

Japan's maglev train runs test at over 310 mph (with video) - jonbaer
http://phys.org/news/2013-09-japan-maglev-mph-video.html

======
masklinn
Not bad, it's not completely clear from the article but checking wikipedia L0
should be a "production" maglev, similar to Shanghai's Transrapid (except
Transrapid's maximum operating speed is 410km/h. It did reach 501km/h in early
test runs but doesn't reach that on scheduled traffic).

It's good to see that tech finally get in production (Japan's maglev
demonstrators first breached 500km/h in 1979).

FWIW, if all goes well the L0 should be used in the (planned) Chuo-Shinkansen
line going straight from Tokyo to Osaka through Nagoya in 67mn:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuo_Shinkansen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuo_Shinkansen)
(the fastest runs on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen currently take 2h25)

~~~
moca
Considering the cost, time of construction, time saving, the project doesn't
seem to make much sense. China already dropped maglev due to high cost. On the
other hand, Japan is making very slow progress on cleaning up its nuclear mess
and almost all of its nuclear reactors are suspended right now. Why a new
railway is more important than nuclear disaster in hand?

~~~
uniclaude
Remember how governments work. Transportation and energy are different budgets
managed by different entities.

~~~
snogglethorpe
Not to mention that the Chuo Shinkansen will be privately financed, and is
being built by a private company, JR central. They almost certainly need
government cooperation (you can hardly escape that with something so huge and
covering so much geographical area), but this isn't a Japanese government
project, and the government isn't paying for it.

From Wikipedia: "On December 25, 2007, JR Central announced that it plans to
raise funds for the construction of the Chuo Shinkansen on its own, without
government financing."

------
ihsw
To put this into perspective, the distance from Tokyo to Osaka is 506KM.

It's roughly comparable to:

* Ottawa->Toronto (449KM)

* LA->San Francisco (622KM)

* Washington DC->NYC (363KM)

~~~
rsync
310 mph in 2013.

As opposed to 220 mph _top speed_ in the year 2029 for california "high speed"
rail.

What a bright, wondrous future we will all be living in!

~~~
larsbot
From the article: _The line between Tokyo and Osaka is expected to cost
approximately $90 billion and it won 't be completed until 2045_

I think California's high speed rail project should be cancelled, but big
infrastructure projects do cost a lot of money and take a long time, both in
Japan and the US.

~~~
melling
It's going to be even more expensive in 30-40 years to build a maglev between
LA and SF. Much of the cost is in obtaining the land. Wouldn't it be cheaper
to build the first train now then turn it into a 320 mph maglev in 40 years?

~~~
larsbot
The cost is going to be high, maybe $100 billion by the time the project is
done. Even with the feds helping, that is a huge sum. Are we really going to
get the most "bang" for our bucks? How often do people travel between LA and
SF anyways? Improve BART, VTA light rail and CalTrain (in the Bay Area), and I
suspect it will have a much larger positive impact on the lives of more
people.

~~~
Anechoic
* How often do people travel between LA and SF anyways?*

According to the WSJ, 6 million people per year travel between LA & SF via air
every year. I can't find highway numbers, but I gotta believe it's about the
same order of magnitude, if not higher.

 _Improve BART, VTA light rail and CalTrain (in the Bay Area), and I suspect
it will have a much larger positive impact on the lives of more people._

All of the above need to be done, both will have a positive impact of even
more people.

~~~
larsbot
Cal-HSRA predicts that by 2040 the train will reduce highway miles traveled by
10 million miles a day[1]. For comparison, in May 2013, there were 15.3
billion miles of travel just on California highways[2]. A reduction of 10
million miles a day would be about 2%, and assuming people continue to move
into the state, the number of highway mile traveled per day will likely be
quite a bit higher in 2040 than it is today.

I don't know, it just doesn't seem like a very compelling argument to me. The
state doesn't have unlimited resources. Spend the money where it will do the
most good.

[1]
[http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/newsroom/fact%20sheets/Good%20for...](http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/newsroom/fact%20sheets/Good%20for%20the%20State,%20Good%20for%20the%20Environment.pdf)

[2] most recent month with available statistics, lots more data available here
[http://traffic-counts.dot.ca.gov/](http://traffic-counts.dot.ca.gov/)

~~~
Anechoic
_A reduction of 10 million miles a day would be about 2%,_

In highway terms, that's a significant reduction. A reduction on the order of
1-3% (it depends on a number of factors including number of lanes, and
distance between exits) can get you from LOS F traffic (stop & go) to LOD C/D
traffic (heavy, but moving traffic).

