Posted on 09/03/2010 6:05:14 AM PDT by Willie Green
The billions we will spend on HS2 will get us from London to Birmingham 28 minutes faster than the present system does. After Birmingham, the trains will travel on old lines
China has the longest commercial maglev train service in the world. Japan holds the speed record (361mph). Germany has the best technology. And Britain … well, as usual, we’re just the ones who invented the thing. Readers of a certain age may recall Eric Laithwaite’s Christmas lectures to the Royal Institution in which he demonstrated how a linear induction motor (which he invented in the forties) could supply both lift and movement.
Some underfunded attempts were made to turn physics into product, and indeed the UK was the first country to build a maglev service, in 1984. It took the form of a shuttle that connected Birmingham’s airport and railway station, and ran at a speed of … 26mph. No doubt that was comforting for those travelling in a driverless train powered by a novel technology, but it was hardly likely to catch anyone’s imagination, either. It was replaced by a cable car in 1995, and little has happened since.
As we explain on page 38, maglev holds many advantages over conventional trains - indeed, so many that it’s hard to believe it hasn’t emerged as a serious contender for high-speed, long-distance transport before now. A British company called Ultraspeed has been patiently making the case for it for a decade or so, and it has been joined by Transrapid, the German company that built the Shanghai system, architect Ryder, which has produced concept designs for maglev stations, and Faithful + Gould, which has worked out what the bill would be.
The claim is that maglev would cost about half as much as conventional high-speed rail, even though all the infrastructure would be built from scratch; the maximal case is for a system linking London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds (with Edinburgh and Glasgow to follow in the fullness of time). This, the proponents say, would cost the same as HS2, the proposed London-to-Birmingham link.
If these figures are robust, we have reached a junction and we should seriously consider the option of maglev. One consideration is that the billions we will spend on HS2 will get us from London to Birmingham 28 minutes faster than the present system does. After Birmingham, the trains will be travelling on old lines, which means we will not be able to have super-long double-decker trains à la TGV: they wouldn’t fit our bridges or our platforms. Indeed, HS2 only makes sense if it is the first step in a strategic rail vision for the whole of the UK. But if we are prepared to spend that much money, we could take advantage of our relative backwardness by leap-frogging other countries and adopting the latest technology without paying the development costs.
But there is another dimension to the choice. Countries are judged on their engineering. Just think how Japan’s Bullet train and France’s TGV network burnished their national brand. The rail network that Britain built in the Victorian era not only created a national market, it established the idea of Britain as the most advanced country in the world, with all the prestige (and the commercial advantages) that came with that. This pioneering spirit lost momentum in the 20th century, and reached its nadir in the eighties, when British Rail developed, then abandoned, the tilting advanced passenger train. The Italians bought the technology, perfected it, then sold it back to us in the form of the Virgin Pendolinos that run on the west coast main line. Now we have the chance to redevelop that pioneering spirit in the form of maglev. But we’ll have to make our minds up sooner rather than later: once we start on HS2, all bets are off.
Maglev's elevated guidedway has a smaller "footprint" than steel-wheel on rail technology, and can traverse much steeper grades and curves. This gives it some enormous construction cost advantages compared to HS2, which will requires significant tunneling/trenching for the high-speed right-of-way.
Additionally, Maglev will not only provide Britons with faster operating speeds, but also lower maintenance costs because there are less mechanical components to wear out.
Wow. Just think of how much more money we could piss up a rope with Maglev over conventional government rail boondoggles.
Gee, maglev is an economic failure in China, so let’s try it in the West! GREAT PLAN!
If it’s so great, Willie, how about starting a company yourself to profit from high speed trains? Just think of the money you could make!
Willie, are you a paid shill for railroads?
The Brits can do as they wish but I really doubt they’ll be so irresponsible at this point.
9am and already a train thread from Willie. I guess the trains really do run on time.
Anybody who is against this is a RACIST!!!
That cover the situation so far as I can see.
Once you work out the "NO ACCIDENTS" standard, the technology for proceeding to full implementation is there.
The aggregate transportation cost savings that can be achieved by eliminating accidents are ENORMOUS and beat the advantage of steel on steel coefficient of friction advantages.
Plus, best of all, once you get to where you're going you can pull it in the driveway yourself. No need to rent a car to get around town.
LOL, that looks like a kiddie ride at our county fair.
Willie, I ain’t going with this, Just steam power for me.
A flat out lie. The real pioneers in maglev technology were Robert Goddard, an American, who proposed a maglev rail system in 1904, and Emile Bachelet, a Frenchman living in the US, who applied for a patent on a maglev rail system in 1910.
http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_RailGuns,,00.html
Ah, the old “world class city” crap used to pimp the toy train in Houston has been converted to “world class country” crap by the Maglev pimps in the UK.
The UK’s rail system was soundly based (for a while) on a system that made a profit. With greater and greater goobermint control of, course, that slipped into the bottomless socialist pit.
“Look Mommy, I’ve got the fastest choo-choo” is not a rational basis for a transportation system anywhere.
Don’t kid yourself Willie, this thread is all about beating up on socialist boondogles, and you. And business is good.
Again, the objective here is aggregate travel time and cost for the entirity of society ~ not just the convenience of a handful of rich guys who want to go to "downtown" locations.
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