China Abandons Long-Distance Maglev Effort 291
Ralph Lee writes "China has chosen to abandon its Maglev train effort from Beijing-Shanghai, according to this AP story: 'Besides cost, "the maglev technique was excluded because it does not match the wheel-track technique used by railways in China," the report said, citing Wang Derong, vice-chairman of the China Transport Association.... The scrapping of the 9-year-old maglev project - two weeks after the country's first maglev, a short stretch in Shanghai, began regular operation - represents a setback for the development of the technology in China, which many had seen as one of its key markets.'" The short 18-mile MagLev run mentioned earlier remains in operation, but China is not going to use magnetic levitation for the planned 750-mile Beijing-Shanghai link.
Inevitable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2, Interesting)
the noise, for one.
physical wear...
want another ?
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
the big draw to existing rail systems is that they are -standardized-
due to patents, maglev is a minefield of dangers in the licensing/sub-licensing realm. either invest in -tons- of research to find work-arounds to other teams' intellectual property, or put all that money back in the tried and true: rail.
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
This does matter, to China, and any other government with strong business to maintain, on an International level.
Flippantly assuming that just because the Chinese are the 'Bad Guys' they'll ignore all business regulation, well
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
Why does ignoring impediments to a free market make them bad guys? It shows that they are more concerned about an open economy than the US, "land of the free", is.
Re:Inevitable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in this case. Most patents are held by Thyssen and Siemens, both of which are German companies.
> Flippantly assuming that just because the Chinese are the 'Bad Guys' they'll
> ignore all business regulation, well
> and extremely blissless.
Or hopelessly starry-eyed in your case. The Chinese are already under strong suspicion of having hijacked much o
Patents are a global "asset" (Score:5, Informative)
China signed the TRIPS agreement. (as did every developed country and 95% of developing countries.)
The deal was: the rich countries will trade manufactured and agricultural goods with the poor countries, and the poor countries will enforce the patents and copyrights of the rich countries.
The proclaimed trade benefits for the poor countries never happened (and what power do they have to complain?), but the enforcement of patents, trademarks, and copyrights has been enforced (the US threatens to cease trade and cancel IMF and WorldBank funds when the poor get angry). This is why Africa can't manufacture AIDS treatments even though they cost less than 35 cents to manufacture each daily dose.
(For more info, and excellent book is Information Fuedalism, by Peter Drahos)
Re:Patents are a global "asset" (Score:5, Insightful)
Last time I was at Wal-Mart, I was thinking: Gee it's sure a shame that China hasn't benefitted from trade agreements. They only produced a token 80% of the stuff in this store. Clearly, we need to do more.
That's a threat, not an offer of help (Score:4, Insightful)
No, if the poor coutries wanted "more" of what the US deals out, they would have agreed to the Cancun trade round. They rejected it because it sucks, just like the TRIPS agreement.
(and America making use of foreign sweatshop labour is not a form of charity, y'know.)
What the developing nations want, is for the US to take it's foot off their throats so that they can work on building their own economies. Instead, coutries without decent educational systems are currently sinking funds into the prevention of illegal sharing of software and music. Countries with AIDS epidemics are banned from producing the treatments. (and on a less serious note, countries without decent mass transport infrastructures cannot build maglev trains
Re:That's a threat, not an offer of help (Score:3, Informative)
Nobody is banned from producing AIDS treatments. What they are banned from is selling the treatment at far below actual cost and giving the companies that formulated it nothing. Do you think it would be a good idea to allow poor nations to manufacture any patented drug they want without compensating the inventor at all? Let me give you a hint, if this ever happened, it would be the end of new drug development. Who would spend upwards of a billion dollars on R&D knowing that they would get no real reward
Re:Patents are a global "asset" (Score:2)
Then this: The proclaimed trade benefits for the poor countries never happened
Followed by this: but the enforcement of patents, trademarks, and copyrights has been enforced (the US threatens to cease trade and cancel IMF and WorldBank funds when the poor get angry)
If there were trade no ben
Consider the source =Patents are a global "asset" (Score:2)
Illegals gang-rape New York woman
Marriage amendment: Its time has come
Gwyneth Paltrow won't raise child in 'weird' U.S.
i'd take their reports with a grain or two of salt. whether or not the articles are factually correct is not my issue. its my concern that real journalism isn't just about the truth, its about the whole truth. telling one side of a story is not news, its propoganda.
