
Japan maglev train breaks world speed record again - noso
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32391020?OCID=fbasia
======
jasonkester
I wonder if we'll ever get back to "High Speed Air" in my lifetime.

Back in the 70s, you could rock up at the airport twenty minutes before your
flight left, jump on with minimal hassle, and cruise along at 600mph to your
destination. Now, you need to endure two hours of having your fingernail
clippers confiscated so that you can fly at 500mph to save on fuel costs.

That seems to be the true advantage of rail travel. As it said on the
loudspeaker in Berlin HBF last time I was there: "Please try to arrive on the
platform at least five minutes before your train is scheduled to depart."

Sadly, I bet the way we'll end up equalizing this will be that somebody will
eventually bomb a TGV and we'll have to start doing the two hour confiscate-
your-kids'-apple-juice routine at the train station too.

~~~
jusben1369
In the US we really don't have any rail alternative to flying. I'd love to
know how European travellers thinks and weigh up rail (which seems relatively
fast and efficient) vs flying. Do you think the two are interchangeable
services? Is there a magical breaking point (more than 500km's distance etc) ?

~~~
DanBC
The budget airlines provide such a customer hostile experience that many
people prefer trains. These are (England) sometimes awful, but mostly okay and
can be nice.

Commuting tends to be worse than the occaisional train journey. The baffling
fare structure drastically needs reform -- the same journey can either cost
£27 or £72 -- these will be the same class on the same day, just different
times. It's frustrating. I like the Virgin trains - I've only ever had an
unfun experience on one when the aircon broke. I really hate GWS and I will
try to avoid using them where possible, even using a coach would be better.
(Virgin trains have power sockets; GWS don't; even a National Express coach
has power sockets and free wifi)

~~~
mcintyre1994
> the same journey can either cost £27 or £72 -- these will be the same class
> on the same day, just different times.

Or just bought at different times. I recently saw a return train ticket for
£50, the next day it was £90, the next back to £50. I bought it then so not
sure what happened after that. Admittedly that example was travelling over
easter but it's a consistent annoyance.

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zachalexander
Amazing. Writing this from Berlin, which doesn't have maglev trains, but has
phenomenal public transit. It's sad to be going back to the US soon where the
infrastructure is so primitive.

~~~
dheera
Agreed. The current incarnation of the US transportation system is also
downright unsustainable from a fuel and carbon standpoint, and will lead to
various downfalls if something isn't done about it.

As much as I'm a public transportation advocate (I don't own a car, and refuse
car rides if a public transportation option is available for the place I need
to get to), it's becoming increasingly more difficult to promote this kind of
lifestyle with the advent of Uber and other things that have made private gas-
guzzling cars even more convenient than ever before. People also just don't
like being told what to do and what not to do, even if what they are doing is
going to kill their children.

Given the short-sighted nature of people, in general, the only way this is
going to change is if we make public transportation _more_ convenient than an
Uber. What we need, very seriously, is to make self-driving cars/minibuses
running on renewable energy happen as soon as possible. They can then be
rigged up to become a "Public Transportation 2.0" system that gets anyone from
A to B while dynamically routing and picking up others in-between and avoiding
traffic jams from happening in the first place. It would also put the US back
on the world map with a brand new, innovative system that's both
environmentally efficient, cheaper to ride, and ultra-convenient at the same
time.

~~~
apendleton
Huh. I have pretty much the opposite feelings about Uber as you, as a fellow
non-driver and public transit advocate. I think Uber (and also car-sharing
services like Zipcar) are great for transit advocates, because they make it
much easier for city dwellers to justify not owning a car, to the extent that
I suspect that they actually increase transit usage.

Many people in my city (Washington, DC) that own cars don't actually need them
most days, but they do have occasional needs that aren't easily doable by
transit (Costco trips, driving out to see friends in the less-transit-friendly
suburbs, hiking in Shenandoah, etc.) so they keep a car for that purpose. But
the problem there is the incentives; the fixed costs of car ownership (a car
payment, insurance, scheduled maintenance, etc.) are high, and once you've
paid them, the incremental cost per mile of travel is really low (certainly
way lower than the per-mile cost of transit), so if you have a car, you have a
strong incentive to use it more than you need to. Uber and Zipcar are
alternatives that make cars available in the circumstances where you need them
and thus could allow these people to ditch their personal cars, and they also
flip the cost incentives around: low-to-no fixed costs, and comparatively
higher per-mile costs, which means you only use it if you really need it, and
use transit most of the time.

~~~
dheera
Yeah, that's also true. It's very rare that I need to travel to a place that
requires a car to get to, so I can spend on Uber in those cases, and that
allows me to not own a car.

However, this isn't the way a lot of people use Uber; at least where I live a
lot of people use Uber because it's faster and more comfortable than public
transportation, not because public transportation doesn't get them where they
need to. I've seen business school students (i.e. students who have cash to
burn) frequently take Uber between MIT and Harvard for god's sake. There's
direct bus and subway service, but it involves a 5 minute walk on both ends,
they're too lazy to look it up, and don't want to wait outside.

