
China unveils 600km/h maglev train prototype - Vaslo
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-highspeed-maglev-prototype/index.html
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yorwba
Discussion a day ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20000034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20000034)

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hwillis
This is a suspended style, unlike the Japanese maglev- it's much more like the
old transrapid[1] which used a set of coils underneath the track to pull up
the train. There are pros and cons to both.

The Japanese maglev uses large unpowered copper coils in the sidewalls[img:2].
They're arranged and interconnected in such a way that they keep the train up
and centered. They're quite expensive to build, but more energy efficient.

The suspension style can use smaller coils but they need their own power,
which is lossy and can limit the length of the track. In both cases the train
typically needs its own generator to create all the power.

The article says that the plan is to make the cars very light, which is
plausible- train cars are way heavier than needed; they weigh several times
more (~1000 lbs/person) than the people and luggage they can fit. The strength
is important though, as the car needs to pull the rest of the train as well.
It may limit the number of passengers per train.

They'd have to build entirely new rail for the entire line from Beijing to
Shanghai. That would be a very large investment, many times more expensive
than just rail. China is preparing for a never-before-seen level of
infrastructure and doing anything they can to avoid cars, which would be an
ecological and logistical disaster for them.

Maglevs are kind of questionable. The use case comes from moving between large
cities- plausible in America, but China already has some of the largest
airports in the world and less of a middle class to use them.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid)

2: [https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2017/02/ma...](https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2017/02/maglev-train-test-track-e1487940220972-1200x767.jpg)

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bobthepanda
A side note, but the poor usage of airports is mostly due to poor reliability
caused by the military restrictions on Chinese airspace.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/world/asia/china-
beijing-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/world/asia/china-beijing-
daxing-airport.html)

> With roughly 70 percent of airspace controlled by the military (versus 20
> percent in the United States), commercial aircraft flying in China are
> limited to narrow tunnels in the sky. This restricts options for departure
> and arrival routing, cutting the number of takeoffs and landings that
> airports can handle. Beijing Capital, for example, was the world’s second-
> busiest airport based on passenger volume in 2017, but it ranked fifth based
> on takeoffs and landings, nearly a third fewer than the world leader,
> Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

> The lack of airspace is also a key reason delays are so common in China.
> Last year, flight delays increased 50 percent, with only 71 percent of
> flights taking off on time, according to government statistics... When a
> corridor is blocked by a thunderstorm, for example, Chinese flight
> controllers often cannot reroute an airplane, because it would have to enter
> military airspace. That causes planes to sit on the ground or fly holding
> patterns when in other countries they could land or take off.

> The new airport will help by initially opening four, then up to eight, new
> runways in the suburb of Daxing, 41 miles southwest of Beijing Capital. The
> number of air corridors available for civilian use stays the same, but the
> new runways will provide airlines with more ways to gain access to this
> limited airspace, allowing the Beijing area to facilitate more flights.

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fspeech
Also China knows how to make trains, but much less about making airplanes. So
they are not as motivated to develop domestic flights. Even outside of a
protectionist angle, when they need economic stimulus, they routinely go for
massive HSR construction. It would have been much less effective with
airports/planes.

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nullwasamistake
Haven't we basically given up on maglev? It's too expensive, and advances in
regular trains have shown it's quite possible to go 300 mph on (upgraded) old
fashioned steel tracks.

Every time I see one of these projects in any country it seems like a big
publicity stunt. Maglevs are cool, and if you have a few your country is
cooler. At least that appears to be the prevailing wisdom.

You can see the political underpinnings in the plans, which invariably link
the capitol or largest city with somewhere that has a nice airport

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seanmcdirmid
Japan is developing a maglev from Tokyo to Osaka (but first to nogoya) atm.
See
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chūō_Shinkansen](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chūō_Shinkansen)

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bobthepanda
Japan is only developing it because of a few coincidental factors:

\- The existing Tokaido Shinkansen is full. Not many high speed rail lines run
as intensively as the Tokaido, if any do.

\- Japan is heavily land-constrained, so even if they built a lower-spec
standard Chuo Shinkansen they probably wouldn't save much money either way.

\- Japan's government _loves_ infrastructure stimulus and promoting homegrown
technology, and the Chuo Shinkansen achieves both.

Other countries have abandoned maglev because of the relatively low benefit
for the increased cost, like Germany and China's initial decision to go with
HSR instead of Transrapid.

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seanmcdirmid
China was going to extend the pudong maglev into shanghai city center and all
the way to Hangzhou, but Shanghai residents were too afraid of the magnets so
the government backed off.

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bobthepanda
That was part of it.

Part of it was also compatibility with existing technology. High speed rail
trains in China can switch off of high speed rail lines onto classic rail
trackage and provide one seat rides to cities not on a high-speed rail line.
Maglevs can only run on maglev, necessitating a transfer, and travelers _hate_
transfers. In Japan this compatibility is less important because the classic
rail network is narrow-gauged unlike the standard-gauged Shinkansen, so they
never really needed to care about this benefit.

It was also partially a marketing problem. High speed rail technology is very
attractive to other countries because it it can benefit from a larger classic
railway network, making it more exportable than maglev. There are also many
HSR companies; China was able to use technology from Siemens, Bombardier, and
Alstom. In contrast, only Siemens knows how the tech behind the Shanghai
maglev works, and they've basically dropped the product due to lack of
interest.

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seanmcdirmid
China’s HSR lines are hardly point to point, neither are japan’s. I can’t
remember ever taking a Shinkansen without a transfer at the start, end, or
both.

The pudong maglev would be much more useful if it came into shanghai core. Now
you have to transfer to it via subway, and so it isn’t faster than a taxi
while being similar in cost. The Changsha slow maglev is much better, as it
actually goes between two places you might want to transfer between (between
the airport and the HSR station). Having had to make that transfer by hired
car several times before, I’m looking forward to a much smoother next time.

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pg_bot
Planes travel 50% faster, have comparatively minimal infrastructure cost, and
are more flexible than trains. Build better planes.

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Synaesthesia
It says it’s faster than a plane for Beijing to Shanghai. Planes have boarding
times, extra security checks, and produce a lot more greenhouse gases.

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DiogenesKynikos
Anyone who's actually ever compared flying and taking high-speed trains in
China will take the train any day over flying between Beijing and Shanghai.
The train is faster, cheaper and more comfortable.

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dewey
Just took the Shanghai Beijing train a few days ago and it was fantastic.
Comfortable seats, lots of space, good bathrooms, lots of food and drinks to
buy and delivered to your seat if you order with WeChat by scanning a QR code
on your seat. Way better than going through an airport - and I love flying.

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DiogenesKynikos
Did the bathrooms have soap and toilet paper? It always amazes me how Chinese
facilities can be so great, but then lack these two essentials. Chinese trains
are usually BYOS/TP.

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dewey
They did. Sometimes they don’t have it on train stations but there’s either a
dispenser outside of the stalls or a store selling tissues right next to the
counter.

