Is high-speed magnetic levitation only for passenger travel, or will the technology replace the freight railroad industry that railfans presently know so very well? Wouldn’t UPS or FedEx Land just love 10-hour coast-to-coast surface transport service? At 300+ MPH, the Powder River Basin would not need very many coal cars (or whatever they would be called).
I wonder how much electricity it would take to move 15,000 tons of coal (a medium sized train) from Wyoming to Atlanta or Houston and back on a maglev. How much of the coal in the train would have to be burned to provide the electricity to power the next train? Would it take more electricity than a train load of coal could generate?
Dave H.
http://www.transrapid.de/en/medien/praesentation/15.html
Actually, these trains do not use a lot of electricity. The primary moving force are the magnets, the electricity is only used to regulate the force of the magnets.
Icetrain: Thanks for the great info on maglev. I read it to Bob and we appreciated the link! We also looked at Lockheed Martin and their connection with Transrapid, Germany. Wonder how long it will be before we have a project in the U.S.?
Nance and Bob from AZ
I wouldn’t hold my breath on a coal train quite yet. Based on the stats in the web site, it would take about 1200-1300 “units”/cars to transport the coal of one 135-150 car coal train (capacity 15 tons per unit). 10 units per train. 120 trains. 10 min headways, that would be 20 hours to initiate one coal train worth of coal.
Lets say you used one 10 unit/150 ton maglev and went to a utility 900 miles away. 3 hours down, 3 hours back , 6 hours round trip. 100 round trips would move 15,000 tons of coal (one medium train). That would take 600 hours or 25 days. It would take four 10 unit maglev trains running 24 hours a day straight for 6 days (discounting loading and unloading time) to equal the performance of one coal train set. The maglev trains would have to travel 180,000 miles to deliver one coal train worth of coal.
If you want to transport express packages fine, coal is a big stretch.
Dave H.
I went to Shanghai Pudong Airport a year too early and missed the Transrapid. 
I went to Munich like 5 years too early and missed that one, too.
So now I’m waiting for one in North America! 
It’s only a matter of time. At one time it was laughable to think that any railroad train would have any practical means other than to transport joy riders short distances. Now look what it’s become over 150 years.
The maglev is the stuff that Popular Mechanics Magazine is made of, but unlike all the other far fetched ideas that never come to light this one is going to survive.
Of course the current form of maglev can’t carry coal as efficiently as any railroad, but that was never it’s intended purpose. Someday (if someone designs it) a maglev could become more efficient than any coal carrying train could hope to be. Right now it’s used for what it was intended but someday some entrepreneur will find a use for it that nobody ever would have thought practical before.
I doubt that the maglev will be an all out replacement of the railroad. It’ll find it’s own unique place in the world.
One other thought for what it’s worth. For a maglev system to replace the current railroad system would be prohibitively expensive. If you’re going to start up a maglev system you’ll need to find some place that doesn’t already have a train system and start from scratch.
I heard the maglev line built to the Shanghai Airport melted its power transmition this summer (sugesting that it must use alot of power or at least more than antisipated). I also heard that China has decided to go with conventional rail instead of maglev, 350km/h trains instead of 450km/h maglevs.
Maglev for freight? You’ve got to be kidding. The freight railroads have trouble covering their cost of capital as it is with steel wheel on rail. Maglev is ridiculously overpriced for passenger travel, let alone freight use, when you consider that 300mph can be achieved with steel wheel on rail at a fraction of the cost. Also as far as energy use, mass is mass and energy is energy, the only advantage maglev has over conventional trains is the elimination of wheel to rail and wheel bearing friction, all of the other forces a conventional train must battle are the same.
In a maglev train, you must spend some electricity to keep the train afloat. Passenger maglev trains are made of lightweight materials (just like aircrafts) to reduce energy consumption. Buy you cannot make coal or fertilizers lighter, so no matter what kind of car is used, maglev trians would not have an advantege in there.
But who needs faster coal anyway?
I think that idea is someone with a crazy idea, or with noithing else to think about. railroads always and will always will be with us! Rember the Mono rail system was going to replace fright railroads about 45 years ago??? Do we see mono rail systems acrose the country?
This is another idea that has gone way to far!!! Who would be stupid enough to think of this?
The idea of a Maglev in the first place is one idea that came from soneone that obviously had nothing better to think about. The idea is so far fetched that maby we should throw out the wheel period. Bikes, cars and trucks wont need wheels anymore. This is a stupid and crazy idea in the first place. Some idot or idots musy had some big $$$$ thorwen there way and where told to creat somthng regardles the jobs that will be lost and with no regards of safety.
Jay
What happens to a maglev train if the power goes out. Or the train (or track) is hit by lightning?
