It should say something that Germany, where the MagLev was developed, does not have a single operational MagLev track. They have a short, closed loop track that is used for development, but not a single operational track. All attempts to have a MagLev track installed have been stopped. If memory serves, it was calculated that even if all air traffic along the proposed route (Berlin-Hamburg) was forced to use the MagLev, then the ticket prices would have to be terribly high for the MagLev to pay back the investment costs.
As for commuting, anyone who proposes replacing automobiles with public transport is dreaming. I used the german rail and bus system for about two years to commute to work (50 miles each way.) Germany has, by what I am told, one of the best run and organized mass transit systems in the world. It sucked. Train delays and missed busses. I built up such pile of loss time at work that I had to use up vacation days to compensate. It was impossible to make up enough over time to make up for all the times that the train made me late to work. I took the earliest train/bus combination to work in the morning, and the next to last one home in the evening. If I needed to work late, then I could only stay one hour longer. Since it was common to be a half an hour late in the morning (with some delays running into hours,) there just wasn’t anyway to catch up.
It took (when everything worked right) two hours and fifteen minutes to get to work. Four and one half hours a day at best, and usually over five. Today, driving a car that gets over fifty mpg, I spend two and one half hours a day driving. I can leave earlier in the morning and beat the rush hour and also leave work before the evening rush hour starts. I can also leave later in the morning and get to the bad spots after the rush hour is over and then leave work in the evening after the evening rush hour. I am in control of my work time again.
When I was using the bus/rail system, I paid more for my ticket then I pay out for diesel each month these days - and that in Germany, which has some of the highest fuel taxes in Europe. All I could do with my rail pass was go to work and back. All told, the car costs more per month than the rail pass, but then I get a lot more use out of it. It would have been a bitch to go grocery shopping using the rail pass.
I would prefer to live closer to work, but then so do a lot of other folks here. This drives up the price of housing to the point that (when I lived in the same town as my job and walked two miles to work every day,) I used to pay as much in rent for a two room apartment as I now pay on the loan for my own home.
No mass transit for this boy.
True, but you can kill everyone on a MagLev easily. Just climb up on an overpass and drop something on the tracks. Instant death and destruction.
Also, you should consider the effects of a power outage. The MagLev is externally powered, and if you lose that power the levitation stops - at 430 kilometers per hour (270 miles per hour.) Fun, right?
Is there a chance the track will bend?
Uh, no. The point is that the movement of the train itself will generate enough flux in the coils to help it coast down, and tires in the undercarriage will let it roll to a stop.
As for the track bending, nothings impossible; but I’d say, you’d have to have a hell of an impact. Plus the rails would be elevated so that merely accessing them would be almost impossible, and “dropping” something on them from an overpass would result in whatever was “dropped” sliding off the trackhead and onto the ground. Or beiong pushed off the track by the train. All in all, since the system is intended to avoid conventional thorofares, and will be higher than most, if not all public roads, finding an overpass from which to “drop” something might be hard.
The saving grace Maglev has in the states is the potential for the manufacturing process to do other things as well. Like I’ve mentioned, budget talks are going on now, and it looks like it might be a go. I for one would like to see that.
b.
The highspeed trains here in Germany usually have protective berms on either side and go under the roads rather than over them. There is usually a fence along the top of the berm and on the overpasses, but a heavy wire cutter is enough to take care of the chain link. Dropping something on a train would be ever so easy.
Elevating the rails would be very costly, I would think. Especially over hundreds of miles.
Viewed as a stepping stone to further technology advances, the MagLev might have something going for it, but I don’t know what.
San Francisco to Los Angeles and or San Diego might have potential as well. I would imagine to be really worthwhile these trains would primarily replace air travel. LA-SF in 2 hours or so. Beats driving 5-6 hours. Making occasional stops at major points of departure. If you try to make it stop every 50 miles it will lose its time effectiveness. Might be fun to sit down and try to do a study for a NY-LA express or something.
Also using it to ship mail and or a few overnight packages could help with the overhead. Probably enough overnight letter traffic between LA and SF to really make a difference. Mail is just as cost effective as people (trade 200 1-2lb pieces of overnight mail for one person.) If the postal service/UPS/Fedex/airborne is willing to pay $1 to the train provider each…$200 in mail carrying fees for 300 pounds of capacity. In addition the trains will probably run several times a day allowing alot of flexibility in pickups/deliveries.
San Francisco to Los Angeles and or San Diego might have potential as well. I would imagine to be really worthwhile these trains would primarily replace air travel. LA-SF in 2 hours or so. Beats driving 5-6 hours. Making occasional stops at major points of departure. If you try to make it stop every 50 miles it will lose its time effectiveness. Might be fun to sit down and try to do a study for a NY-LA express or something.
Also using it to ship mail and or a few overnight packages could help with the overhead. Probably enough overnight letter traffic between LA and SF to really make a difference. Mail is just as cost effective as people (trade 200 1-2lb pieces of overnight mail for one person.) If the postal service/UPS/Fedex/airborne is willing to pay $1 to the train provider each…$200 in mail carrying fees for 300 pounds of capacity. In addition the trains will probably run several times a day allowing alot of flexibility in pickups/deliveries.
