Maglev train proposals

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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected public transportation infrastructure. It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the infrastructure approaches, and more information becomes available.

This is a list of proposed Maglev trains worldwide.

Contents 1 Europe 1.1 Germany 1.2 Switzerland 2 United Kingdom 3 Asia 3.1 China 3.2 India 3.3 Japan 3.4 Malaysia 4 North America 4.1 United States 5 LeviCar / RoboTrail 6 Transoceanic Maglevs 7 SkyTran 8 References

[edit] Europe

[edit] Germany

Munich: A Transrapid connection of the Bavarian capital Munich to its international airport (37 km) had been planned. It promised to reduce the current connection time via S-Bahn (German city railway system) from about 40 minutes to 10 minutes. On September 25, 2007, Bavaria announced it will build Europe's first commercial track. The Bavarian government signed contract with Deutsche Bahn and Transrapid with Siemens and ThyssenKrupp for the 1.85 billion-euro ($2.6 billion) project.^[1] However, the project was strongly opposed by Christian Ude, the mayor of Munich. On 27 March 2008 the German government scrapped the project because of a massive overrun of its cost. [1]

Berlin – Hamburg: A 292 km Transrapid line linking Berlin to Hamburg. It has been cancelled due to lack of funds. Instead the existing railway line has been upgraded to 230 km/h for ICE train sets.

[edit] Switzerland

Swissmetro: A system of Maglev trains linking the major cities in Switzerland has been proposed and has attracted the interest of China.

[edit] United Kingdom

Main article: UK Ultraspeed

London – Glasgow: A maglev line has recently been proposed in the United Kingdom from London to Glasgow with several route options through the Midlands, Northwest and Northeast of England and is reported to be under favourable consideration by the government. A further high speed link is also being planned between Glasgow to Edinburgh though there is no settled technology for this concept yet, ie (Maglev/Hi Speed Electric etc) [2] [3] [4]

Glasgow – Edinburgh: A separate maglev link is also being planned between Glasgow Airport and Glasgow to Edinburgh Airport and Edinburgh which would cut journey time between the two cities from one hour to 15 minutes. Work will begin as early as January 2008. The technology that will be used has not been decided. [5][6]

[edit] Asia

[edit] China

Shanghai – Hangzhou: China has decided to extend the world’s first commercial Transrapid line between Pudong airport and the city of Shanghai initially by some 35 kilometers to Hong Qiao airport before the World Expo 2010 and then, in an additional phase, by 200 kilometers to the city of Hangzhou (Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev Train), becoming the first inter-city Maglev rail line in commercial service in the world. The line will be an extension of the Shanghai airport Maglev line.

Talks with Germany and Transrapid Konsortium about the details of the construction contracts have started. On March 7, 2006, the Chinese Minister of Transportation was quoted by several Chinese and Western newspapers as saying the line was approved.

[edit] India

Delhi – Mumbai: The Indian Ministry is currently in the process of reviewing a proposal to start a Maglev train system in India. It has already been estimated that the cost to complete this process would be over $30 Billion. The company who sent the proposals is a company based in the United States. There have been feelers sent to Lalu Prasad, Railway Minister, in which the advantages of a Maglev train system were presented. Although still at a preliminary stage, if completed, the train travel time between the two cities will be reduced to three hours, compared to an original 16 hours.

[edit] Japan

Tokyo – Osaka: If the proposed Chūō Shinkansen maglev line is built, it will connect Tokyo to Osaka, and the existing test track in Yamanashi prefecture would be part of the line. In March 2007, JR Tokai (Central Japan Railway Company) made clear that it will have a maglev rail built between Tokyo and Osaka by 2027. About 450km of rail will be placed between Tokyo and Osaka with a top speed of 581km/h. The trip will take a little less than one hour if the plan is realized. [7]

[edit] Malaysia

Johor: Malaysia has decided to use Maglev technology to link important landmarks across the city. This will be a boost to business to compete against the neighbouring city, Singapore. The system will be a monorail type maglev, developed in China. ^[2]

[edit] North America

The Cascadia Maglev:Long-proposed but not on any official drawing boards would be a Maglev line along the Interstate 5 corridor, its core component from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, British Columbia, with eventual extensions to Eugene, Oregon (in the south) and Whistler, British Columbia (in the north). The initial phase of the project would link Tacoma to Seattle, mirroring the old interurban line between those two cities. The same idea has re-surfaced with a conventional high-speed rail proposal, although its extension into British Columbia has been largely blocked by opposition on the part of the City of White Rock, British Columbia, which would sit astride the line.

[edit] United States

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: According to Transrapid, Inc., Pittsburgh has the most advanced Maglev initiative in the U.S., followed by the Las Vegas project. Once federal funding is finalized, these two markets could be the first to see Maglev in the United States. Initially, the project calls for a transrapid system throughout the metro Pittsburgh area. Further planning calls for extensions eastward to Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Upon completion, a commute from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg would be reduced to 90-120 minutes. A commuter traversing the Pennsylvania Turnpike would currently spend approximately 5-6 hours completing the same commute. (source: History Channel)

California-Nevada Interstate Maglev High-speed maglev lines between major cities of southern California and Las Vegas are also being studied via the California-Nevada Interstate Maglev Project. This plan was originally supposed to be part of an I-5 or I-15 expansion plan, but the federal government has ruled it must be separated from interstate public work projects.

