
Japanese railway operator to license maglev tech to US for free - nkurz
http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Japanese-railway-operator-to-offer-maglev-tech-to-US-for-free
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ThePhysicist
I think the problem with the US railway system is not the lack of technology,
but politics: People seem to love bold and mostly unrealistic proposals like
Elon Musk's "Hyperloop" or the Maglev technology but seem to be a lot less
passionate about making existing infrastructure better (which understandably
is much more boring):

As an example, I just took the Amtrak train from NYC to Montreal to attend
PyCon (which is awesome!), which took all in all 11 hours to cover a distance
a little over 530 km. For comparison, going from my hometown Saarbrücken in
Germany to Paris (which is about the same distance) takes less than two hours
(1:40h to be exact) with TGV or ICE trains. Arguably for the latter there is
no border to be crossed (OK actually there is but none that is patroled) but
still, this kind of makes you wonder why a high-tech nation like the USA
doesn't have a similar system of high-speed trains in place, and I think that
the answer has more to do with political unwillingness and lobbying than with
lack of technology.

BTW, in Germany there once was an attempt to build a Transrapid (our version
of Maglev that is deployed in Shanghai, developed by Siemens
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid))
track to connect the Munich airport to the city centre (see "Munich Link"
section in the article above), but calculations showed that the achievable
time saving compared to the latest generation of ICE high-speed trains would
be only 3 minutes, whereas the additional cost would have been around 3 BN €,
which lead to the project being eventually ditched.

~~~
johansch
Slightly off-topic: I've noticed that public transport from city center to
airport kind of suck in larger german cities.

In e.g. Berlin (for SXF at least), Frankfurt and Munich there's only the
fantastically slow S-Bahn, with ride times around 40-60 minutes.

~~~
ThePhysicist
Agreed, Frankfurt and Hamburg are pretty ok though. And in Berlin it's not
only the transportation to the airport but the airport itself that sucks ;) *

*the announced opening date of the new airport has been delayed by several years to the point where it's questionable if it will ever open...

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arrrg
The technology has existed for so long but never really went anywhere. After
half a century there are 30km in Shanghai, that’s all.

Maybe it will work out better in the future.

The biggest problem I see is that the gains of this technology would be rather
small anywhere with conventional high-speed rail or existing infrastructure
that can be upgraded to that. With Maglev everything needs to be built from
scratch. That’s just not very attractive for any place that has consistently
expanded its rail network ever since the height of the industrial revolution.

And for what? A 180km/h faster train? I personally very much want that, sure,
but is it worth it for anyone building it? I’m pretty sure I know the answer
in Western Europe (though I can always hope that maglev has a future there),
I’m not so sure when it comes to the US.

~~~
melling
"And for what? A 180km/h faster train?"

Going an extra 110mph(180km/h) would be a huge win. It greatly extends the
distance where a train wins over a jet.

Also consider, for instance, in the NYC area, you could live 100 miles away
from Manhattan and easily commute to work. That means you could live in
downtown Philly and work in Manhattan, 30 minutes away. The world becomes a
lot smaller.

~~~
ekianjo
> Going an extra 110mph(180km/h) would be a huge win. It greatly extends the
> distance where a train wins over a jet.

Not really, because jets will go much more places that your single maglev line
ever will. That's the problem with hi-tech trains. They are extremely costly
to deploy in terms of infrastructure, they go over land that could be used for
other purposes, and because of the large investment required they only go in
very few places. Jets win everywhere else.

~~~
melling
"Jets win everywhere else."

Of course they don't. Getting to an airport 60-90 minutes before a flight
that's only 60-90 minutes doesn't make much sense

~~~
bdunbar
This is true.

But the requirement to arrive 90 minutes before departure time is not a
problem with the vehicle but the bureaucracy and security apparatus around it.