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ant6n
What's interesting, the speed record for conventional bullet trains is 574.8
km/h, about 30km/h less! This was a TGV train, largely unmodified (although
they did increase the tension in the caternary). The wiki article about the
speed record is interesting:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record)

Makes you wonder whether the overhead of maglev is really worth it.

~~~
cstross
Actually, the TGV record was set by a specially-rebuilt train set that was
_heavily_ customized -- and the test crew reportedly couldn't stand/walk
around the instrument car at speeds over 500km/h due to vibration. (The track
they ran the test on was newly-laid and not yet open to regular traffic: they
had to replace most of the overhead cables from the stretch where the train
hit maximum speed due to arcing and shock waves.)

The big difference is that the TGV record set pretty much an upper limit on
steel-wheel speed -- horrible vibration, and the wheel rims were close to
supersonic, which would have led to more shock waves if they'd pushed it
faster. Similarly, Formula One cars go a lot faster than regular road
vehicles, but you wouldn't want to commute to the office in one! Whereas this
maglev test demonstrated a technology that would be comfortably usable at this
speed.

~~~
kuschku
Interestingly, the TGV record was broken by an unmodified Velaro-D train
recently. Standard rolling stock, used the week before for normal transport,
used a week after for normal transport.

~~~
cbr
Are you sure? I'm not finding anything about this.

The TGV record is about half the speed of sound, which means the wheel rims
are bordering on supersonic, so it's not a simple thing to talk about
exceeding it.

~~~
littlejohnk
Why would the wheel rims rotate at twice the speed of the train? If the train
advanced along the track 1m, surely the part of the wheel in contact with the
track must also have moved 1m?

~~~
Retric
The bottom of a wheel is stationary relative to the ground. (X - X)

The middle a the wheel moves at the same speed as the vehicle relative to the
ground. (X + 0)

The top of the wheel moves at twice the speed of the vechile relative to the
ground. (X + X)

Put another way, the top of the wheel must go faster than the vehicle or it
does not rotate.

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Someone1234
Just to reframe this a little:

Commercial aircraft travel in ground-speed terms, around 350-500 MpH on
average [0] (sometimes faster with wind behind them). This travels on a
"normal" day up to 313 MpH which is nothing to sniff at.

You should also take into account how long you'll spend at the airport (e.g.
security, checking/unchecking bags, etc) and taxiing/queuing on/off of the
runway, and how long it takes it get up to altitude (aircraft travel slower
while ascending).

Even still an aircraft likely is faster than this. But this could
theoretically be cheaper than an aircraft, in particular as fuel costs
continue to rise (and after the high building costs have been repaid).

These might be wider deployed if land wasn't already "owned" and using Eminent
domain to seize it wasn't so politically unpopular. Plus every road you cross
either requires a bridge (expensive), tunnel (more expensive), or crossing
(dangerous).

[0]
[http://www.flightradar24.com/BER7382/60eb62e](http://www.flightradar24.com/BER7382/60eb62e)

~~~
tdaltonc
> . . . in particular as fuel costs continue to rise.

The long term trend is for a megaWatt (in any form) to get cheaper (in real
terms) and less carbon intensive. There is every reason to believe that energy
will be cheaper 5, 10, 50, 100 years from now.

[http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/realprices/](http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/realprices/)

(check out residential electricity)

------
tokenadult
The article by Kiyotaka Matsuda in Bloomberg Business[1] makes the important
point that "Whether any of this makes a shred of economic sense is another
matter." Japan has a declining population, and the level of investment
required to build a maglev train line is enormous. Countries with growing
populations have decided against building high-speed rail lines, and Japan
does not appear to have any export market for this technology. Even the first
phase of Japan's proposed maglev train line project, running from Tokyo to
Nagoya if built, would not be completed until 2027.

[1] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-21/world-s-
fa...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-21/world-s-fastest-
train-records-speed-of-603-kilometers-per-hour)

------
kailuowang
Imagine NYC to Boston in 40 minutes and the kind of boost it can bring to the
innovative power in the region. It will be truly a silicon alley. And imagine
two innovative centers in the country competing with each other.

Unfortunately this kind of decisions are not made by innovative people.

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melling
How about low-speed maglev? China will open its first line later this year:
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BCR](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BCR)

I imagine it's much cheaper to build and operate?

~~~
koyote
The reason for this is to cut down travel time.

Japan already has a high-speed connection between almost all major cities, so
this is just to speed up the link even more.

What would a low-speed maglev accomplish?

~~~
vilhelm_s
It's less noisy than wheeled trains, and the maintenance cost for the track is
lower.

[http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Culture/EnjoyBJ/t1192828.htm](http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Culture/EnjoyBJ/t1192828.htm)

------
danbruc
They are certainly cool pieces of technology but also expensive ones. The
development of the German Transrapid began in 1969, it was declared ready for
use in 1991 and then no planned route turned out to be cost efficient.
Wouldn't China have bought one there would probably still be none in use. Even
the test track in Germany is no longer open to the public since an accident a
couple of years ago.

