China's 270MPH Maglev Train.

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: DasFox

Originally posted by: sdifox
Only problem is it serves no real purpose You would think for something that can top 270mph, they would have at least 270miles of
tracks for it... Going back to model propaganda cities are we?

30.5km...

No kidding it's only has a 30.5km track?

That's crazy...

If the Simpsons monorail episode didn't predate this nonsense, I would have said they were mocking the PRC.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: sdifox
Only problem is it serves no real purpose You would think for something that can top 270mph, they would have at least 270miles of
tracks for it... Going back to model propaganda cities are we?

30.5km...

It does serve a purpose. Humans are looking for the next step in rapid people movers, and trains seem to be a likely candidate. While we have concepts and prototypes, we don't have the hard data that you'd get with regular usage.

Here we have an actual maglev train operating in full-time service. This will allow people to gather data on the design and make changes if they have to. It's a short track right now, but in the future they'll lengthen it.

Look at the other end of the spectrum... Amtrak has the Acela, but it can't even go its design speed because they don't feel like upgrading the track.

high speed trains (no matter what technology) are only useful when you travel long distances. It should not be used for short distance commuter traffic since that defeats the purpose of building a high speed vehicle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_High_Speed_Rail

Look at that project. To me, there should only be 3 stops, Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. Having more stops just defeat the purpose of a high speed train. I think it would make more sense for them to schedule regular service that dove tails with the high speed ones's schedule so that people can zoom from taipei to taichung then take the slower train to say Chiayi.

335km is a waste of time for high speed train. Maybe if they loop it on the east side of the island too, then it would be worthwhile.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: sdifox
high speed trains (no matter what technology) are only useful when you travel long distances. It should not be used for short distance commuter traffic since that defeats the purpose of building a high speed vehicle.

91TTZ 's got a point. China relies heavily on its extensive railroad system for moving people and goods. They just upgraded the speed recently. I'm sure they are at least considering the possibility of moving to maglev in the future. It makes sense to have at least one line running for gaining technology and experience.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: dighn

Originally posted by: sdifox
high speed trains (no matter what technology) are only useful when you travel long distances. It should not be used for short distance commuter traffic since that defeats the purpose of building a high speed vehicle.

91TTZ 's got a point. China relies heavily on its extensive railroad system for moving people and goods. They just upgraded the speed recently. I'm sure they are at least considering the possibility of moving to maglev in the future. It makes sense to have at least one line running for gaining technology and experience.

Laying down a maglev network will be a huge challenge. And 30.5 km is way to short for it to be considered a valid testbed. You are not stressing any part of the system with such a short track.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: dighn

Originally posted by: sdifox
high speed trains (no matter what technology) are only useful when you travel long distances. It should not be used for short distance commuter traffic since that defeats the purpose of building a high speed vehicle.

91TTZ 's got a point. China relies heavily on its extensive railroad system for moving people and goods. They just upgraded the speed recently. I'm sure they are at least considering the possibility of moving to maglev in the future. It makes sense to have at least one line running for gaining technology and experience.

Laying down a maglev network will be a huge challenge. And 30.5 km is way to short for it to be considered a valid testbed. You are not stressing any part of the system with such a short track.

Define stressing the system?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: sdifox
Only problem is it serves no real purpose You would think for something that can top 270mph, they would have at least 270miles of
tracks for it... Going back to model propaganda cities are we?

30.5km...

It does serve a purpose. Humans are looking for the next step in rapid people movers, and trains seem to be a likely candidate. While we have concepts and prototypes, we don't have the hard data that you'd get with regular usage.

Here we have an actual maglev train operating in full-time service. This will allow people to gather data on the design and make changes if they have to. It's a short track right now, but in the future they'll lengthen it.

Look at the other end of the spectrum... Amtrak has the Acela, but it can't even go its design speed because they don't feel like upgrading the track.

high speed trains (no matter what technology) are only useful when you travel long distances. It should not be used for short distance commuter traffic since that defeats the purpose of building a high speed vehicle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_High_Speed_Rail

Look at that project. To me, there should only be 3 stops, Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. Having more stops just defeat the purpose of a high speed train. I think it would make more sense for them to schedule regular service that dove tails with the high speed ones's schedule so that people can zoom from taipei to taichung then take the slower train to say Chiayi.