True Story: while I like to arrive well before a flight (just in case) when I
was younger it was not unheard of to arrive at the airport _minutes_ before
flight departure and simply stroll down the causeway, and onto the flight.

~~~
walshemj
I could walk into the heathrow terminal for edinburgh plonk down my card buy a
ticket walk into the lounge have a quick pint and be on a plane to ediburgh
within 15/20 min

~~~
handelaar
Of course Heathrow itself is an hour from almost everywhere in central London,
and Edinburgh Airport is 30 mins by road from Princes Street, so your 20 mins
just became two hours.

~~~
walshemj
hmm used to be 30 mins in a taxi to haethrow and the train journy takes 5
hours.

And the british airways cream tea was amazing as it should be for >£200

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Istof
Japan also offer loans to USA for building maglev trains
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/1055533...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/10555330/Japan-
offers-to-lend-US-half-the-cost-of-Super-Maglev-train-between-Washington-and-
Baltimore.html)

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ChrisNorstrom
Japan's maglev technology (EDS) is very different from Germany's maglev
technology (EMS) that's being used in Shanghai. One pulls the train up
electromagnetically to a steel track and the other uses permanent magnets to
push the train away from the track. Both are still going nowhere. And it's for
good reason.

● Both are extremely expensive per mile compared to HSR (high speed rail).
Sure it's faster than high speed rail but a technology doesn't make it because
it's better, but because it's more practical to implement.

● Service is not as tried and trusted as HSR. Germany's test facilities have
been torn down after the Shangai maglev was built and Japan's maglev hasn't
been expanded. On an emotional human level it just doesn't feel trustworthy.
If you're not growing you're dying.

● Both technologies are proprietary whereas HSR has more companies and
manufacturers to chose from.

● HSR could probably compete with maglev speeds by building a wider gauge
track, using larger wheels, and implementing more aerodynamic designs to
reduce drag and power consumption.

● Germany and Japan are pitching their maglev trains while they themselves
aren't avid users of them.

=== Lessons ===

If you want something to succeed sometimes you have to set it free.

If you're not expanding or growing you're dying.

If you want people to use your solution, instill trust by investing in and
using your own solution.

~~~
rangibaby
A full Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka maglev (SCMaglev) line is under construction in
Japan right now, with the Tokyo-Nagoya leg due to be in operation by 2027.[0]

As if late, traditional HSR is getting a lot of competition (in Japan at
least) from domestic flights that cost almost exactly the same and take about
the same amount of time. This has led to a resurgence of the "old" airports in
Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuo_Shinkansen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuo_Shinkansen)

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markbao
Japanese railway operator to _license_ maglev tech to US for free

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stingraycharles
So that means they can use the tech, but not redistribute it to anyone else?
Sounds pretty fair to me.

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fsckin
If you ever have the chance to ride the Shanghai maglev from Pudong airport
into the city, splurge a little bit for first class. It's incredibly relaxing
before or after a long flight and watching the world fly past at 270mph and
not feeling crowded or touching other people for 8 minutes.

Oh, and don't trust any taxi driver who speaks English, you're extremely
likely to be scammed. Don't ask me how I know.

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jlj_20
What about Elon Musk's hyperloop venture, are they in the running?

~~~
omegant
Yes, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies exists (I'm volunteer), they are
going to design and build a prototipe using crowdsourcing engineering (not
capital as far as I know). Also they have contact with several universities
and companies that are interested in partnering and developint part of the
systems. Right now they are working in the legal parts of the company and mean
while there is a brainstorming at the engineering part with calculations
beyond tha alpha document. It's a hard process as the technology is so new,
but amazing non the less. The idea is to start building and testing a scale
prototipe for 2015 in LA.

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fredgrott
Its not the speed, its the distance between the stops..

Let me give you an example...in the midwest USA there is a short commuter line
called South Shore that runs from SouthBend Indiana to southern shore of Lake
Michigan and up to the Loop in Chicago

Most of the stations on the South Shore are either blocks apart or a few miles
apart..which negates a high speed rail solution

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denzil_correa
Is there a specific reason to license it for "free" or is there something more
to it than meets the eye?