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shawnps
Often people are disappointed when they visit Japan to find that it isn't as
technologically advanced as they had dreamed, and I do agree partially, but
whenever I discuss it with friends who also live here we always agree: the
trains are amazing. Even local trains (in Tokyo) come very often, are fast,
and are extremely quiet. But I always look forward to riding the Shinkansen.
If you're lucky you can even get a great view of Mount Fuji.

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bnegreve
What's truely impressive is not the record but the fact that they will operate
at 505 km/h.

Current high speed trains can go over 570km/h but are only operating an
320km/h.

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ultimoo
Contrast this with the Caltrain that chugs diesel and barely goes at 80 mph
taking over 1 hour and 40 minutes to get from San Francisco to San Jose (the
hubs of modern day technology). At this point the only advantage that Caltrain
brings to the bay area is that you don't have to worry about parking in San
Francisco.

------
aagha
It's sad that in the US, train connections between major living centers isn't
even a federal priority. Granted, the US is VERY large and we're talking about
much larger investments than in Japan, but our economy is a crapton bigger as
well.

------
wahsd
I used to be all about public transportation and trains, but I cannot
reconcile that anymore with advancement in technology. It simply does not make
sense to me anymore to try and build high speed rail on the ground, on fixed
"rails" in order to not even get close to even slow airplane speeds.

With the roll-out of more sophisticated air traffic control systems that will
allow denser traffic, higher frequency landing / take-offs, I don't see the
sense in fixed systems like rail.

It obviously makes a lot more sense in places like Japan or even parts of
Europe, but in the USA, where you need to traverse huge swaths of
uninhabitable and even inhospitable and unpredictable land, it simply makes no
sense.

Take Texas for example. All the idiots that have been moving to Texas from
self-absorbed and myopic cesspools of self-importance keep crying about public
transportation and high speed rail to connect the San Antonio, Dallas, Houston
triangle; but no one wants to address the question as to why. You could and
already can travel those paths by air and it will only get faster and cheaper
with the improved air traffic control system when fully rolled out.

Do we think that high speed rail will enjoy the freedom that current AMTRAK
does where you just drive up, hop on the train and off you go? No! You will
have to also go through the TSA security bullshit and you will still have to
go to specific locations to get on. It just makes no sense.

I would much rather see some sort of automated flight between regular airports
on regional hops like the Texas triangle.

Edit: ... If at all. Something somewhat related that has baffled me for years
now. Is why do people, especially in the tech industry need to travel so much?
Of all people, why has the tech industry not solved the remote working issue?
It's like we are using steam power to make electricity. Again, it makes no
sense.

~~~
ceejayoz
> It simply does not make sense to me anymore to try and build high speed rail
> on the ground, on fixed "rails" in order to not even get close to even slow
> airplane speeds.

Planes have higher max speeds, but they're subject to weather delays and other
issues that bring their average speeds down well into maglev territory.

> With the roll-out of more sophisticated air traffic control systems that
> will allow denser traffic, higher frequency landing / take-offs, I don't see
> the sense in fixed systems like rail.

Significant limits remain - planes simply can't takeoff/land too close
together due to things like wake turbulence, unloading a plane through a
couple doors and jetways takes much longer than a train, etc. The weather
issue is a big factor here, as well - a thunderstorm in Chicago can disrupt
the entire nation due to connecting flights.

> Do we think that high speed rail will enjoy the freedom that current AMTRAK
> does where you just drive up, hop on the train and off you go?

It does in Europe and Japan.

~~~
wahsd
You are not thinking objectively, it's quite obvious. Not only will weather
impact the operation and speed of a maglev just as much if not more
considering that high winds and / or blistering heat can significantly impact
the train and track.

And if you think that a few storms disrupting the air transportation network
is a problem because some idiots thought it was a good idea to make Chicago a
hub then you are not thinking about the problem correctly. What you are
describing is a process and business problem. Maybe north and north east
airports should not be hub airports like any even half witted person would
realize, and no matter what, I don't think you could even pay for all the rail
lines that would need to be built in order to serve the same number of
passengers between the same number of destinations as you can flexibly adapt
to with air travel.

For example, Southwest started direct flights from DC to Austin two years ago
because the demand was so large. You couldn't even get the plans together in
the same amount of time it took to plan, permit, coordinate, and implement DC-
AUS flights, which are also a connection from some other airport on top of it.

~~~
ceejayoz
> Not only will weather impact the operation and speed of a maglev just as
> much if not more considering that high winds and / or blistering heat can
> significantly impact the train and track.

Planes are frequently grounded/delayed by weather systems trains would have no
trouble transiting, particularly thunderstorms.

> I don't think you could even pay for all the rail lines that would need to
> be built in order to serve the same number of passengers between the same
> number of destinations as you can flexibly adapt to with air travel.

Once again, you pretend like this doesn't already exist throughout Europe and
Japan already.

