China's maglev trains to hit 1,000km/h in three years, Doc Brown to finally get 1985 squared away
By Darren Murph 
posted August 4th 2010 11:22PM
posted August 4th 2010 11:22PM
Look out Japan -- your neighbor to the west might just steal your thunder. Years after the Land of the Rising Sun proudly boasted plans to create a maglev train that could soar along at 500km/h, China is now claiming that they'll have similar ones ready in just three years. Oh, but they'll travel at twice the aforesaid speed. According to the laboratory at Southwest Jiaotong University, a prototype is currently being worked on that'll average 500km/h to 600km/h, with a far smaller train to hit upwards of 1,000km/h in "two or three years." The trick? Tossing the maglev train inside of a vacuum tube, enabling greater velocity due to decreased friction. If you're scoffing at the mere thought of how much such a setup would cost, you're probably not alone -- it's bruited that the tunnel would cost "10 to 20 million yuan ($2.95 million) more than the current high speed railway for each kilometer." Pony up, taxpayers!
So what exactly is 1,000 kph in English then???
@Prestwick "Hella fast"
@Prestwick 1000 kilometers per hour.
@TheSpoonyBard
About 621 mph
@Prestwick If it means kilometers per hours then its equal to 621.37 mile per hour
@Prestwick approaching mach 1.
@rivengle kilometer...kilometer...that sounds like something that would be 1,000 meters, which is just ridiculous since who's ever heard of a meter??
@rivengle
Although it is written as km/h no kph.
@Prestwick
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=1000+kph+to+mph
@Prestwick English? You mean Imperial rather than Metric I guess. 1000 Km/h is 621.4 mph, Mach 1 is 1,236 Km/h or 768 mph at 20°C or 68°F.
That's FAST.
@Mr Blurrycam True! I was thinking what was kph, or maybe thats how it is on the other side of the world..
@Prestwick
We may never know.
@Prestwick
If you're in a train going faster than Mach 1 and you stick your head outside of a window and yell would you be able to hear yourself?
@that other guy
You'd be able to hear your neck snap when you stick your head out, does that count?
@rivengle I don't think there IS a Mach 1 in a vacuum.
I bet if they built this in the US, someone would still get hit by it, even inside a vacuum.
@Prestwick
Let's just say it can make the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs.
@hexoDAT64
that's like a flight from SFO to LAX in about an hour.
@CRA1G Actually, it's metre and kilometre ;)
@Black Patriot
Lol well then in theory if you could withstand the forces any idea what would happen?
@frosty the snowman
fail, the term is US customary form
@TVGenius Darwin works overtime in the U.S. "Hey you! Outta the gene pool!"
@TheSpoonyBard
any way you look at it that will be a true bullet train !
@Prestwick About 3 billion dollars an hour.
@CRA1G
The rest of world using meter. Only you idiot say it is ridiculous.
I feel like they have other problems they should be more concerned with then having faster Maglev's than Japan.
@hexoDAT64 Like not enough schoolgirl panties vending machines? I agree 100%.
@hexoDAT64 Agreed, and I don't think I'd trust China's quality control enough to ever ride a project that involves a train in a god damn vacuum tube.
It's like one Japanese commenter on another website I read said: "Who wants to bet when the first case of passenger's internal organs rupturing occurs?"
@Tres
Hi,
I've read about this kind of train line before and the idea is more practical than you might realise:
1) you don't need absolute vacuum. You just need to make the air inside the tube less dense than normal to get an improvement. The better you do that, the easier it will be for your train to gain speed.
2) the vacuum tube is essentially an tunnel as airtight as possible with big pumps sucking out the air. It takes a lot of energy (and makes noise?) but it certainly is not unachievable, for China or others.
@Tres
KIRF train?
Chu chu!
Did you get your cost # wrong? 2.95 million dollars is a drop in the OCEAN for China. No tax payer needed.
@bloop
2.9 mil more per kilometer. But that's not that much when you think about it, probably 10-20% more than they would spend.