Re:Inevitable? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, word to the fellow bringing up friction as a reason for maglev, welcome to the world of grease.
The giant advantage that wheeled trains have over maglev trains is that none of their energy is used to keep them standing.
Another overlooked item is that a diesel-electric wheeled train loses much electricity in transmission than a maglev train
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, whatever. Just because the current administration has budgets and targets to meet, does not mean that they're going to be ambivalent when choosing the 'best option'.
Maglev is unproven on grand-order scales. Rail is seriously proven technology, and more to the point: standard. If the Chinese gov't want to outsource the mfr/design/engineering of super-fast rail-based carriage systems, they can: because these systems exist in an International market, and will be developed. As has already been noted, existing rail systems can be developed to support high-speed/efficiency carriage platforms.
Were there actually maglev implementations committed and standardized in such areas as Europe, the US, perhaps even Australia, then China may have invested a little more in the long-run into grand-order scale (i.e. not just going from here across town) engineering required to do maglev across their vast distances.
They had the potential to do maglev, and do it well, but they also had the potential to end up with a lame duck system which nobody else was using, and therefore which became expensive in the reality of the New World Economy.
Welcome to that, by the way...
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
Travel on horseback and by horseback carriage was once standard too. That didn't stop the advent and adoption of horseless transport though, did it?
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, right. I present the following parable:
So, this economics professor and his student are walking along the street, and the student spots a $20 bill lying on the sidewalk. Being a starving student, he says, "Look, there's a twenty! We should pick it up and buy some lunch."
And the professor, being an economist, shakes his gray-bearded head and says sagaciously, "No, no, that's impossible."
"What are you talking about?" asks the student. "It's right there!"
"Well, you see," says the professor with a chuckle, "if there were really money lying on the sidewalk, someone would have picked it up already."
Re:Inevitable? (Score:3, Insightful)
How the heck would anyone know? The only mag lev systems have been small and haven't been around very long... sure theoretically it is great, but if it takes Billions of dollars to prove it, then maybe you should use private money to do so.
Studied it, lived there (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that the arbitrary nature in which China has been ruled with since 1949, ie whats good today is bad tomorrow and the opposite, has meant that many in China simply choose to ignore the government. Hey, if my government were Communist I'd ignore it too. However, this poses a problem for China's economy because respect for laws and lack of court system that can effectively deal with those that ignore IP laws and signed contracts means some potential business partners get screwed and leave the market. Ultimately, China does have similar IP laws on the books as developed nations, but no effective way of enforcing them. Mod me down for being a bit off topic, but that's how the cookie crumbles.
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're not talking about the subway station on the corner. Maglevs would only be used for very long-haul routes, meaning you would be going to a central train station serving an entire metropolitan area. There would be a lot of people and luggage there, trying to get processed. And given the extreme speed, you would have to search everyone for bombs, weapons, etc. Sound familiar?
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Informative)
It is impossible for any maglev to take off into the air, and fly into an important building. The Maglev also does not carry extreme amounts of flammable liquids, so it is not a bomb in itself. Remember, the former WTC did withstand the impact of the plane flying it, but the fuel burning melted the steel structure which collapsed after a certain period. Even if terrorists managed to get a Maglev airborne, then they would at most cause a dent in most buildings.
This of course if no more possible than getting a TGV airbourne, and using it to bomb the French president, or using the ICE to bomb Berlin.
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
It is impossible for any maglev to take off into the air, and fly into an important building. The Maglev also does not carry extreme amounts of flammable liquids, so it is not a bomb in itself.
No, it is enough to them th
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does speed (physics, not pharmaceuticals) have to do with bombs, weapons etc?
Re:Inevitable? MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:2)
There is a shinkansen departing tokyo (or shinagawa) for osaka what--every 6 minutes now or something during peak times. Each one with some few hundred passengers. You can buy a ticket now and be on the next one in a few minutes in many cases and in Osaka in 2.5 hours.
remember too: train stations, unlike airports, can be centrally located within cities.