------
cpleppert
I can't imagine there won't be major improvements to conventional high speed
rail that will be able to run on existing lines. This requires an entirely new
track that can't be used for anything else and the trainset itself can't be
upgraded as easily as it is tied to the track. These will be also limited by
the noise they produce; even if they can go faster in theory noise pollution
is going to be a major issue as is. I'm not sure they have solved most of the
tunnel boom problem; a major requirement in Japan.

So I wouldn't expect there will be a lot of room for improvement of this
design over the next 30-60 years. It will probably cost a lot more than
expected as well. Comparatively, there are a lot of new technologies that
could deliver major improvements in transportation efficiency and speed
without the large capital investment of a maglev line over the next 30-60
years from traditional rail to self-driving cars to new aircraft.

I'm really skeptical of the wisdom of this project to be honest. If you want a
maglev design you might as well go with a near-vacuum tunnel and more than
triple your speed rather than just increase it by 50%. This would also have
the advantage of eliminating the noise issue. I believe China is looking at
something like that.

~~~
tacticus
I think maglevs are actually quieter and have reduced rail\line wear than
conventional track already.

Though i think a partially evacced tube would be amazing as well.

~~~
Anechoic
Maglev is quieter (much quieter) than conventional rail at lower speeds (below
~ 90 mph) but at higher speeds, once the aerodynamic noise region kicks in,
they get very loud very quickly.

------
tgb
Why are maglevs so much slower than airplanes? We're looking at a factor of 2
difference and airports don't take over 30 years to install. Isn't the point
of a maglev to reduce the friction against the ground, so aren't both planes
and maglevs fighting primarily against air resistance? Or is it not that they
can't go faster, just that it's too loud or they need to turn too much or
something?

~~~
powertower
I don't think it has much to do with air density as it does with guideway
inductivity issues - which would limit it's top speed (aside from the obvious
things like how curved the path is, if and where it has to make more gradual
stops and turns, etc).

Jet propulsion and magnetic propulsion are fundamentally different. There are
limits to what those magnets can push/pull, how much energy can be put into
the system, and the stresses involved coming from the fields.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_propulsion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_propulsion)

~~~
tgb
Thanks for the answers everyone. One more question:

Can maglevs use jet propulsion to go faster?

~~~
powertower
Might as well just graduate and use warp-drive.

------
Pitarou
Sigh. I've got nothing against thinking big, but this is not the kind of
investment Japan needs right now. BIG money, for only an incremental
improvement. (The public transport infrastructure is already very good.)

If the boys in the ministry really wanted to boost Japan, they'd be investing
in renewable energy, not playing with train sets. But there are too many
vested interests...

~~~
snogglethorpe
The "ministry" isn't paying for it—it's being privately financed by JR central
(which is a private company).

From Wikipedia: "On December 25, 2007, JR Central announced that it plans to
raise funds for the construction of the Chuo Shinkansen on its own, without
government financing."

~~~
Pitarou
An accounting trick to keep the debt off the government books.

A project of that scale could not possibly happen in Japan without whole-
hearted government support.

(I know I sound like a grumpy cynic, but I've learnt from experience that one
can rarely go wrong being cynical about powerful Japanese institutions.)

~~~
snogglethorpe
The government is certainly involved to a degree—you can hardly build
something of this scale otherwise, there are simply too many third parties to
deal with—but I've seen no reason to think that the financing is "an
accounting trick."

Simple general cynicism is all well and good, but it isn't really worth much
absent actual evidence.

This is particularly true in the case of JR-central / east / west, which are
well-run and solid companies, and a model for how to do privatization
successfully.

