China Unveils 373 MPH Maglev Train Prototype (cnn.com) 153
China has unveiled a new floating bullet train capable of hitting speeds of about 372 mph (600 km/h). CNN reports: On Thursday, the body prototype for the country's latest high-speed magnetic-levitation (maglev) train project rolled off the assembly line in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao. Developed by the state-owned China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) -- the world's largest supplier of rail transit equipment -- the sleek-looking train is scheduled to go into commercial production in 2021 following extensive tests. Maglev trains use magnetic repulsion both to levitate the train up from the ground, which reduces friction, and to propel it forward. The project was co-created by Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co. Ltd., a German Consortium consisting of Siemens AG, Thyssen Transrapid GMBH and Transrapid International GMBH. "Take Beijing to Shanghai as an example -- counting preparation time for the journey, it takes about 4.5 hours by plane, about 5.5 hours by high-speed rail, and [would only take] about 3.5 hours with [the new] high-speed maglev," said CRRC deputy chief engineer Ding Sansan, head of the train's research and development team, in a statement. For comparison, current trains on the Beijing-Shanghai line have a maximum operating speed of about 217 mph (350 km/h).
Almost makes me want to move to China (Score:4, Insightful)
I take the train to work 5 days a week, but it sure doesn't hit these speeds. I once saw just over 90KMH on my GPS while I was on my way home from work. This could cut my 1.5 hour commute down to 30 minutes.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Because as someone whose personal time is important to him he'd go work for a small handful of companies that chose to overwork their employees?
Re: (Score:3)
I once saw just over 90KMH on my GPS while I was on my way home from work.
What? You don't need to move to China to get an improvement over that.
Re: (Score:2)
One of my colleagues commutes with the train from Cologne to Frankfurt and back. At some parts of the route the train reaches 300 km/h.
Re: (Score:2)
Same thing here in 2nd world Spain. I hit 300kph for most of my commute while floating along with a nice glass of Rioja in my hand.
Re: (Score:2)
Same thing here in 2nd world Spain. I hit 300kph for most of my commute while floating along with a nice glass of Rioja in my hand.
So you arrive at work half drunk?
Re: Almost makes me want to move to China (Score:2)
As long as he stays slightly less than two drinks drunk.
- yours, the Inebriaty
https://youtu.be/VTSCppeFzX4 [youtu.be]
In Capitalist USA (Score:3, Insightful)
Train rides you to work... Seriously, we will never have anything remotely this cool here, because Republicans can only cut taxes for the wealthy while making the middle class pay for everything else.
Re: (Score:1)
It's not right-wing extremists who are holding up maglev and other modern transportation technologies in the US. It is the nimbys who bring these projects to a grinding halt.
Re: In Capitalist USA (Score:3)
Yes, the tech does work. They have a 30km track in Shanghai from the airport with trains every 20 mins running at up to 430 kph. I think the bigger problem is the cost: this track cost (officially) something like USD$60 million / mile, and Iâ(TM)m sure inflation in the meanwhile will have pushed up labour, land and construction costs quite significantly.
Re: (Score:2)
And spearking of the Shanghai track, it's also completely usless as anything other than a prestige project. Functionally it's not very different from a normal HSR, and you still have to switch to the subway to get downtown so you might as well just stay on the subway and save youself the trouble of running between the platofrms and a bunch of cash.
This project is kind of doubtful too, they'd have to build an enormous new maglev track at ridiculous costs to save an hour or two off the exisiting HSR time. But
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, that maglev from Pudong to - Longyang? Really? That's like getting a high speed rail from SFO to Brisbane, or JFK to Brooklyn. You're about half-way to where you want to be, and that's it. Then you're on your own! You take the maglev to Longyang, then you either transfer to the subway (which also goes from Pudong, but now it's packed with other commuters and workers) or a taxi once again.
And it doesn't run at 430 KPH any more, it's limited to 300 KPH (same as high speed rail) because of concerns a
Re: (Score:3)
It is the nimbys who bring these projects to a grinding halt.
Nope. Maglevs and HSTs are stopped in America when they crash into economic reality.
America simply can't build large things efficiently. China can build public projects for a tenth the cost, and in a tenth the time. The Shanghai-Beijing bullet train was completed in 3 years for $10B. The SF-LA train was projected to take 30 years and cost at least $100B, despite being 30% shorter than the Chinese train.
California spent over $6B on their train before it was finally cancelled. Most of that was on legal f
Re:In Capitalist USA (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
A big chunk of that speed is that China owns all the property.