Since the federal government decision, private groups from Nevada have proposed a line running from Las Vegas to Los Angeles with stops in Primm, Nevada; Baker, California; and points throughout Riverside County into Los Angeles. Southern California politicians have not been receptive to these proposals; many are concerned that a high speed rail line out of state would drive out dollars that would be spent in state "on a rail" to Nevada.

Baltimore-Washington D.C. Maglev: A 64 km project has been proposed linking Camden Yards in Baltimore and Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport to Union Station in Washington, D.C. It is in demand for the area due to its current traffic/congestion problems. The Baltimore proposal is competing with the above-referenced Pittsburgh proposal for a $90 million federal grant.

Honolulu: The city of Honolulu, Hawaii is said to be planning a Linimo class urban Maglev for its main mass transit train.^{[citation needed]}

San Diego: San Diego is considering a high-speed maglev line to serve as a passenger transportation mode to remote airport sites under consideration. The cost estimate is approximately $10 billion U.S. for the 120-150 km (80-100 mile) run, not including the cost of construction of the airport. [8]

Atlanta – Chattanooga: The proposed maglev route would run from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, run through Atlanta, continue to the northern suburbs of Atlanta, and possibly even extend to Chattanooga, Tennessee. If built, the maglev line would rival Atlanta's current subway system, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), the rail system of which includes a major branch running from downtown Atlanta to Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

[edit] LeviCar / RoboTrail

LeviCar (for passengers) and RoboTrail (for freight) are technically not trains, in that each unit has an individual pair of starting and destination stations, and it travels non-stop from the one to the other, bypassing intermediate stations. However, units may be temporarily linked together in convoys to reduce air resistance and noise. A LeviCar is a modular electric car. The drive train, power system, and wheels are located in two detachable road chassis that are removed from the car body when using the high-speed MagLev rail.

The RoboTrail system should be developed first, as freight rail has always proved to be more profitable than passenger rail. The profits can be plowed back into building the Maglev-rail network. Safety issues can be resolved during the "RoboTrail" phase, and scheduling algorithms can be refined. Then, the Maglev network can be open to passenger vehicles, including LeviCars. The flexibility and high speed of RoboTrail and LeviCar should vastly reduce the use of trucks, buses, private cars, and airplanes for overland routes, reducing pollution and enhancing safety.

[edit] Transoceanic Maglevs

Main articles: Transatlantic tunnel and Vactrain

Maglev ground speed is capped by aerodynamic drag and noise limitations. The use of vactrains in evacuated tunnels (i.e. a partial vacuum) similar to the external air pressure of air travel at 40,000 feet could boost travel speeds to Mach 5 and above. As early as 1973, a RAND study concluded that future high-performance maglev systems built with advanced tunneling and control technologies, could form the backbone of a true global "subway system".^[3] Theoretically, these tunnels could be built deep enough to pass under oceans or to use gravity to assist the trains' acceleration. This would likely be prohibitively costly without major advances in tunnelling technology. Alternatives such as elevated concrete tubes with partial vacuums have been proposed to reduce these costs.

In his book 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future, Princeton physicist and futurist Gerard O'Neill proposed that what he called "floater" train tunnels could be constructed relatively cheaply once tunnel-boring machinery can be reliably automated, because the tunnels can be pressurized to any necessary pressure for support, even deep underground. He also described methods for loading and unloading the vehicles (which would probably travel independently rather than in conventional long trains; since the drive would probably be external) very quickly by leaving the train car's outer shell in vacuum, but rolling out the passenger compartments into the boarding lounge so that all the passengers could exit and enter at the same time. ^[4] Tunnels under the ocean could be suspended a few hundred feet below the ocean surface -- just deep enough that storms and waves would not disturb them. With hard vacuum and well-aligned tunnels, trains could move at very high speed while actually using very little energy: energy used to accelerate would mostly be recaptured on deceleration. At the limit, passenger trains could accelerate at a high but not unsafe 2G for 9 minutes to a speed of 7 miles/second, at which they would experience a 1G acceleration upwards from the Earth's curvature (the train would rotate in the tunnel so this would be experienced downwards); then decelerate at 2G for another 9 minutes to the destination, permitting travel between the most distant points on Earth in just 39 minutes. An even more far-out, yet apparently feasible proposal would be to support such floaters near the edge of the atmosphere with huge balloons such as the STARS ("Solar Thermal Aerostat Research Station") proposal, that would accelerate vehicles at 2G until they emerged near the top of the atmosphere at orbital velocity. ^[5]

[edit] SkyTran

SkyTran is a proposed maglev personal rapid transit system under development by Unimodal Inc. in strategic alliance with Advanced Maglev Systems. The proposals call for light, streamlined 2-passenger vehicles suspended from a maglev "guideway" that could be supported by standard utility poles. Only about 3 horsepower would be required to maintain the highly-streamlined, small-frontal-area vehicles at 100 MPH, resulting in claims of 200 MPG fuel efficiency. Tracks within cities would have speeds between 92 km/h (45 mph) and 160 km/h (100 mph), but intercity speeds might be 240 km/h (150 mph), making point-to-point SkyTran service effectively faster than air travel for many short trips (when delays, security screening etc. are factored in) for trips up to several hundred miles. Fully-automatic control and measures such as short-range radar and special braking surfaces built into the guideway would permit safe operation with half-second inter-vehicle spacing, giving a guideway the same passenger capacity as a 3 lane freeway. Unimodal Inc. has license to use the magnetic levitation technology called Inductrack.

[edit] References