335km is a waste of time for high speed train. Maybe if they loop it on the east side of the island too, then it would be worthwhile.

Uh. Xin-chu could use a nice connection, and there's nothing wrong with including it. If you have only 3 stops, the railway would be underused. Imagine this. I live in Berkeley or Silicon Valley. If the proposed CA high speed rail only went from SF to LA, I don't even know if I would bother to drive to SF then hop on the rail. If it doesn't stop in SJ, it's pointless. The proposed line has multiple stops within the Bay Area and multiple stops in LA. It makes sense.

It's just like the Bay Area has 3 airports. I don't think I would ever fly to LA if it involved a drive to SFO or OAK when I'm in the south bay. It's just too much of a hassle.

You want to include enough stops so that you can include enough people to make your system useful. That's why you have multiple lines that have different number of stops like the Taiwan system uses.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: dighn

Originally posted by: sdifox
high speed trains (no matter what technology) are only useful when you travel long distances. It should not be used for short distance commuter traffic since that defeats the purpose of building a high speed vehicle.

91TTZ 's got a point. China relies heavily on its extensive railroad system for moving people and goods. They just upgraded the speed recently. I'm sure they are at least considering the possibility of moving to maglev in the future. It makes sense to have at least one line running for gaining technology and experience.

Laying down a maglev network will be a huge challenge. And 30.5 km is way to short for it to be considered a valid testbed. You are not stressing any part of the system with such a short track.

Define stressing the system?

as in put stress on all parts of the system. Are the control systems up to the task? Are the "tracks" up to the task? Are emergency systems adequate. These are all things that would be adequately tested with 35km of track, if your are running a regular speed train. With a maglev, that is clearly too short.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: DLeRium

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: sdifox
Only problem is it serves no real purpose You would think for something that can top 270mph, they would have at least 270miles of
tracks for it... Going back to model propaganda cities are we?

30.5km...

It does serve a purpose. Humans are looking for the next step in rapid people movers, and trains seem to be a likely candidate. While we have concepts and prototypes, we don't have the hard data that you'd get with regular usage.

Here we have an actual maglev train operating in full-time service. This will allow people to gather data on the design and make changes if they have to. It's a short track right now, but in the future they'll lengthen it.

Look at the other end of the spectrum... Amtrak has the Acela, but it can't even go its design speed because they don't feel like upgrading the track.

high speed trains (no matter what technology) are only useful when you travel long distances. It should not be used for short distance commuter traffic since that defeats the purpose of building a high speed vehicle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_High_Speed_Rail

Look at that project. To me, there should only be 3 stops, Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. Having more stops just defeat the purpose of a high speed train. I think it would make more sense for them to schedule regular service that dove tails with the high speed ones's schedule so that people can zoom from taipei to taichung then take the slower train to say Chiayi.

335km is a waste of time for high speed train. Maybe if they loop it on the east side of the island too, then it would be worthwhile.

Uh. Xin-chu could use a nice connection, and there's nothing wrong with including it. If you have only 3 stops, the railway would be underused. Imagine this. I live in Berkeley or Silicon Valley. If the proposed CA high speed rail only went from SF to LA, I don't even know if I would bother to drive to SF then hop on the rail. If it doesn't stop in SJ, it's pointless. The proposed line has multiple stops within the Bay Area and multiple stops in LA. It makes sense.

It's just like the Bay Area has 3 airports. I don't think I would ever fly to LA if it involved a drive to SFO or OAK when I'm in the south bay. It's just too much of a hassle.

You want to include enough stops so that you can include enough people to make your system useful. That's why you have multiple lines that have different number of stops like the Taiwan system uses.

SF to LA is almost 600 Miles no? I can see you having more stops towards the 2 ends of the lines, but in between? I would imagine 1 or 2.
Taipei to Hsinchu is like 60Km... given the whole line is only 320, I don't see it making sense. I am sure they put in more stops for financial reasons, but it still doesn't make sense to have a highspeed train that spents most of its time breaking...