A lot of high-speed track in China is elevated 5-8 m over flat agricultural land. It simply runs above fields, country houses and all the existing infrastructure like channels and country roads. The government apparently has the ability to force this construction everywhere it has to be, but aside of a couple slim concrete pillars in your rice paddle and occasional relocation of a house by a few meters it actually disturbs life very little. Never mind the brief whirr of passing trains.
In cities, the same pr
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
People get used to familiar noise. Infrartructure has to be built to benefit all. And this noise is quick. If you have never been to, visit China or Japan and see for yourself.
Cal train is NOT cancelled (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
CA HSR is not cancelled. It's still ongoing
Technically, the middle part of the line, I think the part that connects Corcoran Penitentiary with the Bakersfield meth refineries, is still uncanceled. But it's not the part that anyone will ride getting from useful place A to useful place B, and in any case the last of the federal funds appropriated for it was just withdrawn.
Re: (Score:2)
The questionable part is crossing the mountain ranges between San Jose and the Central Valley and LA.
You mean "the parts that matter and are what gave everyone a reason to vote for it in the first place". If it was a $10B proposal to connect Merced and Bakersfield, it would have died. Without even a plan on how to get to SJ or LA - it's a waste of time and money.
Re: (Score:2)
A better comparison would be the new Chuo line in Japan. It's privately owned, and through very difficult terrain (lots of mountains, over 80% tunnels). It's going to cost about 72 billion Euro / 80 billion USD.
The cost is acceptable because they look at is as a long term investment (50 years), and because they expect to be able to export the technology, and because they also profit from the stations which become shopping and business hubs.
It's entirely possible to build really expensive infrastructure in d
Re: (Score:3)
The SF-LA train was projected to take 30 years and cost at least $100B, despite being 30% shorter than the Chinese train.
Arent you listening? Its the fault of Republics. You know, the ones in control of California...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
America simply can't build large things efficiently. China can build public projects for a tenth the cost, and in a tenth the time.
True enough. Authoritarian governments get shit done!
Re: (Score:2)
>> It is the nimbys who bring these projects to a grinding halt.
> Nope. Maglevs and HSTs are stopped in America when they crash into economic reality.
Wrong. The problem is not the economics, it is the decades-long process of dealing with hundreds (or even thousands) of local governments, most of which are being pressured by nimbys to oppose anything that might affect their property values. If the problem was simply economic then high-speed trains and other large public transit projects would be fa
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
we have airplanes that fly us at over 500mph. these days a 737 will easily fly coast to coast
Re:In Capitalist USA (Score:5, Insightful)
I regularly fly SEA-SFO and SFO-LAX and the effective speed from the moment the boarding process is started to the moment I go out of the plane is about 350 mph from SEA to SFO and just measly 200 mph for SFO-LAX. And never mind that the airports are usually another 20-30 mins driving from anything interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
+ 30 minutes for the parking lot shuttle to get me to the right gate
+ 20 minutes getting to security + from security to the gate
+ 30-60 min to get off the plane to the rental car
+ 1 hr minimum if negotiating the 405
And that's if everything is going smoothly.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Once this is done, there's going to be an electrified high-speed corridor from the SF downtown to Gilroy. It'll be mostly grade-separated from the regular traffic flow, with few at-grade intersections. By
Re: (Score:2)
How fast does that Caltrain move? That's going to be the limit of speed for the HSR. With 80 miles at each end of the route, having a max speed around 100 MPH (and an average speed closer to 70 MPH because of stops, the few at-grade crossings, and such) you're looking at a 4-5 hour trip. At a $200+ cost for a round-trip ticket. And it'll be done - if ever - sometime around 2050 (at the earliest).
As far as the Salesforce Park opening, we'll see - it's been rumored to have been opened several times in the
Re: (Score:2)
So I believe that while 2 hour trips are not reasona
Re: (Score:2)
The distance from Palmdale to LA is about equivalent to SF to Gilroy - it's going to be an hour on each end, even with the express AND no stops. Prop 1A set a maximum time of 2:40 from SF to LA - and there is NO WAY it will hit that, ever. You'll spend 2 hours just on the SF to Gilroy and Palmdale to LA segments - not including stops. It was over-sold from day one.
Either way, it's not going to exist until sometime around 2050 - it was supposed to be done by 2020 when approved back in 2008, but now they'r
Re: (Score:2)
It is also very safe, the GP hides on board every time there is a tornado warning.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget the journey out to the airport either. Trains go right into the centre of town.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In the UK no-one wants to live near an airport or under a flight path. Too much noise and pollution.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Try not to make wild assumptions about what people mean and stick to purely what they actually said. I never made any claims about flight paths around LAX, I was merely pointing out that people in the don't like to live near airports OR under flight paths because of the noise and pollution.