Its a rather simple matter to set up braking systems that require power to disengage. Loss of power would engage the brakes and bring to the train to a safe stop.
So you haven’t bothered to look at the links provided? the Maglev as proposed would mostly be on tall strong columns, placed every 1/8 of a mile. Dramatically less cost than purchasing the land. dramatically less environmental impact. Little or no access to the rails for potential saboteurs. Or numbskulls with things they want to drop ever so easily onto the tracks.
The German maglev test track is elevated for those reasons, and the US built one would be as well. I have seen all this with my own eyes.
And Maglev is fine with that.
b.
The California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission is looking to develop a MagLev between Anaheim and Vegas as we speak.
They have a website.
You live in the town/state/country you pay the taxes. Unless youi live on a farm where you grow your own fruit and make your clothes out of corn husks, if it’s part of the transportation infrastructure, you indirectly benefit from it. Now I’m as sick as anyone else of the government wasting my tax dollars on fire departments that have to put out OTHER people’s house fires. I just accept that part of living in society is that we don’t have absolute control over how every single tax dollar is spent.
“Its a rather simple matter to set up braking systems that require power to disengage. Loss of power would engage the brakes and bring to the train to a safe stop.”
I think the point he was trying to make was if the maglev looses power, it stops levitating and comes crashing onto the track at 200+ miles an hour.
I heard they built similar MagLevs in Ogdenville, North Haverbrook, and Brockway.
Oh yeah…
The problem is that in a big city everyone wants to live near where they work…they just can’t afford to.
here is the link to Bear’s suggested website.
Unfortunately, Bear, you might just have a winner- the Gaming industry will do a lot to deliver people to a place where they may be efficently separated from their money.
Still, the Philadelphia project is being considered there because of the ready availability of high quality steel and people skilled in it’s manufacture. Once that hurdle has been overcome, other systems could be built.
And Mssmith, as i have pointed out, the system is constructed to deal with total power loss very efficiently, and very safely. It can no more “crash” down onto it’s rails than the chair you’re sitting in can “crash” down onto the floor, it’s already there. if levitation is stopped entirely, the train skids to a controlled stop on wheels and/or skid pads located between the train and the rail, which do not touch under levitation but are there for safety’s sake.
b.
Dang…
It’s so depressing when nobody thinks your comments are even worth responding to.
But that’s life.
LOL! Scott, I just figured you looked at the links provided (and there were plenty) and got all your questions answered. if you still have some, go ahead! I’d be pleased to answer any I’m able to.
b.
Yes, I so do pine for the days when a fire in one tenement would take down the whole block. Ahh, the bygone era of yesteryear.
Erek
Exactly! And what is all this nonsense with “police”. Back in the old days, we used to solve crimes the old fashioned way - with angry mob justice.
Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
As one who would directly benefit from the Pittsburgh-Greensburgh area MagLev project, I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will come to fruition.
Regarding the unjust subsidizing of other people’s transportation: Believe me, I would love it if we could all bike to work. The reason why it would behoove you to not object to your tax dollars funding public transportation is that it both pisses people off and/or makes residing in an area more trouble than it is worth if people can’t get around. They will then find somewhere else to live that will provide them with the means. Then, with the city’s tax base shrinking, there are fewer dollars to pay for upkeep on your sidewalks that you love riding your bike on. Fewer people are available to support the arts, or professional sports. Businesses begin to have trouble recruiting new workers. They begin to move out of the area. Suddenly, your workplace is no longer within commuting distance, and you have to move to a location that takes your hard earned tax dollars and [shudder] uses it for public works.
Billy Rubin:
Unless I’m somehow missing a whole page…I don’t think ANY of my specific questions were addressed.
And thanks for caring!
I’ll give this a shot even though I don’t have the data to support me in the tradition of GD.
I have no cites, but I would say this is a huge factor. When I lived in San Diego, I would read most of the newspaper articles on Trolley extensions. There was almost always a discussion of the costs of acquiring rights-of-way and/or making use of existing rights-of-way. As you can imagine, real property in San Diego isn’t cheap, and trying to get an easement across someone’s land can be costly.
Another land use factor is the cost of Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs) and permitting by state and local land use agencies (e.g., cities, counties, regional planning authorities, utility agencies (e.g., California Public Utilities Commission), and resources agencies (e.g., California Coastal Commission)).
I imagine it’s not cheap or simple to get everyone to agree on the projects proposed.
This sounds great, but you would have to retrofit every road and/or every lane of highway with MagLev technology as well as every car. The costs sound enormous (includng the increased cost of cars) as compared to creating a few tracks with a few trains running through the heaviest traffic areas or between transportation hubs or traffic generators (hospitals, malls, sports venues, etc.), or parallel to the heaviest transportation corridors.
If you don’t MagLev the whole city (e.g., by creating MagLev “zones” such as “downtown”), you won’t solve the car problem at all in the non-MagLev areas (suburbs) where the traffic problem begins.
IMHO, the problem is fundamentally bad land use planning. The fact that people want their cars when they “arrive” is because the city was poorly planned in the first place. If it was done right, you wouldn’t need your car at all.
Yes, I am biassed in favor of “Smart Growth”, but, admittedly, I don’t have a whole lot of stats to back up my position.