They were invented decades ago.
They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.
They require less maintenance.
There’s obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?
They were invented decades ago.
They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.
They require less maintenance.
There’s obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?
Is the claim about “10-20 times the cost” true? The internet says Shanghai maglev cost $1.33 billion for 30.5 km, i.e. less than $44 million/km. Compare https://transitcosts.com/new-data/ or https://transitcosts.com/high-speed-rail-preliminary-data-analysis/
Secondly, if it is true, why would it be true? Why would it be more expensive to build something with fewer moving parts?
Supersonic passeenger jets require more energy. Maglev trains require less energy.
all the other complex and important factors aside, air restistance is a formula of speed squared. Meaning for example if you bump speed up by 40% you double air resistance, and therefore double the energy cost of transport.
Isn’t that only applicable for identical trains? For sake argument, if you had two identical trains designed with poor aerodynamics, one at 100mph and one at 140mph then you can double the energy cost. But if you take two different trains with one designed to be more aerodynamic, at the same speed they wouldn’t have the same energy cost as the second has a better profile?
Plus theres less friction from needing to be on a rail.
So I think saying its double the cost of transport is too simplistic to be meaningful in this discussion
It’s more than that - doubling air resistance only doubles the energy use if it’s the only inefficiency on the train (e.g., no losses in the magnets, HVAC, lighting, etc.). Add onto that the fact that you’re basically eliminating rolling resistance from traditional trains when switching to maglev, and the expected outcome should be much less than double.
Finally, the most important part, each high speed rail route of any meaningful distance has the opportunity to displace a certain amount of air travel, so big picture, HSR results in a significant decrease in overall energy consumption.
Is that factoring in the always on cooling of the magnets?
Here’s an article about the subject, paper linked at the bottom of the article: https://phys.org/news/2010-12-high-speed-pollute-percent-traditional.html
Thx, as I understand it, this is calculated for traditional railway technology and does not have anything to do with to maglev.
Japan is in the late stages of developing a maglev section of the Shinkansen. It has liquid helium cooling for semiconductors and lots of considerations to make sure the cabin and surroundings aren’t exposed to very strong magnetic fields. It’s just more expensive to do all that.
After Japan rolls this out and works out the kinks, it might get cheaper since a lot of they’ve done a lot of the development.
Maglev’s top speed record is just 5% faster than conventional train speed record. Thus if Maglev is more than 5% more expensive, then it doesn’t make any sense to build them.
Speed records aren’t usually representative of regular use top speeds, are they?
Well, if we look at actual maglev deployments in the real world, then they are much slower than conventional trains. All of them top out at 160kph, while conventional trains going below 200kph don’t even count as high speed. There’s only one Maglev line in the world which actually goes fast. So if we want to talk about regular speed representation, maglevs are slow and useless.