoya. But don't hold your breath. Construction will start in 2014. The Tokyo Nagoya section will be completed in 2027 with the final section to Osaka complete by 2045. I was hoping my wife could buy me a ticket as my retirement present, but looks like I have a wait a couple of years after that."

Compared to Shinkansen or airplane

[hackertourist]

TFA mentions 67 minutes travel time. The Shinkansen takes 155 minutes for the same distance, so this would be a significant improvement. The cities are 500 km apart, even an airplane would not take significantly less than an hour.

A bit more information at NHK...

[KonoWatakushi]

From Maglev project gets go-ahead [nhk.or.jp]:

Japan's transport ministry has ordered the construction of infrastructure for magnetically levitated trains, putting the country's project for next-generation high-speed rail service fully on track.

The ministry on Friday ordered the Central Japan Railway Company, or JR Tokai, to build maglev train tracks between Tokyo and Nagoya.

Maglev trains boast a maximum operating speed of 500 kilometers per hour, and could travel the 340 kilometers between the 2 cities in just 40 minutes.

The ministry told JR Tokai to build the tracks on an almost straight route, using underground tunnels to pass beneath a mountain range.

The firm plans to start an environmental assessment this year and begin construction in 3 years.

Maglev trains are to start operating between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027 and between Tokyo and Osaka in 2045.

The project is expected to cost 9 trillion yen, or nearly 113 billion dollars.
Friday, May 27, 2011 17:04 +0900 (JST)

The first leg is specified at 340km, and the total appears to be roughly 500km. At nearly 9 trillion yen, that would be 18*10^9 yen/km, or about 350 million dollars a mile. That looks ridiculously expensive, though a significant part of that may be drilling through mountain ranges. Often the maglev components themselves are insignificant compared to the necessary ground work, or securing rights of way.

Still, I'm curious how much of that cost could be avoided by opting for an Inductrack [wikipedia.org] based system instead. Inductrack is an elegant passive magnetic levitation system, which is vastly cheaper than conventional systems due to its profound simplicity. It also seems likely that they chose a nearly straight path, exactly because of the excessive track cost. If that is the case, the path flexibility afforded by using a cheaper technology, may have allowed for significantly less ground work and a more attractively priced system.

In a country like the US with large flat expanses, Inductrack would make for an excellent intercity transit network. The costs are very reasonable, even when compared with conventional high-speed rail.