Pennsylvania needs a Maglev train

The York Daily Record ^ | Sunday, July 18, 2004 | EUGENE V. ATKINSON

[Willie Green]

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Senators Kerry, Edwards and Specter all want Pennsylvania votes on election day and are in power to deliver jobs for Pennsylvania now, today!

Pennsylvania desperately needs innovative ways to create new employment vital for our future. At the same time, today America needs a clean alternative energy saving form of transportation.

The next generation of high-speed ground transportation for the United States has been an ongoing activity for more than 10 years known as the Maglev Train Project.

Legislation is required right now to deploy a high-speed Maglev train for commercial service in Pennsylvania. Maglev is an environmentally clean alternate source of transportation that offers competitive trip-time savings to auto and aviation means in the 40- to 600-mile travel markets.

The private/public operating structure, organizations, plus innovative financing, and long-term precision fabrication skills are required to construct the Maglev Guideway.

This will create an enormous amount of employment we need to serve Pennsylvania into the 21st century.

If billions were given to Chrysler in the 1970s and billions more to the airlines in 2000s, all to save jobs, why not a few billion to meet America's 21st century transportation requirements and Pennsylvania's job needs before election day?

Anything less is just political poetical conceit asking for our votes today, on mere promises yet to come, but doing nothing when all are in command to help Pennsylvania.

If they crave Pennsylvania votes on election day, I challenge them to pass Maglev for Pennsylvania jobs now. If not, why vote for them?

EUGENE V. ATKINSON,
FORMER CONGRESSMAN
ALIQUIPPA

[Willie Green]

.

Magnetic levitation (Maglev) is an advanced technology in which magnetic forces lift, propel, and guide a vehicle over a guideway. Utilizing state-of-the-art electric power and control systems, this configuration eliminates contact between vehicle and guideway and permits cruising speeds of up to 300 mph, or almost two times the speed of conventional high-speed rail service. Because of its high speed, Maglev offers competitive trip-time savings to auto and aviation modes in the 40- to 600-mile travel markets–an ideal travel option for the 21st century.

Both the Pennsylvania and Baltimore-Washington plans utilize maglev technology developed by Transrapid International. The German design is based on a conventional non-superconductingelectromagnetic/attractive magnetic configuration, and has received extensive testing at a full-scale test track in Emsland, Germany. The latest design represents over 20 years of design evolution and 15 years' testing of full-scale Transrapid prototypes, including safety certification by the German government for passenger-carrying revenue service at speeds of 250 mph or higher.

Highlights of the Transrapid system are:

• High cruising speeds of 200 to 300 mph (320 kph to 480 kph)
  

• Fast acceleration and braking with outstanding passenger comfort
  

• Can climb 10% grades at full speed
  

• Safe operation on dedicated grade-separated track, or guideway
  

• Vehicle wraps around guideway to reduce risk of derailment
  

• Low electromagnetic field emission and interference potential
  

• Standard superelevation, or tilt, of 12 degrees (max. up to 16 degrees) to navigate curves
  

• Proven and tested automatic operations control system
  

• Minimal guideway maintenance with small footprint
  

• High system capacity
  

• Guideway energized sequentially for dynamic vehicle "block" control and reduced power demand
  

• Improved aerodynamic vehicle design for minimal turbulence
  

• Multiple levels of redundancy built in for safe operations at all speeds
  

• Final safety approval anticipated in Germany for commercial operations
  

• Prior evaluation and safety analysis by the US Department of
  Transportation accepted Transrapid for deployment in Orlando, Florida in 1992

The Transrapid is suitable for transporting goods as well. For high-speed cargo transport, special cargo sections can be combined with passenger sections or assembled to form dedicated cargo trains (payload up to 18 tons per section). As the propulsion system is in the guideway, neither the length of the vehicle nor the payload affect the acceleration power.

If you would like more information about Maglev, visit the Transrapid International website or Maglev of Pennsylvania or the Baltimore-Washington Maglev Project

[Josh in PA]

Would love to see one of these run from Pittsburgh and Philly to Central PA region (Lewisburg)

[Petronski]

Pennsylvania needs a Maglev train like a hole in the head.

[blanknoone]

I can just hear people across rural Lancaster county chanting...

Give us Pork! Give us Pork! Give us Pork!


On second thought, nope, I can't.

[blanknoone]

If Maglev were so great, and Penn. actually needed one....the government wouldn't have to fund it and this crappy paper wouldn't have to try to use Penn's status as a swing state to try to get an extra helping of pork. Read it...it isn't about the train, it is about PA getting the jobs to build the train.

