

American Maglev - coglethorpe
http://www.academicvc.com/2009/03/american-maglev.html

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Barnabas
The article doesn't link to the company's website, which is here:
<http://american-maglev.com/index.php>. Sadly, neither the article or the
company website indicate how fast the train will go, or any details about
where they get the $20 million/mile figure. Those were my questions anyway.

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adamsmith
It seems like speed is a feature for v2.0.

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patio11
$200 million per mile for heavy rail.

Crikey, numbers like that bring perspective to the old "Why doesn't the US
have Japan's mass transit system, yet?" Because just building Japan's total of
tracks would cost $3.4 trillion... and we'd have built barely enough track to
cover California or New England to service levels comparable with Japan.

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arebop
I wondered roughly how that compared to highway costs, and I found that it's
about four times as much. One thing I found was that while this article claims
$700million/mile for the LA Red Line, the MTA reports that $4.5billion was
spent for the 17.4 miles, giving a cost of $259million/mile.

    
    
      project                     $million/mile  persons/day
      LA Red Line                 259 [1]        140943 [1]
      MARTA heavy rail (estimate) 200
      I-64 highway                 53.5 [2]      140000 [3]
      American Maglev (estimate)   20
    

[1] <http://www.metro.net/news_info/facts.htm> [2]
[http://www.modot.mo.gov/newsandinfo/reports/2007Accountabili...](http://www.modot.mo.gov/newsandinfo/reports/2007AccountabilityReport/documents/ExecSummary.pdf)
[3]
[http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/370990/human_factor_...](http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/370990/human_factor_complicates_highway_40_decision/)

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patio11
_I wondered roughly how that compared to highway costs, and I found that it's
about four times as much_

That would imply that the US has several trillion dollars invested in its
highway system, correct? Does that number pass the smell test to you?

Wiki reports that our ~45,000 mile interstate highway system cost about 425
billion, or a hair under $10 million a mile, in 2006 dollars. That's under a
twentieth of what the LA transit folks are quoting. (I think they're doing
creative accounting by reclassifying part of construction as operating
expenses, which is a frequent trick in this field, but I've got nothing to
back that up.)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System>

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potatolicious
What are the continued operating costs, though, from both the government and
users? When I lived in Toronto I could have an all-access unlimited subway
pass for $100 a month, that's $1200 a year.

If I commuted by car I would've personally paid a hell of a lot more for the
privilege. The up-front cost of the infrastructure is not the only
consideration...

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tjic
> What are the continued operating costs [?] ... When I lived in Toronto I
> could have an all-access unlimited subway pass for $100 a month,

This does not speak to operating costs.

Mass transit fairs are usually subsidized from general tax revenues - user
fees usually cover something like 10-25% of actual costs.

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potatolicious
Right, this I'm aware of - so I'd be interested in seeing someone do some
numbers on the _real_ costs of highways vs. mass transit.

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Retric
Last time I ran the numbers the US highway system costs around 3$/gallon of
gas used on the highway system. So, double your gas costs, then add all the
other costs and you can approximate the "net" cost of your commute.

~~~
potatolicious
It's more than your gas cost, though - there are other things like
maintenance, amortized cost of car ownership, insurance, etc.

You don't just pay for gas, you pay for the car to put it in.

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ljosa
Wikipedia's "Light rail" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail>) article
has some interesting numbers on the cost of light-rail construction: Over the
U.S. as a whole, excluding Seattle, new light rail construction costs average
about $35 million per mile. By comparison, a freeway lane expansion typically
costs $20 million per lane mile for two directions.

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stcredzero
Why couldn't you use the elevated track strategy these guys developed with
modified light rail cars? The light rail cars would also benefit from lighter
construction.

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spectre
Also if they use evacuated tunnels, the trains could do 4,000 mph. That would
be cool.

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potatolicious
Doubtful... You'd need a lot of time to accelerate to those speeds, and odds
are you'd have to slow down to make a turn well before you reached anything
appreciable.

~~~
electromagnetic
IMO there's no point in building a vac-tunnel for a modern train car, because
firstly it needs to be an airtight vehicle.

When traveling at 4,000 mph you don't necessarily have to slow down, you just
need to levitate from the sides of the tunnel. Essentially you could make the
train act similar to a swinging cart on a roller coaster where the center of
gravity will always try to sit under the user. People can easily tolerate
positive vertical gee forces with little to no side effect, yet exposure to
less than one vertical gee force (like the chair-drop rides at theme parks)
can make someone puke their guts out. Equally horizontal gee forces aren't
tolerated very well either, but in the linear axis (the one we accelerate
through) we're extremely tolerant and are in fact more tolerant if we're
facing backwards. Although I don't think facing backwards would necessarily
work on a train, you don't really want to hit 2 gees of acceleration and have
your coke fly in a straight line to the back wall.

Also acceleration wouldn't need to take too long, however in this systems
design it probably would. In the dumb car, smart track systems all the force
is applied from the outside, which is where acceleration could potentially
reach incredible speeds due to the sheer amount of power that could be
expended to do so.

We're a long, long way from any vac-tube form of rapid transit, but if we ever
get to it I think tolerating the corners will likely be a small problem. I
think the big problem will be keeping the train pressurized under potentially
huge pressure differentials due to the acceleration.

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torr
KISS. Smooth steel wheels on smooth steel tracks has _extremely_ low rolling
resistance, is inexpensive, and works great. Bonus: if the power goes out you
gently coast for a while. :)

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biohacker42
If their numbers are real.... lets just say I really, really, really hope
their numbers are real and that win some contracts.

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ktharavaad
Another Maglev worth noting is this one

<http://ruby.gemstone.com/>

I'm not sure if its American though.

