I have ridden the Chinese 高铁 on many routes. Nanjing-Beijing is almost 900 km and the nonstop trains take 3 hours. A key with the Chinese system is that for the most part they didn’t try to serve city centers, instead they built stations with good local transportation (Beijing South, Nanjing South, Shanghai Hongqiao). A few older stations were connected but most are new. So the alignments are optimal.
I live in Netherlands and have ridden the Deutsche Bahn on most of the Neubaustreke (completely new, 300 kph) and some of the upgraded regular lines (250 kph). These trains often then use existing tracks to reach main stations at city centers (Köln, Frankfurt, Berlin, München). In NL we have a short stretch of HSR between Schiphol Airport and Rotterdam that has been downgraded due to settling in some viaducts over very soft ground, and then from south of Rotterdam to Breda and almost to Antwerp in Belgium.
And of course I’ve taken the Eurostar Amsterdam-London St. Pancras and Amsterdam-Paris.
The STOCK act prohibits congressional insider trading. They do not have an exemption.
Regarding Obamacare
Specifically, the bill exempts individuals from the requirement to maintain minimum essential health care coverage if they reside in a county where fewer than two health insurers offer insurance on the health insurance exchange.
So ironically only reps in rural areas get the exemption.
Correct on both counts. Unfortunately the major international airport Shanghai Pudong is not served by any rail, it does have the amazing maglev (300 kph) about half way to the city centre, then it’s two metros to get to Shanghai Station, or stay on Metro 2 to Hongiao – a long ride.
If he doesn’t get any responses or reactions, eventually he will stop and shift off onto something else. Otherwise, he is going to try and look for absolution from others.
I’ve ridden the maglev. Nice amusement park ride. All jokes aside it runs at 430 km/h in rush hours only because its energy consumption is enormous. Otherwise it’s just 300. I was lucky to catch one at 430.
Ride is quite jiggly. Lots of small minor jolts. Like riding a CTA L car at speed. Not near as smooth as say a TGV at 300. That really surprised me. I had assumed it would be like a flying carpet.
They’re real though. Some of his other videos have him live superimposed in the corner. He talks a lot. SNCF must not prohibit outsiders in the cab. Or maybe it’s another employee. Or he talks to himself!
One of the historic problems with both attractive and repulsive maglev is the same as for the Aerotdain and other TACV systems: maintaining adequate high-speed line and surface of the support structure. Magnetic force drops off substantially with distance, but the circuitry controlling and maintaining the ‘levitation’ has inherent response limitations when sensing in ‘full servo’ with the considerable mass of the loaded vehicle. As the track ages, it will settle and warp very slightly out of line, and the lack of any real secondary mechanical suspension between the magnets and the carbody means that passengers will feel much of the resultant.
The assumption seemed to be that if you laid the structure in heavy concrete it would be in alignment ‘forever’, or that you could make running adjustments with shims at periodic maintenance times. There is a similar assumption with high-speed slab track, but small perturbations and reflected shock are accommodated by the appropriate combination of primary and secondary suspension.
High speed rail, Amtrak, single payer healthcare, etc., etc., etc. All political tennis balls to be bandied back and forth and never really advanced. Think Conrail. It wasn’t until Conrail had made enough of a success of itself that it was targeted by both NS and CSX that the “politicking” reached a resolution. I suspect transcon HSR is both possible AND a good idea but nobody wants to come out in support of the required expenditures.
It’s going to have to be at least a public/private enterprise at the state level. Which unfortunately could come with a new interstate regulatory agency or at least a separate division of Amtrak. A LOT of progress has been made but almost none of that occurred at the federal level.
I’m assuming that any slab track would have means of adjusting rail position with respect to the slab to allow movement of the slab.
Living near earthquake fault lines, I have seen numerous examples of where ground moves. I’ve also wondered what plans the promoters of maglevs had for accommodating ground movement.