Re:Inevitable? MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:2)
Re:Inevitable? MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:2)
Maglev, however, presents larger obstacles. Trains with wheels are at least able to share tracks with "normal" trains for a
Re:Inevitable? MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:2)
Unlike airplanes, trains (including maglevs) a) are capable of making multiple stops in a short distance and b) have a natural system of possible "feeders" such as other trains, subways, etc. Today's airports rarely have this - ever try to get to a major airport by mass transit? there are a few places where it's possible--not many. However, even if we buy your argument that maglevs need to be located outside of cities and towards the edges, well 1) this is where today's p
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
Our country is much smaller than the US and so the TGV is a true alternative.
It's very secure, it can cross France in 3 hours and 15 minutes (1 hour and a half with a plane not counting commuting to the airport, wait, etc).
I think that the real point here is that we don't need the Maglev because trains are already very efficient. And a lot less expensive.
Re:Inevitable? (Score:5, Interesting)
And, it's quiet, and doesn't shake. Ever tried ordering coffee from a train kiosk?
Actually, modern trains do offer very comfortable travelling. All you need is modern, well laied rails and good trains. The ICE 3 (the latest German high speed trains) have all axes of all carts powered. Thus you get very smooth acceleration. In a train station, you don't notice the train setting off.
As for standards and international compatibility, there are a few drawbacks in today's railway system, at least in Europe: As far as I know, the width of the rails is standardized by now, but it hasn't always been that way. In most European countries, the US, Canada, China and most of Australia the width is the British standard of 1435mm. But countries such as Spain, Portugal, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, SA, Japan (apart from their high speed train), Malaisia, Pakistan have different rail systems.
Most, if not all, far distance tracks are electrically powered, but different countries use different systems, mainly 15kV 16 2/3 Hz AC (eg Germany) and 25kV 50Hz AC (eg France). That makes cross border train operation difficult, but there are trains that can operate on both systems, such as the French Thalys, a TGV that commutes between Paris and Cologne.
If you are interested, you might look here [bueker.net]
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
It's not just in eastern Europe. Spain and Portugal (for the most part) have a different standard. Finland does too (maybe it's the former USSR standard?). On the Talgo high speed trains that run between France and Spain, apparently they can change the width without the passengers deboarding (I've heard this is not the case when entering the former USSR from Poland though for example).
In Spain though thi
Re:Inevitable? (Score:2)
Wrong [dot.gov] and wrong [dot.gov](MS Word documents).
Maglev's are quieter than steel wheel/steel rail trains at similar speeds, but they most certainly do generate significant amounts of noise and vibration, especially at speeds over 180mph.
Price per _half_ mile? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article: "The maglev cost can be as high as $36 million to $48 million per half mile, twice that of wheel-track lines, the China Daily said."
Why in the world are they quoting price per half mile? Or is it really "price per kilometer" and they think the American public is too stupid to understand what a kilometer is?
Re:Price per _half_ mile? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Price per _half_ mile? (Score:2)
A half mile is 800m, or 0.8Km.
Ooops, should've used the preview button. Insert foot in mouth now
Re:Price per _half_ mile? (Score:2, Funny)
The school teacher taught me about rounding, yes. She also warned the class to use rounding sensibly, that is, you can round somebody's weight to the next kilo up or down because more precision doesn't mean anything, whereas you don't want to round the exposure time of a film camera to the next second up, for example.
In your case, your mile-to-kilometer rounding just cost China $9.6M
Re:Price per _half_ mile? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Price per _half_ mile? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Price per _half_ mile? (Score:2)
I can't find it with Google, but I did find a whole lot of other examples of that type of stupidity, including a travelogue about Grand Teton National Park directing tourists to "listen for the sound of the
Re:Price per _half_ mile? (Score:2)
I'd suggest you take a look at who wrote the story. It's written by the Associated Press (an American organization) that has a very set style for how it refers to distances. The AP is going to default to miles because Americans (there readers) have a better idea of the distance of a kilometer than a mile.
High speed railroad still on the track (Score:5, Insightful)
Trains like the TGV or ICE have proven that it was feasible to run such a service at up to 320km/h, please passengers (most of the time), have no major impact on the environment AND be profitable.
Maybe it's still too early for the Maglev, or maybe the technology isn't that attractive for its associated costs...
Re:High speed railroad still on the track (Score:2)
Re:High speed railroad still on the track (Score:2)
1) most people are overoptimistic and believe they can pull it
2) there is a certain first-mover advantage that makes greater risk acceptable.