Come on, this is basic reading comprehension, school level stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Near LAX is near an airport, right? That was your point, that you can live near an airport. And I said that around here people consider living near an airport to be a bad thing. Noise, pollution, traffic, parking etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The overhead of having margins everywhere too, what if there's a traffic jam/delay on the way to the airport? What if the security line is extra long? Just the fact that a train brings you from city center to city center in one go is a pretty big deal. Even on a fairly short flight time (50 minutes) I've found it usually takes me 3-3.5 hours total. And a lot of that time I'm waiting in line, walking to departure points, going through security, boarding etc. so if I could sit down in a train seat and chill f
Re: (Score:2)
There are a lot of things I'
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And I personally wouldn't mind spending even 4 hours in comfort on a train versus flying for 2 hours. Just ask
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not a chance for 2.5 hours - not with 1.5 hours spent just getting to Gilroy or Palmdale.
Why? Even the existing Caltrain Express is faster. If it were to go without stops it'll take just 1 hour 15 minutes to get to Gilroy from the downtown SF, with all the current speed restrictions.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Right now even express Caltrains make a lot of stops, that won't happen with the HSR.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As I pointed out, other countries have comparable routes that are just as fast. But because of assholes like you, the US can't build a fucking lighting pole these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's see: SF to SJ at 80 mph (just +20mph to the current speed) - 30 minutes.
Which not a single train can even do today. And you ignored the stops along the way (mandatory stops) which MUST be made, even at the 2:40 max duration as promised in Prop 1A.
Everything past that can be full speed, the SJ-Gilroy track will be rebuilt and grade-separated. And after that it's smooth sailing all the way to LA, with maybe last 15 miles being speed-restricted.
What route? HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU QUOTE TIMES WITHOUT KNOWING THE ROUTE? And you don't include any stops - which is not per the approved Prop 1A. And you STILL FAIL. You have 300+ miles to go, in 2 hours - that's over 450 MPH. It's not going to do it. You can't even do basic math.
As I pointed out, other countries have comparable routes that are just as fast. But because of assholes like you, the US can't build a fucking lighting pole these days.
Assholes like me? Thankfully I don't live in SF o
Re: (Score:2)
we have airplanes that fly us at over 500mph. these days a 737 will easily fly coast to coast
Long trips are what airplanes are good at. But when your one-hour LAX-SFO flight requires getting to the airport, through security, and from an airport, the economics of HSR look a lot better. Trains can be a regional technology.
Actually it's the government's fault (Score:2)
Re: Actually it's the government's fault (Score:1)
Not to mention, there is no hard limit on how much the government can spend. We pretend money is limited in the USA, but we saw in 2008 that the government could come up with TARP funds to prop up the banking industry simply by passing a bill. Later on we saw massive spending through quantitative easing. Why can't they use the same tools to build rail, clean power, education or a publicly funded healthcare system? Somehow the only thing Republicans can get behind is trillion of dollars of handouts to the we
Re: (Score:2)
Consumers would pay anyway, if you raised the road use cost to trucks it would just get passed on in the form of higher prices for the products shipped by truck.
Re: (Score:2)
if you raised the road use cost to trucks it would just get passed on in the form of higher prices for the products shipped by truck.
Fine. Let people who cause the cost pay for the cost. If someone wants to buy something transported across half of Europe by road (I'm thinking of Evian Alpine spring water for example) then they should pay for the true cost of that.
Re: (Score:2)
It is the California Libtards being paid off. (Score:2)
In California there was supposed to be high speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco. $4.5 Billion to consultants, $0 to track.
Maybe we should hire the Chinese to design and build it for us. They probably would have got it done for less than $4.5 billion.
Re: (Score:2)
... high speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco. $4.5 Billion to consultants, $0 to track. Maybe we should hire the Chinese to design and build it for us.
So how would the Chinese have reduced the price of those political and legal battles that caused that cost?
PS : Actually, some track has been built.
Re: In Capitalist USA (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously, we will never have anything remotely this cool here, because Republicans can only cut taxes for the wealthy while making the middle class pay for everything else.
So why couldn't California, with full HSR funding and no Republicans, build one?
Re: (Score:2)
The big U.S. infrastructure project (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Meanwhile, what is the big U.S. infrastructure project? An unnecessary freaking wall along our southern border.
Agreed. When we elect trash, you get trash. There is a cost to voting for Mr. Bullshit. The really fun thing, is the destruction of norms, the environment, infrastructure, friends, allies, decency, standing in the world, morals, honesty, the budget, and all the rest is long lasting and very hard to recover from.
