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!
@Programmer
how much more dead than at 200km/h or 100km/h?
@norp
Actually that's 2.95m MORE than a regular highspeed railway per kilometer. So yeah, pretty expensive, but who said Maglev came in cheap?
Transportation porn.
The idea itself is hardly new. A swiss project for something like that was already made in the late 90s
http://www.swissmetro.ch/en
Having such a train ready would of course be a nice feat.
Ah China, good job on adopting Germany's Transrapid technology!
For those not in the know: China was the first country to buy a Transrapid train and use it commercially, after Germany developed the technology for over 35 years.
It comes as no surprise that China does what China always does: dismantle foreign technology, copy it and stuff it back into a body that looks amazingly like the original. The one they have been using in Shanghai reaches a top speed of 430kph - the track is too short for higher speeds.Otherwise the train can reach up to 550kph with a speed for commercial use of up to 505kph.
So, with that knowledge, is anyone surprised China claims they have a maglev train capable of 500kph? Of course they do, they bought it from Germany!
Now they gonna cram it into a vacuum tube for higher speeds - I bet this is going to end in a desaster.
@Bahumbug
And if you want to know more about the original:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid
@Bahumbug
Here is someone, who's been doing his homework. There is a documentary made by Discovery channel, which explains the entire idea of the Maglev and is made around Transrapid. Thing is, the idea of the vacuum tube was in the documentary, and was expressed by one of the Transrapid engineers ... so actually China is just exploiting the idea of the Germans. I`m not a lot into China and their practices, but i would salute them for their innovation to stick something so radically new on their land ... USA and UK have been "considering" Maglevs for years now ... and UK just pulled up on the idea ... so sad to see advanced countries stepping backwards ...
What that cost of $2.95M fails to take into account, is the ridiculous maintenance cost a huge vacuum tunnel is going to cost to maintain as well as to repair, reoccurring leaks.
@anantha92
how do you know that?
Well, at least when the train crashes, you'll die quick.
I'm going to get flamed for this so badly.
This is like one of the only good reasons why the type of government that China has is useful. It gets sh*t done. Not slowly but at a good to fast pace. You take something like this in the US, it'll take years if not decades to get any major support from the people and/or government.
I never took Amtrak's Acela line but the Empire State corridor I read is rated for high speed rail. The only question is how long will that take....
In a sad note all 411 passengers of the Beijing Mag Lev shuttle were killed this afternoon when the train hit a sparrow at maximum speed...
and if a distraught Tibetan should shoot out a window...?
And in so many years, someone will be travelling from Diaspar to Lys in one of these...