We just have to cope with it. Many things will be tried and fail, only to be redone correctly in a few years. Maglev might become successful, but we don'
This was to be expected. (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember reading somewhere that they've decided to construct a regular high speed rail line instead, similar to France's TGV or Germany's ICE. Economically, it makes a lot more sense, and until the dedicated high speed line is constructed, the trains can use the current railroad infrastructure that is already in place.
Here's [railway-technology.com] a link to the proposal, which has been in planning for a while already. The Chinese have already constructed a prototype high-speed train engine based on the Swedish X2000 train.
Regular high-speed rail as opposed to a maglev line also makes expansion to other regions of the country a lot easier.
Still, a long-distance maglev line would have been really cool, and there's got to be a region where it would make economical sense as well. Maybe we'll see one in Japan first.
Re:This was to be expected. (Score:2)
Still, a long-distance maglev line would have been really cool, and there's got to be a region where it would make economical sense as well. Maybe we'll see one in Japan first.
That's debatable, seeing as the current (rail) Shinkansen is partially financed by the government as-is. (Nonetheless, as a resident of Japan I'd be delighted to see it become reality.)
Re:This was to be expected. (Score:2)
Re:This was to be expected. (Score:2)
This kind of failed project makes me wonder about the health of China's economy in general. There's talk of an investment bubble [nytimes.com] in China right now with huge amounts of money going into projects that don't make a lot of sense. This maglev train seems like just one of many examples.
ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,too? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t (Score:5, Informative)
Yes you will, but only once. The French did speed trials in the 70s with conventional train engines and cars (well, apart the engine that had more power), to test the limits of conventional railways, and they reached about 300Km with that train, but the rail track behind the train was all bent out of shape as a result. I saw a very impressive photo of that bent track once, but I can't seem to find it anymore.
Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t (Score:2)
Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, this bent track was more in the sixties, the '70s tests were around 250-280 km/h in a very straight corridor (Mulhouse-Strasbourg), and didn't actually destroy the tracks (with the amount of traffic on that line, they'd better not to
Another challenge the TGV (and ICE) solved is the power supply: conventional electric feeding systems vibrate too much at 300 km/h, and even if you managed to reach that speed despite the poor contact, you'd rip the cables away. (in fact, the TGV 001 prototype, still displayed on the A35/A36 motorway near Belfort (place of construction) and Brumath (large maintenance facility), as well as its commercial predecessor, the Turbotrain (still in little use on Paris-Normandy and a few even more remote regional lines), used a gas turbine specificially to avoid this problem.
X-2000 or Pendolino would probably make a lot of sense given what I perceive should be the state of China's tracks and maintenance procedures.
Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t (Score:2)
The Swedish X2000 maxes out at 210 km/h, and hardly ever reaches that in practice.
Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t (Score:2)
Even the old Corail trainsets (180 km/h initially), once refurbished in the new Teoz service, reach a commercial speed of 200-210. And these are really plain jane classic passenger trains.
Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t (Score:2)
Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive (Score:5, Informative)
As they don't want the construction to be delayed furthermore, the prices are usually very interesting.
However, I believe the noise of the TGV goes farther than 200m away...
Re:ahem, they know that new tracks are expensive,t (Score:3, Funny)
Swiss Metro (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:5, Insightful)
On the train? Turn up 10 minutes before it leaves to ensure you don't miss it, get on, find a seat, spend under 5 minutes disembarking at the other end. Also, train stations generally are placed more conveniently than airports which by necessity have to be out of town. It's much easier to put a railway station in the middle of a city.
A TGV-style train going 180 mph will beat an airliner door-to-door on some surprisingly long journeys. If China builds a standard high-speed conventional rail link, it'll probably be good enough.
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:4, Insightful)
In that case, the trip by train would take about five and half hours. And that time is spent calmly on board a train, where one can read, work, make phonecalls, and possibly even use the Internet. Compare that to a 90 minute flight, plus at least two and half hours of airport travel, embarking, taxying, disembarking, security etc etc.
Except for exceptional cases, conventional high speed rail always beats flying when the distance is less than 1500 km.
Why hasn't it gotten more popular in the US? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet its still faster to fly even short distances here on planes than it is to take the train. Even counting security, a flight from Minneapolis to Chicago is about 3 hours door-to-door (my house to a downtown office), including security. You can literally commute
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:2)
Oh Really?