H.L. Menken once said, "As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of
Concrete structures can last a real long time (Score:1)
The USA-Mexico border is mostly unoccupied desert, ie., cheap right of way. It will be low maintenance. Concrete structures have lasted for over 100 years. Such a concrete wall will not be subjected to heavy, damaging loads, unlike the weight bearing steel wheels of trains, including the high speed kind. A wall will slow down crossing of the border. This gives border patrol a higher chance of catching trespassers. Yes, a ladder will allow climbing over a wall, one at a time, and then climbing down. A ladder
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Build a high-speed rail line with a secured right-of-way along the southern border. Kills two birds with one stone.
Re: (Score:2)
Build a high-speed rail line with a secured right-of-way along the southern border. Kills two birds with one stone.
Oh, so now we have a bird immigration problem also?
Where will the technology come from? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps reading the summary helps?
And China has a working mag lev since a decade.
The project was co-created by Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development Co. Ltd., a German Consortium consisting of Siemens AG, Thyssen Transrapid GMBH and Transrapid International GMBH
Transrapid is the consortium that developed the technology, mostly with German tax money, but then no politician had the guts to give green light to build one, and then suddenly everything got privatized and the german reunion happened. Howeve
You imagine wrong (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When I was young people made the same comments about Japan only copying / borrowing technology.
China has "adopted" a lot of technology from other countries in the past - the Shanghai maglev is mostly German technology, but they gradually develop their own. I wouldn't be surprised if this was was mostly Chinese technology.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The Chinese will have to steal the technology from someone.
They stole their rail technology from Washington State [abcnews.com].
Germany (Score:2)
Oddly precise (Score:2)
--
.nosig
Wow! (Score:2)
That's impressive, but we're bringin' back coal!
#MAGA
Don't need trains for that. (Score:2)
(2) they are a great way to control a population, by controlling how many people can travel, when they can travel, and where they can travel.
You've never heard of the No Fly List have you?
Re: (Score:3)
Its a lot easier to power trains from renewable energy than it is for aircraft. For the same cost / mile, trains are generally a lot more pleasant to ride. - I generally take rail rather then air in countries with HSR for trips under ~1000km. End effects are usually much less time consuming as well.
Chinese rail already works quite well. Higher speeds would be nice if they can make it practical.
Re: (Score:3)
For the same cost / mile, trains are generally a lot more pleasant to ride. - I generally take rail rather then air in countries with HSR for trips under ~1000km.
Even not HSR it can be pretty nice. I took the sleeper from London to Inverness. The line is a high speed one to Edinburgh, but the train isn't and the bit to Inverness is very very not high speed. It was pretty nice; roll up to the station in the evening, buy a picnic dinner from M&S, hop on the train. Settle down, relax read a bit, eat, bed
Re: (Score:2)
Any large scale use of renewable energy requires storage. Trains can run on electricity. There is no clear path to long haul airliners running on anything except hydrocarbon fuel which is not easy to generate from renewable power.
Re: (Score:2)
Any large scale use of renewable energy requires storage.
No.
Unless yo consider ~40% contribution by renewables not large.
In case of trains: they are the storage. A train approaching a statin is powering down and feeding power into the grid, another train is departing. Super simple ...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What country (outside of Costa Rica) gets 40%+ of its energy, consistently from renewables? I ...
Germany actually.
No idea about your other rant, why would "germany" buy wood and "burn" it in a biomass plant?
You seem not to know what a biomass plant is
Hint: for starters, Germany is a country. So saying "Germany is xxxx" is always a wrong statement. If you think a German based company is doing something wrong, point out the company.
Re: (Score:2)
Trains on the surface - they make a long narrow scar across the countryside, and it's economically unreasonable for people to be allowed to cross the scar with underpasses or overpasses at too many places.
You sound like an American. In the UK crossing railways with over or under bridges is a non-problem; in fact you are rarely aware of when you cross over a railway. Unless you are a regular user of them, you are hardly aware of the existence of railways in the UK at all, despite there being a lot of them. I know it is common in the USA for railways to cut small towns in half, and in some ways it was deliberate - to separate the gentry from the riff-raff.
Trains - on fixed tracks that take tons of money and years to build, even in a communist dictatorship, creating routes that are fixed and not easily altered. Airliners can shange course nearly on a whim.
Again, is that USA thinking? You can just slap down an
Re: (Score:2)
I/m guessing you work for an airline, because no person with even half a clue would seriously post that utter crock otherwise.