------
mrb
The article does not mention it, but 310 mph is _still_ below previous
maglev's speed records, done 10-15 years ago(!) on the same test line:

361.0 mph in December 2003

343.0 mph in April 1999

329.9 mph in December 1997

See
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCMaglev#Manned_records](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCMaglev#Manned_records)

~~~
jpatokal
It's one thing to set test records with test equipment, and another to set
them with production equipment -- this model is _the actual train_ they're
going to run on the line. Kind of like how the Bell X-1 was the first
supersonic aircraft, but the Concorde was the first _commercial_ supersonic
aircraft.

(And I have a sneaky suspicion that Japan's maglev, running in a depopulating
country with economy in a terminal downward spiral, will end up as marginal
and unprofitable as the Concorde, but that's another story.)

~~~
Pitarou
The comparison with the Concorde was the first thing that sprang to mind with
me, too.

------
moca
Shanghai has been operating Maglev line for more than 6 years, see [1] and
[2]. The top speed is 431km/h and 268 mph. The Japanese line will have much
higher capacity as the Shanghai one is not full production design, but I don't
think it has material advantage. The real challenge is economics and noise,
and China decided to go with conventional high speed railway system. Even HSR
was designed for 350km/h, it is actually operated at 270-300 km/h to reduce
operating cost.

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train)
2\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-54gBLwK3s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-54gBLwK3s)

~~~
kposehn
One important note: the Chinese HSR is also operating at reduced speed for
safety and rail wear reasons.

------
eriktrautman
That makes me curious what the braking performance and stopping distance is
relative to normal trains and at different speeds.

~~~
pedrocr
A quick look at wikipedia[1] shows that these trains often have regenerative
braking which means you can have both the wheels and the maglev system
stopping the train. So at the same speeds these should be able to brake faster
than traditional trains.

I assume these have the potential of going significantly faster than normal
trains making braking harder. In this test though they didn't reach even the
peak speed of normal trains. Apparently the french TGV has the record for
normal trains at 575km/h[2] (vs 500km/h in this test) even though normal
operation is "only" 320km/h.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Power_and_energy_usage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev#Power_and_energy_usage)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV)

~~~
ojii
The difference is that the TGV you mentioned was a highly modified version
just for this speed record. The L0 [1] shown in the video is planned to be the
production train and run 500km/h in actual service.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L0_Series_Shinkansen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L0_Series_Shinkansen)

~~~
touristtam
Then again both train use different technology. Running gear on a TGV is a
massive friction generator compared to a maglev, I would think, and
consequently the record is very impressive. Still I would love maglev line to
be build through Europe.

~~~
LaGrange
Nah. Space and diminishing returns have been the main blocks for improving EU
HSR investment since quite a long time. Dedicated lines take up space that
could be used by local rail, are expensive to build, and while they work in an
all-the-rails-lead-to-Paris mode, in a less centralized country they're
significantly less effective.

In fact, three countries probably most often praised for railway quality would
be Switzerland (barely any HSR, and huge fail, and while they are adding more
tracks between Zurich, Bern and Geneva, they're going to be used by local
traffic as well), Netherlands (where railways were limited to 140km/h for way
too long, and HSR is also limited) and Germany (there is an extensive HSR
network, but it's significantly slower than the French one. All also because
getting it faster would cost more than it's worth for them). French _HSR_ is
excellent, but the railways in general are a bit lacking (but also used to the
point of track and station saturation).

Anyway, one possibility many people ignore unfairly (in my opinion) for longer
routes are night trains: you might arrive on the same day, but modern night
trains often offer a hotel-quality accommodation, so I will be there in the
morning, rested, and the time I've spent on the train will be time I'm
sleeping anyway - so in many ways the trip actually would take _less_ time
than for an airplane or fast rail. And it's far more energy efficient as well.

~~~
seszett
Night trains are great, but only when it's an option. In France, they are
basically limited to the south nowadays, when just a few years back at least
_some_ used to run up to here, in the west. Most non-HSR offers are being
squeezed, seemingly to orient people towards the more lucrative HSR trains.

------
LAMike
It's only going to be ready by 2045? Won't better tech be developed in that
timeframe making this train obsolete?

~~~
rayiner
2045 is only ~30 years from now, and part of the line will be operational by
2027. It seems like a long time for people used to computer technology, but
it's a typical generational cycle for industrial technology.

The 787, for example, which is just trickling into fleets now, was in
development since the late 1990's (15 years ago). Power technology has
developed even more slowly. E.g. the efficiency of coal power plants has only
improved by about a factor of two in the last century or so. Heck, even
computer technology is progressing more slowly these days. E.g. I wouldn't
call Win2k obsolete, but it's 13 years old now!

So yes, the train will be a bit behind the state of the art by the time it's
released, but it won't be obsolete.