Check out Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. [phoenix.gov] It happens to be placed right in the middle [mapquest.com] of the 6th largest city in the USA. [proximityone.com] (It's unofficially grown larger than Philly, making it 5th) It also happens to be the 5th busiest airport in the world for takeoffs and landings. [phoenix.gov]
I've learned that the secret to getting in and out of the airport is to not drive to it, but to
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:3, Insightful)
So to not have to pay off a few homeowners at market price for their houses if they don't like the noise, they make the whole area travel an extra 30 minutes to the airport.
And of course, then they regulate things so that no one can compete with thei
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:2)
I rode the Shinkansen regularly when I lived in Japan. Once you got out of Tokyo, the thing screamed, but when you were in the city, it chugged along just as fast as every other train for safety reasons.
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:2, Insightful)
And supply the energy to slow down and stop presumably. Er and the energy to evacuate the tunnel in the first place and to keep it evacuated.
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Swiss Metro (Score:2)
Progress that should be supported by the world? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, other things (like... trains) run on electricity, but with the potential speed of an airplane, I don't see why maglev trains shouldn't be a great victory for the environment.
This said, electricity isn't always environmentally safe. But the future holds many other ways of creating electrical energy from recyclable and healthy sources - wind, water, waves - and when they get more publicly accessibly, fuel cells (hydrogen). As of now, these cells are too expensive and pollutive to create in a large scale.
The progress that maglev trains or vacuum tunnel trains (also magnetic, I believe) create for the ways we transport ourselves today, is worth a lot, in my opinion. Therefor, my view is that the world should finance China in creating this. Not as a good deed, but as scientific collaboration in making maglev trains publicly accessible and, in the future, cheaper.
This might sound unreasonable, but what better place to start this is there than China - where they REALLY need to transport their masses quickly and reliably more than anywhere (except, possibly, India). Given time, this will gain us all.
All this is a bit unclear, but feel free to comment with your opinions.
Re:Progress that should be supported by the world? (Score:4, Insightful)
On a side note, hydrogen fuel cells are batteries, not a way to create electrical energy. You still have to refuel them, either with "mined" hydrogen, or with hydrogen created by the use of electricity. Furthermore, while there are technologies on the horizon that may help us generate electricity without polluting the environment as much as we do now, they're still just that on the horizon. Where they have been, and remained, for years now.
Cost per mile of track ! (Score:3, Informative)
Skipping steps in development (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe they scrapped maglev, and are working on a Star Trek styled transporter.
damn good thing too (Score:5, Insightful)
The airport maglev is kinda interesting in the way that nobody actually rides it.
Price conscious people takes the bus to major transportation hubs, and convenience / time consicous people takes the taxi (which is only like 15 dollars compared to 10 dollars that the maglev costs - besides the point that the other end station is nowhere near the city and you have to take a cab anyway so it's not that much faster)
so, after a buttload of money, it's not making any of it back except wow points - it might be worth it for an airport shuttle, but you'd bet money has everything to do with it.
that said, I am still taking it in a few days just for the wow factor - but after that it's all taxi since it's so cheap.
Re:damn good thing too (Score:3, Interesting)
The guy running the show basically said that as Shanghai becomes more prosperous and more people buy cars, traffic will become MUCH worse, and within a few years road-based transportation to the airport will be insanely inconvenient.
At that point he expects the train to be full all the time, and to make a profit.
Re:damn good thing too (Score:3, Interesting)
The taxi ride to and from the airport is just *painful* after a 10-hour flight from Paris or Vienna; it can easily be 1.5 hours and vs. the Transrapid's ten minutes or so is for me just unthinkable. The money difference is negligible considering what stuff costs in Shanghai. $US5 is like seven cans of
High Speed trains use different track (Score:5, Informative)
The true high speed trains (like some in france, and the new one going under the mountain chain in Europe, I don't remember what it's called) have to use specially layed track. Those sorts of high speed trains (due to the speed and the wave in the track that it generates ahead of the train) cannot handle the "flaws" used in regular track. It needs track that is bound much more securely to the ground to limit the wave generated in the rail, requires a sturdier railbed, require very strait track (only very gradual curves due to the speed) and many of them are electric requiring lines to be run anyways.
It's not as simple as everyone thinks to just slap a high speed train on regular track.