On second thought, Taipei - Hsinchu should get it's own high speed link. Maybe make that part of the tracks dual so that they can run a commuter high speed train there. I can see justification for that run since there is enough traffic bothways.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: sdifox
Laying down a maglev network will be a huge challenge. And 30.5 km is way to short for it to be considered a valid testbed. You are not stressing any part of the system with such a short track.

Oh I'm sure it borders on the realm of "unfeasible" currently. As for learning from it, you listed a lot of things that can't be done, but there's a lot of things that can be done. For one, they get a German-built full system right in their backyard to learn from. Despite the short distance, it does go to full speed which in my uninformed opinion should still be of value for data gathering and design refinement. One step at a time eh?

Of course, that is not to say political considerations did not play a part in its construction.

 

[Dragnov]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain

Originally posted by: jackace
there has been talk in the state of Washington to put a train similar to this one along I-90 and connect Spokane and Seattle.

in CA, they're talking about one between SF and LA, which would probably be a bit more useful since it's like 10 times the distance. but if they were really smart, they'd run a line from seattle through Portland and Sacramento to LA, with a branch to SF in the middle. 5 or 6 hours to do the entire coast in high comfort, and probably pretty cheap fares.

It's been talked about for over a decade now. It's not going to happen. There are simply too many obstacles to go through. There are local, state, and federal hurdles. The environmental impact. Private land ownership. Not the mention the finances.

 

[aphex]

i say they upgrade the people mover at disney world to that speed

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: dighn

Originally posted by: sdifox
Laying down a maglev network will be a huge challenge. And 30.5 km is way to short for it to be considered a valid testbed. You are not stressing any part of the system with such a short track.

Oh I'm sure it borders on the realm of "unfeasible" currently. As for learning from it, you listed a lot of things that can't be done, but there's a lot of things that can be done. For one, they get a German-built full system right in their backyard to learn from. Despite the short distance, it does go to full speed which in my uninformed opinion should still be of value for data gathering and design refinement. One step at a time eh?

Of course, that is not to say political considerations did not play a part in its construction.

For me, you have to be able to travel at full speed for at least an hour sustained with everything running at 100% for something to be considered working. Buying that GeotTrax set was purely political. Japanese system would have been a much better fit for them, but that ain't gonna happen

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: aphex
i say they upgrade the people mover at disney world to that speed

Stuck in the 50's SciFi are we?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: DasFox
No kidding it's only has a 30.5km track?

That's crazy...

Not if you need to cover that 30km in 10 minutes. To me the ideal way to use this is as a main line. You build one of these from Boston to New York to DC, then you build smaller, slower trains from each of those cities to local hubs. Something like New York to Poughkeepsie to Kingston.

Imagine being able to live in Kingston and work in Manhattan for that sweet extra pay without it taking four hours to get to work.

 

[sisq0kidd]

Just got back from China. The train isn't smooth at all, which is weird since it's magnetic.

Amazing country, aside from the political situation. I think we tend to exaggerate their barbarousness.

 

[destrekor]

for people worried about power losses... you must understand the nature of magnets used in electromagnetic technology. They are natural magnets, that are able to switch polar magnetic fields to be the opposite of their natural state with the application of electricity. Now it can propel things, is the train has magnets that are natural rare earth magnets. When they pass over magnets, those magnets on the track reverse poles, which results in a push/tug reaction between the magnets on the train and on the track, due to at different moments the poles being opposite and the same at any given moment, thus one magnet repelling, and the next on the track pulling towards, and then instantly repelling at the very next split second. its amazing technology to use.
any power failure will simply return all magnets along the track to their natural polar fields, which would safely bring a train to its stop at a comfortable pace (its how brakes work for rollercoasters like Top Thrill Dragster, but the launch is a hydraulic cable system, so no comparison in that regard). I am sure there are also multiple power stations along the track, and the failure of one (thus one section without power) would likely send a triggered event notification to all the other stations, which would turn the power off all other sections so that no train continues to slam into the same section without power, which could potentially cause a nasty crash. I'd hope, at least. Sounds logical.