~~~
lifeformed
It just seems so foreign to work on something that you might not get to see
operational in your lifetime :(

~~~
Eliezer
You have no patience. Plus you could just sign up for cryonics.

~~~
philwelch
Do you own stock in a cryonics firm?

------
eliben
The price and time-line estimate make me sad and pessimistic for some reason.
30 years and $90 billion just to pull a fast train line between two cities in
Japan? How long and how expensive then will _real_ futuristic projects be,
like colonization of other planets, space elevators, fusion reactors and so
on?

~~~
6d0debc071
I wonder how much they're paying for land and tech development in that figure
- doing something the first time is often rather expensive.

------
warmwaffles
I wish this mode of transportation would be practical and affordable here in
the US. I like the light rail in Denver, and the subways in San Francisco.
Made getting around town really easy and affordable. Unfortunately with the
distance between cities here it is more practical to take a flight.

~~~
masklinn
Depends on the cities. NY-SF by train will remain nonsense forever, but the
eastern seaboard and a bunch of other clusters (LA-SF, Great Lakes stuff, I
think the obama admin had a map of zones they wanted to put HSR proposals for
a few years back) could be serviced by high-speed train, even more so with
maglev (which extends the competitive range of train against plane)

My personal rule of thumb[0] is modern HSTs (280~320km/h top speed) are
superior to plane up to ~1000km, and can remain competitive to 1500km.

(although, though that's much more of a personal advantage, having really
shitty ears and great difficulty with pressure equalization the odd train
tunnel — even at high speed — is much less painful than going from 0 to 30k ft
and back)

[0] modulo specific settings, including the current security theater shit
which I don't have to experience on train and considering that most of my
experience is on european lines where city center to city center is what you
want and airports are commonly 30~40mn away from city center

~~~
blackaspen
Even with the fact that planes fly slower now than in the 60s, I'll gladly fly
DEN-SFO. I can be finishing dinner in Palo Alto when you're in the Salt Flats.

~~~
Anechoic
Unless it's raining/snowing/windy in Denver or SF (or even an unrelated
location like Chicago or Boston which might prevent your aircraft from getting
to DEN in the first place) in which case you might be sleeping in an airport
terminal while masklinn is finishing a late supper in Palo Alto.

I write this as someone who has had two cancellations and 6 delays over ten
air trips in the past three months.

~~~
rustynails77
And what are the stats for delays in mag-lev ecosystems? Given that you know
how unreliable flight ecosystems are and can quantify the delays, I'm assuming
you have a basis for comparison in making such a confident statement.

~~~
fancyketchup
Holy Extrapolation Batman! Or, "We can estimate, using data from extant high-
speed rail networks." I think you'll find that HSR generally has good on-time
performance where it is not forced to share lines with freight trains (ie, not
Amtrak). Since there are no mag-lev freight trains, and no plans to build any,
it's reasonable to think that mag-lev trains would only be affected by weather
in very extreme circumstances (not your run of the mill snow storm).

------
stcredzero
I wonder how fast they could make the train if it had the smaller cross-
sectional area of the Hyperloop pods?

Another way to put it: What about a 310 mph maglev on a solar-panel shaded
elevated track between SF and LA?

~~~
Pitarou
Even better, do away with MagLev altogether, and have them "float" the way an
air hockey puck does.

(You have read Elon Musk's proposal, haven't you?)

~~~
stcredzero
I have, but I am thinking more steps ahead than you. The air bearings are at a
bit of a disadvantage. There's less experience operating them for this purpose
in the less controlled environment outside of an enclosed tube. Also, there's
much more operational experience and existing R&D for mass transportation.
Lastly, a smaller cross section would give the advantage of reduced drag.
Though it would be larger than in the hyperloop case, it would be a lot
smaller than the conventional train.

(Paid attention to basic economics, physics, and math, haven't you?)

------
na85
When this baby his 93 mph, you're going to see some serious shit.

------
thezilch
Good thing we're building a POS here in CA...

~~~
jusben1369
What's a Point of Sale system have to do with this train?

