Forum - View topicINTEREST: Japan's Maglev Train Breaks World Record at 366 mph
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Diego Coruña
 Posts: 3 |
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There's an incredible railway museum in Nagoya run by JR Central (the chaps behind the maglev programme). Lots of actual trains on display, including various models of shinkansen rolling stock, along with the MLX01 (the train that set the previous speed record as mentioned in the article).
https://withinstrikingdistance.wordpress.com/2014/11/19/field-report-nagoya-14-february-2014/ For all that, the shinkansen simulator was probably the best part. (  )
Japanese rail technology just keeps on advancing year by year, and their network keeps on expanding. A new high-speed line (the Hokuriku Shinkansen) just opened this year, and the first part of the Hokkaidō Shinkansen line is expected to launch less than a year from now, which means that all of Japan's main islands (except Shikoku) will soon be linked by the shinkansen network. And all this is happening whilst the Twiddledums and Twiddledees in my neck of the woods keep acting as if automobiles are the only way to get people from A to B. I'm seriously tempted to ask Japan if they could send some of their museum displays our way - we could use some of those trains over here... |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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A bit of disgging and it seems there's work underway to build a highspeed rail line in California, but that's only going to be standard tracks and by "underway", I mean the part where they mostly work on the roads and build over- and under-passes so they've got a line of tracks that's exempt from the FRA's speed limit; there are four more stages to go and this one's just begun.
As for Maglevs, there's another bit of red tape to consider that I happened to nab from one's project proposal:
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nargun
Posts: 925 |
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By the way: US FRA safety regulations are an international laughingstock.
They prohibit crumple zones, for example. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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American safety regulations tend to be harsher than most other countries' in general. A lot of European chocolate cannot be imported into the United States without relabeling, for instance, because it doesn't contain the proper amount of cocoa butter and cocoa liqueur for it to be legally called "chocolate" in the United States.
Unfortunately, the California High Speed Rail has been completely bogged down in bureaucratic red tape and has eaten up pretty much all of the funding given to it. The committee designing it has been fooling around bringing in engineers from Europe to give advice, then sending them back and doing jack squat about it. Then, they bring over another engineer from Europe to do it all over again. The California High Speed Rail has also been delayed miserably. If there were no delays, about half of it would've been completed by now, and service between Los Angeles and San Diego would've already been available to the public. Instead, we're still in the planning phases without a single rail laid. California really needs a good train system due to its state's shape and its ridiculous automobile dependency. It'd be a dream to get between Los Angeles and San Francisco in two hours, for one...
Yeah, living near a proposed California High Speed Rail station (and one of the first to be built), I've been watching this project pretty closely and getting annoyed as each year goes by and the monkeys in charge do nothing and get paid. It was originally going to be a magnet train, capable of reaching 300 miles per hour. It's been downgraded to a standard train because they've already spent their budget bringing in advisors. Well, that and apparently, there's been some intense opposition in Fresno and Beverly Hills. Both communities' governments are throwing everything they have to stop the train from being made. |
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timber
Posts: 134 |
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Don't bother with high speed trains, they recently dropped 2 TGV lines here in Belgium and during the unavoidable debates around the issue and interesting fact was revealed: nearly all TGV lines in Europe loose money.
Thougth, on reflection, distance within Europe are offen too short for trains to develop their maximal speeds while in the US populations are mainly concentrated on both coasts with a huge distance between the coasts so it may be more attractive in the US. Anyway, instead of maglev trains and their huge magnetic fields which may not be too indicated for our health, I'd prefer something like the hyperloop project. |
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omiya
 Posts: 1827 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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It's actually a tricky job to get a combination of high speed and conventional rail that brings the greatest benefits. There are high costs to the shinkansen line construction and operation (tickets are expensive unless on pass only available to tourists), and the conventional lines in Japan that are parallel to shinkansen services lose a significant amount of income whilst still being important for local commuters. Japan does seem to get more right than other countries with respect to high speed rail (safety, comfort, integration with other services and accessibility/centrality of many stations which often have extensive commercial developments around them) but isn't perfect. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13559 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Put a firearm on this and you have a railgun.
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1775 Location: South America |
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Japan is a country that is specially well suited for trains given it's major cities are all relatively close to one another (compared to less densely populated countries like the US or Brazil). In Brazil we also have a couple of maglev projects, they will probably never happen even though our two largest cities are very close to each other.
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Problem is that progress with passenger trains in the United States tend to get held up by lobbyists on behalf of companies that make other means of transport (namely cars and planes). |
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Polycell
Posts: 4623 |
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One thing that certainly doesn't help is that the railroads don't have any interest in commuter rail, but share the same tracks; I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying to keep things from moving forward for one reason or another. At the very least, they probably don't want their business being interrupted for unnecessary(to them) railwork.
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Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
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Hustlers would need a faster sleight of hands to pickpocket
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KSweeley
 Posts: 13 Location: Baltimore City, Maryland, USA |
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There's an actual U.S-based organization that's working with J.R. Central to bring the Japanese maglev train tech to the U.S. between Washington and New York: http://northeastmaglev.com/
From the About TNEM page:
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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^
Well, at least the folks within the Northeast will finally get to experience the thrill of riding the Maglev. 
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omiya
Posts: 1827 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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New record of 603 km/h set:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-21/japanese-maglev-train-sets-new-world-speed-record-in-test-run/6410638 |
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