# Mag Lev trains for freight

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mag-lev-trains-for-freight/675015>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 28, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mag-lev-trains-for-freight/675015 "2013-11-28T17:31:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mag-lev-trains-for-freight/675015/21 "2013-11-30T22:47:06Z")

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> [@Musicat](#):
>
> Solid wheels at 300MPH are really pushing the envelope, maybe exceeding it for practicality. Drag & resistance increases dramatically with that kind of technology as speeds increase. An easy solution at low speeds becomes a difficult or critical solution at high ones. Maglev may have its problems – mostly because of a lack of experience with it – but rolling resistance and accelerated bearing wear are minimized.

Yes, but unless your train is running in an evacuated tunnel, your air resistance will still increase quadratically with speed.

Many years ago, there was an article in Scientific American about building evacuated tunnels for high speed rail. The propulsion would come evacuating the air in front of the train and using the pressure of air behind to accelerate (although the author also advocated building the tunnel straight through the earth so acceleration and deceleration were also powered by gravity). But he claimed steel wheels on steel rails were good for up to 500 MPH, at least IIRC.

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**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mag-lev-trains-for-freight/675015/22 "2013-12-02T16:22:06Z")

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> [@Musicat](#):
>
> And there’s the problem. At some non-zero cost per mile for maglev land vs. zero cost for the first, second and 100th mile of land for air transport, buying a 747 and building 2 airports (which may already be there) starts to look cheap.

The problem too is the ownership cost. In the 1800’s, most railroad infrastructure was “commissioned”, you can own a rail from A to B and right-of-way if you promise to invest the cost; sometimes there was an implied or explicit monopoly on the route, nobody else would be allowed to build a parallel line.

Airports are “public property” and airlines pay a minor fee to use them. The problem with building a maglev track from A to B, is that the amount of money required is huge; the question becomes, who gets to use it? If it’s built with public money, why are you competing with airlines and other established private enterprise? How urgent is the convenience of speed?

This is why the first major application is the Japanese bullet train replacement. They have an established base, a monopoly on the transport, a proven market that can benefit from the speed increase… Imagine the airlines and bus companies screaming if the feds built a 350mph train between downtown Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. Imagine the additional taxi drivers screams if there were an 8 minute link from airports to downtown as well.

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