I would like to address several items I have seen in this forum. I’ll start by admitting that I am a maglev supporter. My reasoning lies in the inherent advantages maglev trains hold over conventional High Speed Rail technology. It is true that the French achieved a speed of 320 Miles per hour with a TGV Atlantique. That test had more than its fair share of caveats. The tests were conducted on an LGV line that had not yet opened for service. The tracks were brand new, the catenary was brand new, and the brand-new train was heavily modified in order to reach said speed. The catenary had to be modified to handle the extra speeds because the normal tension in the catenary wire was not sufficient for the wire to remain in contact with the pantograph at any speed in excess of 200 mph. The train was reduced to the power cars and one car in between, fitted with oversized wheels, and aerodynamic fairings were applied to the pantograph and the diaphragms. After the test run, the track had to be realigned, because the speed of the train knocked the rails out of alignment. Yes, it is true that conventional trains can exceed 200 miles per hour, but it comes at a cost of maintenance. American freight railroads hate maintaining their track to Amtrak standards for 79 MPH running. What makes you think they would want to upgrade their tracks to 300 mph capacity and maintain them at that level when their own freight trains would not be allowed to run any faster than 80? The main purpose of Maglev development was to achieve high speeds without destroying the tracks in the process. The end result is that Maglev’s high initial cost (about the same cost per mile as interstate highway) will be offset in the future by the reduced maintenance bill.
As for the maglev freight concept, it is a wonderful concept that American minds could bring to fruition quickly and put to good use. Coal is out of the question. Heavy freight like coal and other raw materials need not travel at such high speeds because their
This anti-maglev talk has gone to far. First someone here criticizes the concept and then the impression is given altogether that we should stop talking about it and give up any hopes and dreams of maglev coming into any reality other than an amusment ride.
I see a constant pattern of a bunch of knee-jerk reactionist who can only think one-dimensionally. Of course maglevs are not going to replace all railroads immediatly overnight all at taxpayers expense, but if you listen to the maglev naysayers you’d think it would happen that way.
Maglevs are more practical than monorails. Monorails run on wheels, maglevs run on magnetic levitation.
The technology is there, it exists, it works, it’s real. Someday there could maglevs everywhere and what role those maglevs will play will be decided by the entreprenuers and the business leaders who have the guts to take the risk to implement such forms of transportation.
Who said that coal had to the only example as which to live and die by for the whole argument for the case for the maglevs? Personally, the mail and perishable services sound like a more practical idea than coal. Someday, maybe, long after everyone living today has long since been dead after living a full and long life the maglev may possibly transport coal, that possibility can’t be ruled yet.
What’s shocking is that some people are so narrow-minded as to jump to conclusions that it’ll never work and so ignorant as to be blind to the evidence when presented to them right in front ot their nose.
The future of the maglev will be decided by people other than those that visit this forum, regardless how vicious the negative opinions against maglevs are presented here.
Maglev may or may not be a railroad replacement someday, but who’s to say it won’t ever be just another form of transportation? Like the bicycle is different fromt the train, the automobile, the airplane, etc. All alternate forms of transporta
It seems that we are discussing maglev as if it will be put into comerical use within the next decade.
To do so on inner city passenger service would, in my opinion, be a great idea, no polution, noise.
For freight?
Never happen. That would require scrapping the entire exsisting road bed, replacing it with the maglev “track”.
Who would pay?
As for co-exsistence, it would require trans loading from the maglev cars to the standard wheeled railcars, again, way to expensive.
Part of the effeciency of the railroad today is the fact that, once loaded into the railcar, no one has to touch the cargo until it reaches its final destination.
Split systems?
Not cost effecient enought, dual roadbed, maintainance crew, dual control systems.
Now, if we were building a entire system from scratch, not replacing a working exsisting system, then the start up investment would make sense.
Again, what we have works, and works well.
Its not the equipment that needs to change, it the way we do business.
As a way to move people, sure, but freight, I doubt it.
Ed
[8D]
Boy am I glad to see the discussion return to a diplomatic, rational tone.
[:D]
A couple of technicalities, based on what I’ve read about the Japanese system, which is currently being tested.
(i) the levitation system is based primarily on permanent magnetic repulsion and therefore uses negligble amounts of power.
(ii) the propulsion system, on the other hand, uses prodigious amounts of power for acceleration, braking and to overcome wind resistance.
The latter (wind resistance) is why they keep modifying the vehicle’s appearance – looking for the slipperiest possible shape.
Additionally, I think that I read that they (the Japanese) are already experimenting with add on (trailer) vehicles.
[:)][:)]
Although I am no expert on MAGLEV the concepts I’ve read about would not really compete directly with conventional heavy rail(neither were the proposed monorail systems meant to),but more with regional air travel and air cargo. The problem with this technology is the immense amount of initial capital necessary to build full scale systems. I do think that once a system was built it would be useful for moving express freight, but again this is business that currently goes in planes and trucks anyway.
By the time the railroad industry gets around to looking at MAGLEV unit coal trains, I suspect that we may have found better uses for coal than burning it to boil water into steam(i.e it may be possible using nanotechnology(very small,robotic machinery,able to manipulate individual atoms and molecules) to separate the Hydrogen out of the coal right at the mine,thought the remaining carbon could be useful so maybe they’ll ship that by rail.
I absolutely believe that the steel wheel on the steel rail is nowhere near obsolete and will be with us for a very long time…