Re:High Speed trains use different track (Score:5, Informative)
Hero projects (Score:2, Interesting)
Having said that this was always going to be a vaguely improbably blue elephant. Communist countries may love their hero-projects but this kind of trend-setting is expensive and usually causes egg-on-face incidents.
Waaaa! Haaaa! Haaaa! (Score:3, Informative)
The French were right 30 years ago by scrapping the Aerotrain [aernav.free.fr] project (pictures [aernav.free.fr], films [aernav.free.fr]) in favour of the TGV [unipi.it]...
Speed and risk (Score:5, Insightful)
As rail speeds increase, so does the damage that can be done by a terrorist. A 650km/h maglev sounds interesting at first sight - but how much damage could be done by a well placed bomb? Although the thing contains no fuel on board, the combination of released kinetic and magnetic energy would, I guess, be pretty destructive. And because the infrastructure (track) is so expensive, the cost of any damage would be enormous.
Now consider a conventional technology HST. At 300km/h the kinetic energy is less than a quarter that at 650km/h, and the risk of major track damage from a derailment or explosion is less. My conclusion: the risk to a conventional HST from things on board is far less than a maglev. Chances are that the security on a high speed maglev line would be as intrusive and time consuming as that on airplanes. So in fact, the real city center to city center time for a maglev might not be significantly faster than a conventional HST. And it costs more. It's the usual balance: faced with the choice between spending shitloads of money on a technology that may actually have few benefits, and very much less money on a technology that is known to work well, governments do not have the same choices as private citizens. While, as a private individual, I might have a hankering to do my commute in a Porsche, even though it won't be any quicker or more comfortable than my VW, governments should be accountable for public money and make the "obvious" economic decision.
And in China, where most people are still desperately poor, the government has even more responsibility to make the economic decision rather than the vanity decision.
Re:Speed and risk (Score:3, Insightful)
But the thing about trains is that it's probably pretty hard to hijack them and run them into buildings, like you could do with a plane. Airborne terrorism can destroy not only the plane (and kill passengers), but ground targets as well.
And with electric (or Maglev) trains, if the thing got into any serious danger, it could always be remotely disabled for safety reasons. Sure, it'll have inertia, but it's not a loose cannon in the same way that an airplane in the sky is.
Finances and leapfrogging (Score:5, Interesting)
Many people here seem to think that the Maglev could be one of those technologies, where China leapfrogs TGV/ICE trains. While it's cheaper in the long-term, in other cases of leap-frogging the capital outlay has often been lower for more advanced solutions. Installing the infrastructure for a cell-phone network, for example, is 10 times cheaper than putting in old-fashioned land-lines.
In some cases, the capital outlay is a bit higher, but the pay-back period is very short.
Compact fluorescent light-bulbs are more expensive than regular ones, but if you have it on 4 hours a day you will save more in energy cost than the cost of the light-bulb. Return on investment is 100%, and you don't even need to but such items on a budget. China is also in the lead for LED cluster bulbs, which give even better energy efficiency and full-spectrum light.
Other good candidates for leapfrogging:
Unlike the Maglev, these technologies save capital that is scarce in growing economies, and have multiple positive side-effects. Much as my geeky side would like to one day replace planes and very noisy TGVs with levitation trains, prices are still prohibitive.
Maglev doesn't match the wheel-track technique? (Score:3, Funny)
Surely it didn't take them nine years to realize that there were no wheels. I suspect this was imprecisely translated, and I'd love to know what they really said (or meant).
Re:Maglev doesn't match the wheel-track technique? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Maglev doesn't match the wheel-track technique? (Score:2)
some technical insights (Score:3, Informative)
It's Distance (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a country that whose output has grown at least 7%/year for the past 10 years, a country experiencing massive internal migration and social change. Uh yeah, a country really opposed to progress.
If you don't know, Beijing and Shanghai are not that close (around 1000km) which makes it an ideal short haul air route. Less urgent freight/journeys can go via the existing (or upgraded) rail intrastructure, high speed journeys can be made now by air. The maglev would be great if it were a cheap tried and tested technology, but it is not, and there are alternatives.
How about some 1st world countries try it out, not waiting to live off the backs of 3rd world countries trying something new? I'd like to see this sort of thing between the ~400km route of NY and DC, for example... a much more suitable distance, centre of town to centre of town.