@bloop 118 billion isn't really chump change, even to China, the point is that 118 billion is probably a wise investment. However, that can also go to things like education, or getting more people above the poverty line (between job creation and better infrastructure this could potentially help with the latter though). 118B can buy a lot of things, I commend them, but it shouldn't be taken lightly and a nation like the US should take note of these kind of projects and wonder why they are so fat that they can't afford similar.
@juanvaldez China doesn't want to get more of its people above the poverty line. The reason they're so powerful is because they have that many people at the poverty line willing to work for low wages so that they can outbid nearly every other country in the region in their human capital. And that = MONIES TO THE GOVERNMENT! =D
@bloop The funny thing is that it's probably still cheaper than just building regular old train tracks in the U.S. Which is why we get Acela trains that can't even run at their specced speed because we have no tracks for them.
I just hope that these train tracks are more comprehensive than the mag lev train in Shanghai-that whole project got bogged down by people not wanting a crazy fast train near them so where the train station had to be ended up getting farther and farther out of Shanghai so that you have to take a cab to get to the train to get to the airport. Still very cool to go that fast though but on such a short track it's hard to spend much time at the top speed since you spend a lot of time accelerating and then by the time you hit peak speed you have to start braking since you can't really slam the brakes from 1000kph without making everyone's brains bleed.
@juanvaldez
where id your 188B came from?
Lets say they probably need around 6000 mi for start, then it'll cost them 28.5+ billion dollars. I'd say that's chump change for them, drop in a bucket. Considering we (da USA) own then over 2 trillions dollars. They can just ring up Timothy for it. If anything, we (The US tax payers) ARE paying for their maglev train.
@bloop I got it from the source article, you should try it sometime.
@bloop Also, it's important to consider your total wealth, as you've done, when considering affordability. However, sound investment means putting the money where it'd get the best return, again, I like this idea, I'm just saying I understand people who say that this is too much because they need to do things like make sure more children have a proper education.
@AzlanIsmail This comment is just filled with ignorance, they are powerful because of the size of their economy. The size of their economy would GROW if they get more people above the poverty line. Yes, their manufacturing base would go down, but people don't look to the US, the EU because of their lack of manufacturing, it's because of the clout that money buys. Manufacturing isn't everything, and if China can rise above to design, then they'd be better off (and cleaner too, but they are working on that as well).
@techdaemon
Spend a lot of time accelerating? Umm airplanes go at around that speed too, you realize that? Anyway, I doubt they would need to spend more than 3 minutes accelerating .. if that. It can actually be done in one minute without discomfort. Motorcycles cars can go 0 to 60 miles per hours (about 100 kph) in under 3 seconds, and most cars get to 100 kilometers per hour in under 7 seconds without discomfort to passengers .
@bloop
Chu Chu Rocket ;)
@AzlanIsmail Call me crazy but I don't know that I'd be too wild about near super-sonic travel in a "to-the-lowest-bidder" project. Maybe no-bid contracts do have a place.
@bloop
They would probably start with 600 miles, at most.. it's 600miles from beijing to shanghai, and 2500miles from sf to nyc. 6000 is whopping too much for a starting point!
@bloop
We don't own 2 trillion dollars to China. The 2 trillion is the total foreign debt outside the US. We (USA) owes 867.8 billion dollars and growing. Please, strengthen your facts. Actually we don't paying for their maglev system its their prerogative to modernize the PRC rail network. If we balance our imports stuff from them and stop the US financing of its debt. We won't B!cth about it.
On the other hand, 1000km/h is possible but not sustainable. PRC can develop it achieving that speed but what about safety and comfort. Thats why Japan didn't go for higher top speed, just for a breaking record.
China once again taking the lead in things that richer nations (based on income) can't afford. Good going, maybe if you continue your growth past the foreseen future while also moving up the value chain away from dirty and low-tech manufacturing (I know they have some, but I'm also talking about housing a better R&D) large nations (cough, US) can start to take notes.
Also, that seems pretty cheap.
Our city just built a new 70km rail line (of course we had to realign highways and build new stations) for something like AU$1.6bn dollars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandurah_railway_line,_Perth
@norp Oh, i just realised that was 2.95m per km.... shit thats a lot of money.
How much for a tickit?$100 for 10 miles I bet.
Ticket
@Juice89
Current 430km/h High-Speed Train cost RMB$50 only.