 

[Mrvile]

I'll be going to China next summer for the Olympics. I know we're stopping by Shanghai for a couple days, I can't wait to ride that thing

 

[Synomenon]

Wow. Now why can't we get these in the US? Would be nice to have a couple. One track going around the US, another going straight across, etc.. Back in the 90's Japan offered to build a mini mag-lev system in Vegas, but the city refused the offer. Now we're stuck with a monorail that breaks every week.

 

[loic2003]

pfff, girly speed. check out the French TGV which hit a record speed of 358mph. You can't beat french engineering!

TGV

*think the french has the record for a train on regular rails, they've had maglevs at higher speed

 

[B00ne]

Originally posted by: Mark R

Originally posted by: randomlinh
I feel like we're living in the stone age here.

Have there been any major maglev crashes? What safety precautions are in place in case of "magnet failure" for the lack of a better term?

There are electromagnets in the track, and some permanent magnets in the train.

The electromagnets in the track propel the train - and as the train moves the permanent magnets levitate it (converting movement into lift). When the train stops it drops onto little wheels.

Um no, it depends on the principle used. The Transrapid (the one used in China) does not use wheels, it levitates the whole time, even when standing still. For emergencies there are batteries on board, which are also used for all internal power requirements at low speed, because the induction mechanism for electricity "generation" for onboard uses has too low efficiency below some 100km/h

 

[freegeeks]

the French TGV and the German ICE is the way to go. For a lot of people here, Brussels - Paris is a normal commute, you can't beat 1h20 for 300km

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: sisq0kidd
Just got back from China. The train isn't smooth at all, which is weird since it's magnetic.

Amazing country, aside from the political situation. I think we tend to exaggerate their barbarousness.

It is precisely because of the lack of physical contact that makes it drift As to the barbarousness, it is just a matter of perspective. I think the more appropriate word is ruthless.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: sisq0kidd
Just got back from China. The train isn't smooth at all, which is weird since it's magnetic.

Amazing country, aside from the political situation. I think we tend to exaggerate their barbarousness.

It is precisely because of the lack of physical contact that makes it drift As to the barbarousness, it is just a matter of perspective. I think the more appropriate word is ruthless.

that comes from the fact that they are/were a communist society, and most communist governments tend to show more power than the communist beliefs seems to state is key.
but at least now they are a communist democratic society. Better than pure communism, and is/will be responsible for their insanely quick climb up the economic ladder.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: sisq0kidd
Just got back from China. The train isn't smooth at all, which is weird since it's magnetic.

Amazing country, aside from the political situation. I think we tend to exaggerate their barbarousness.

It is precisely because of the lack of physical contact that makes it drift As to the barbarousness, it is just a matter of perspective. I think the more appropriate word is ruthless.

that comes from the fact that they are/were a communist society, and most communist governments tend to show more power than the communist beliefs seems to state is key.
but at least now they are a communist democratic society. Better than pure communism, and is/will be responsible for their insanely quick climb up the economic ladder.

Communist Democratic society? That is an interesting phrase I would say it is communist control with free market. As long as you stick to making money, the government will leave you alone. Venture int political view different than the parties, there will be hell to pay.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: sisq0kidd
Just got back from China. The train isn't smooth at all, which is weird since it's magnetic.

Amazing country, aside from the political situation. I think we tend to exaggerate their barbarousness.

It is precisely because of the lack of physical contact that makes it drift As to the barbarousness, it is just a matter of perspective. I think the more appropriate word is ruthless.

that comes from the fact that they are/were a communist society, and most communist governments tend to show more power than the communist beliefs seems to state is key.
but at least now they are a communist democratic society. Better than pure communism, and is/will be responsible for their insanely quick climb up the economic ladder.

Communist Democratic society? That is an interesting phrase I would say it is communist control with free market. As long as you stick to making money, the government will leave you alone. Venture int political view different than the parties, there will be hell to pay.

believe me, I find humor in saying that phrase. But its honestly how the government is structured. It's like a federal democracy system, but with a single party and single-body legislature (think a congress with only the senate, no house)... and the communists are that single party.
its weird I say.. weird... but its working for them right now and they are going through quite the boom.