Switching is a big, complicated mess for maglevs. Traditional rail is simple here, and has been solved for over a century.
Maglev could be good for city to city, provided those cities are far enough apart and you make no stops in between. Problem is, we often want to give service to cities in between. Forcing maglevs to accelerate and decelerate all the time kills their advantage.
How is it a complicated mess? They’ve had track switching for at least 30 years and in many cases use a similar method to what monorails use. Is there something I’m missing here?
How does having stops for cities in-between kill their advantage? They still have faster acceleration and deceleration and higher speed overall, and the low number of moving parts will mean less wear and tear during the constant stopping and starting. The Chuo Shinkansen line is planned have nine stops along its route.
The only issues I see this having are the energy costs and whether not people will see the higher ticket prices to be with it for lower travel times since the line in China isn’t competing with the existing cheaper high speed line for those very reasons. But then again the Chinese maglev only runs between the airport and a stop that’s not even in the city centre.
Switching is a big, complicated mess for maglevs. Traditional rail is simple here, and has been solved for over a century.
Maglev could be good for city to city, provided those cities are far enough apart and you make no stops in between. Problem is, we often want to give service to cities in between. Forcing maglevs to accelerate and decelerate all the time kills their advantage.
How is it a complicated mess? They’ve had track switching for at least 30 years and in many cases use a similar method to what monorails use. Is there something I’m missing here?
How does having stops for cities in-between kill their advantage? They still have faster acceleration and deceleration and higher speed overall, and the low number of moving parts will mean less wear and tear during the constant stopping and starting. The Chuo Shinkansen line is planned have nine stops along its route.
The only issues I see this having are the energy costs and whether not people will see the higher ticket prices to be with it for lower travel times since the line in China isn’t competing with the existing cheaper high speed line for those very reasons. But then again the Chinese maglev only runs between the airport and a stop that’s not even in the city centre.