[Edmund Burke]

Why don't we just work at getting the trains to run as fast as they did in 1945 and think about taking the next step after that?

[Petronski]

[dinodino]

HAHAHAHAHA. Suuuuuuure it does.

[don-o]

Fergetaboutit.

KKK Byrd will get it for W VA if it is to be got a'tall

don-o guarantee dat

[Hank Rearden]

Baltimore-Washington? I'm not interested in moving government parasites back and forth to dump more laws on us.

Let 'em walk or stay home.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

If I want to pay for pork I'll go to the supermarket, thanks.

[Boundless]

> Why don't we just work at getting the trains to run
> as fast as they did in 1945 and think about taking
> the next step after that?

1945? how about 1920?
We used to have a 100+ mph interstate highway system
far more extensive than today's pavement.

But the answer to your "why don't" question is:
- grade separation
- freight separation
- tamper resistance

Conventional surface rail could run up to 300 mph,
but not with all the grade crossings we have on
current rights of way, and not with slow freights
using the same tracks, and not without being an
easy target for terrorists (and suicides-by-train,
and vandals parking stolen vehicles on crossings).

We have about one train-something collision per
day today, with sub 79 mph speeds.

The optimal bet is elevated guideways. Although
hardly high-speed, I'm impressed by how quickly
the Las Vegas Monorail got built (despite delays).

Now as to "elevated guideway" necessarily implies
maglev, well, I'm not convinced that ML makes economic
sense. The fact that the PRC blew a bundle on it
actually makes it less appealing.

[Torie]

Legislation is required right now to deploy a high-speed Maglev train for commercial service in Pennsylvania.

If I ever suggest that this isn't anything anything but a wacko idea, which is so ludicrously uneconomic, that private industry wouldn't touch it, even if the alternative was that CEO's had to cut off their private parts, just file a petition to declare me mentally incompetent, and send me packing to an institution.

When will the public square become satiated with pork, or is the term "porked out" when it comes to various and sundry and creative appetites of those that control these things, simply an oxymoron?

My best suggestion is to unleash McCain on this, and get in Coburn as fast as possible into the Senate. Just do it.

[presidentbowen]

Agreed, I live in Glen Burnie, and after living with the horror of the Light Rail coming from crime ridden Baltimore City, the last thing we need is another train coming from Washington D.C. which has even more crime. So yes, build it in PA, leave Maryland alone.

[Frankss]

It uses 3 times the fuel of a regular train at speed. It is not fuel efficient at all.
It cost 2+ times as much as a conventional train to build.
The German train is only experimental, they are not building a system. Why? A. It's too expensive
China built a short line, but they are not building any more. Too expensive to build, opperate and to ride.
They are extremely loud to any one near by. Imagine that 18 ton suppository roaring past you at 300 MPH ! All this is just a little faster than current conventional trains, and a lot slower than current airliners. But more expensive than either. It's just not needed.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

Big problem with this (besides track beds) is that you'll never be able to hit top speeds because of the risk to the children.
We have tracks between Boston and D.C. and the trains can't get up to even half their top speed because of safety considerations.
We don't need new trains and tracks, we should use the ones we have better.

[GSlob]

Without all the MAGLEV technical problems, I would suggest attaining the same ends by having some people digging holes in the ground and other people filling them. They could even take turns, if it is not against union rules. Or, if the environmental impact is too severe, they can be profitably kept out of mischief by having them to (manually) grind water in mortars with pestles.

[Willie Green]

Big problem with this (besides track beds) is that you'll never be able to hit top speeds because of the risk to the children.

Maglev travels on a dedicated overhead guideway.
Unlike conventional railroads, there are no grade level crossing or rail bed where it may collide with cars, trucks, pedestrians, animals, etc. etc.
Oh, it might run into a bird on occasion. But they just bounce off, just like they do with airplanes.

[Willie Green]

It uses 3 times the fuel of a regular train at speed. It is not fuel efficient at all.

When traveling at the same speed (an apples to apples comparison), Maglev is actually MORE energy efficient.
It does, however, use more energy when it goes faster than any conventional train could ever possibly go.
Yep, gotta use more energy if ya want to go faster.
Can't get around that one.
Nevertheless, when you're talking about faster speeds, then you have to compare it to airplanes.
Maglev is more energy efficient than those, too.

[PAR35]

Want to create jobs? Spend the same money to build next generation nuclear power plants.