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:5, Interesting)
Similar projects have failed in other countries or have not even been begun for the sheer economic madness of it. Maybe the Chinese promised to build it to get better terms from the Germans on other projects, so it's not necessary just the pet project of some party leader. Actually, it's pretty clever. Some of German's economic and political leaders would have done almost anything to acquire a maglev contract for Siemens and it partners.
When German chancellor Gerhard Schroder visitied China last year, he and his delegation deliberately excluded topics such as human rights violations from the agenda, in order not to endanger the maglev train project. Apparently, this strategy has failed once again.
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:2)
I wish this tactic would fail more often. Unfortunately, human rights get the back seet way too often, and don't count on the news agencies to get the facts straight, either.
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:4, Interesting)
I wouldn't say as strongly. The system has its faults in extremely high initial investment cost. Particularly, the infrastructure has to be built ground up based on not having tracks. At a distance of 750 miles, that is quite a large sum of faith. The 9 year project has already cost an arm and a leg. I'm not so sure I would be willing to fork over such large sums of money like that when other technologies exist that have proven themselves, are cheaper, and almost as fast (~300km/h).
A study done by a railway consultancy group in Germany has postulated through computer simulation models the efficiency of a Transrapid system is about equal if not less of a "standard" (not maglev) railway. In fact, their conjectures show two to three times more energy required [216.239.37.104] over the marketed ramblings of Transrapid. However I can't speak for the validity of this company, and this study was done more than four years ago from which there have been about 50 patents [uspto.gov] issued since the published article, and there have been 29 patents [uspto.gov] filed (but not issued), I'm guessing the situation is more like the situation featured by MegaRail Transportation Systems Inc [216.239.37.104] which is still a year and a half lagging.
I know for certain though that maglev has not become drastically cheaper in initial construction. It is only in the chance of longer term fuel and cost efficiencies it may pay off to invest in it. This is why I think 750 miles is a bit far at this point and would be much better suited for changing over the city subway system network in the richer parts.
As of this moment, in rural areas, the Chinese people live in squandor. It really is a depressing sight and the awareness of such situations will spread with the ease of transportation to such areas. When people have more and more free time to devote to issues that they may otherwise glance over in effect to pay a bill, priorities may not always be akin to someone who lives in a more relaxed state. Given a Transrapid system would cost quite a bit, one trip costing roughly 1/20th of one person's income for a month, there should be more attention focused on that of the 1 billion or so population that does not live in the top 1% of wealth for the country. It is not the United States there, and people are not often exuberantly wealthy as they may be in the good ole' west. It is usually governemnt officials yes, but they also have insight into making their lives filled with more power and that of their family and descendants. As a result, the country must prosper the same and it would not be able to do as much through this system.
Of course I am not making China out to be concerned about their people because they generally are not except in the image they may portray to their trading partners, or at least in any public news stories. Rather, the social implications are only a sidestep to other motivations which I have only briefed upon, namely control and power distributed through their descendants. It should be understood that this method values is prevalent all the way to the lower classes except of those in
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:2)
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:2)
Which, by the way, doesn't actually refute the point that I was making. You even reinforced it. Thank you.
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:2)
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:2)
No.
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:2)
You may: Croatia, which in the meantime isn't communist anymore.
Re:I smell political shenanigans (Score:2, Interesting)
To use a frequently-appearing example: "Oh, the Spanish were so evil, they killed off all the Aztec" - Well, guess who the Aztec sacrificed to their gods.
No one is free from the guilt, so don't go trying to lay a guilt trip on me, buddy. Just like every government and most societies do, we'll continue to ignore those violations while it's to our advantage.
Need I get into the US's human rights record?
Jw
Re:What's a "mile"? (Score:2)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Re:did it really take them that long to work out (Score:3, Informative)
that maglev trains do not use wheels and tracks?
I don't really understand what your intentions are with that post, but at least it's partly wrong. Maglev trains do need tracks, they simply don't have what you'd normally call rails, hence literally there also can't be derailing. Physically, derailing a maglev train probably requires destroying the track or the train (before derailing) or doing both at the same time by having two trains colliding.
If you want some information on the transrapid project
Re:Implications for Germany (Score:3, Insightful)
It's ironic how much the Greens have hated the Transrapid, for reasons only they know. Probably because it's high-tech, and Greens deep down are