Passenger Trains > Maglev Trains: Right for America?

Maglev Trains:  Right for America?

Mr. Leo Wanta, a forward-thinking gentleman with a storied background and a unique transport vision for America has been interested in developing a national maglev system.  The discussion of his Maglev project is outlined in the following article by Preston James, Ph.D on January 27, 2017 over at VeteransToday.com. 

Trump Transition Team Contacted personally by Lee Wanta:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/01/27/trump-transition-team-contacted-personally-by-lee-wanta/

Here are some points for consideration:

An expansive Maglev system will cost billions over many years and such funds are elusive.

Apart from the NEC necessity, America's rapid transit needs.are currently well-served by airlines.

In your opinion, is such a nationwide Maglev concept feasible?  

With the inception of such a concept, will service be provided to all of "Amtrak's 500 communities"?

Wouldn't a "more modest" investment (<1 Billion, government or private) to bring Amtrak up to state of good repair and best practices be the wise choice?

Your feedback is appreciated.

Another dead end project that will do nothing but siphon much needed money from Amtrak.

Englewood Wrote:
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> Another dead end project that will do nothing but
> siphon much needed money from Amtrak.
​I agree 100%, we do NOT need an expensive Maglev system especially here in the eastern half of the USA.  The only possible exception might be from Los Angeles, California out to Las Vagas, Nevada, but even that might be a waste of money.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

Airlines, fiscal hawks, and GOP will kill any attempt to build one.  The rest of the developed world will probably adopt the technology, but political stone age mentality here will make it inpossible.

Art House

increasing funding to provide an efficient Amtrak with new equipment, increased track capacity, increased train frequencies, improved/new facilities, and increased staffing is right for America because it will serve MORE people and cost less..........

66 

This Maglev nonsense has been flopping around since the late 1980's (Sen. Moynihan {NY-D} was big on it) and just doesn't stop.

In most of the country, MAGLEV or any other high-speed rail operation makes no sense on many points.  

Even in the more densely populated areas (where ROW would be an issue), moves to higher-speed rail makes more economic sense.  Such increase in speeds (through track upgrades, equipment upgrades, limited crossings, improved train control, restored or new secondary or tertiary mains, etc) do not require massive new infrastructure (stations, bridges, etc.)  

Incremental speed increase from today's common 50 mph averages (on good days) to  sustained 90 mph averages would have a major effect on travel times.  

As impressive as the TGV network is in France, for example, outside of the several dedicated high speed lines the same train sets are capable of running up to 160 kph/100 mph, so service everywhere benefited from the high speed improvement.  

Incremetnal investments are the best approach. 
Maglev, like the California HSR project, is of no value until the project is complete (at least between major terminals).  This requires uncounted billions of dollars and decades of planning, design, and building.
Alternately, each added increment of investment for more conventional transportation for better/new/additional capacity can improve service and revenues.  This is best done with long term goals in mind, but with flexibility to change project focus as conditions change.
Airports and highways build out incrementally, adding terminals, interchanges, parking lots, and more highway lanes at a rate that funding is available.
Automobile drivers replace and add to the rolling stock incrementally (what is your car payment?).
So adding second tracks, eliminating grade crossings, lengthening stations, adding (and replacing) rolling stock is about the only thing that the public can expect or afford.  Done right this is all good.
Unless we want to make a deal with an outside party who will finance a huge project like maglev.

What would be interesting to see is a study that shows where the "tipping point" is mileage wise for ANY sort of higher speed rail transportation vs. air travel. I got to thinking about this on a recent business trip to/from Detroit & Las Vegas (Con-Expo trade show).  Flight time was between 3.5 and 4 hours depending on if there was a headwind or not. Roughly speaking the same time expended in a train that averaged 200 mph (figuring stops etc.) would get you a little west of Omaha. In other words, about half-way there. Even if the high speed rail were less expensive there reaches a point where a lower time in transit becomes a greaer value than monetary value of the longer time in transit, especially for business travel.  

HSR competes with airlines in Europe and Asia on trips up to about 300 miles.
Maglev has VERY expensive infrastructure and has been around for decades without going much of anywhere.

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

Short answer no this country flies and drives.  Lets look to the Chinese, they imported both European maglev and high speed train technology and tested it prior to building the national system.  They concluded maglev was not as good as high speed rail. In China I have rode both systems and was not very impressed with the Maglev, ride was very jerky, just slightly better than a good section of the NEC at 125 mph.   On the high speed rail at 186 MPH the ride was so smooth it was hard to tell we were on steel wheels.  That is when I really understood how bad the NEC is. Another impressive item was they loaded 16 cars (two eight car sets) with sligthly less than a 1000 people in Beijing in less than ten minutes,  everyone moved quickly to get on the train and we were off. Trains were moving on what appeared to be 10 to 15 minute head ways on the line we were operating on. Each train stopped at every thing station so you could actually get somewhere quickly. Going through stations at 180+ was also impressive.

Dave

I once had a very interesting conversation on this topic back in 1988 with UP President Drew Lewis of all people.

I don't think the underlying premise has changed much.

Maglev's higher speed capability does not offset its higher cost.  You can get around 300 mph with steel wheels on steel rail.  You don't need power just to support the trains or oversized guideways.  Gravity keeps the trains on the rails and you just need power for propulsion.  It is efficient and its cost is well known.

Maglev is a cute trick, but unless some radical breakthrough in physics occurs that allows for large scale, low cost, non-powered levitation, its cost will remain orders of magnitude higher than steel wheels on steel rails.

Z

Maryland's governor Hogan wants one between Washington and Baltimore.  Three groups will get rich; the Japanese firm doing the feasibility study, the lawyers negotiating the real estate rights, and the developers along the proposed ROW.  But the NIMBYs will stop it dead in its tracks; it is proposed to run through some of the highest-priced and most elitist real estate in the country. In other words, DOA, except for the $250 million of taxpayers money that Hogan will piss away on the study.

"There you go again." Ronnie

NYC4096 Wrote:
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> Trump Transition Team Contacted personally by Lee
> Wanta:
> http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/01/27/trump-tran
> sition-team-contacted-personally-by-lee-wanta/

The link reads like The Onion, even if taken seriously. 

aehouse Wrote:
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> Airlines, fiscal hawks, and GOP will kill any
> attempt to build one.  The rest of the developed
> world will probably adopt the technology, but
> political stone age mentality here will make it
> inpossible.
>
> Art House

See tehachapi-dave's comments above. We committed to the automobile and the airplane, and basically abandoned everything else, including passenger rail. It's tempting to blame partisan politics, but I don't buy it - all (not just both) parties are guilty. We're eating the failed "legacies" of past policy makers - that's all politicians are interested in these days, damned "legacies."

The rest of the developed world so far hasn't adopted the technology. Seems high speed rail is a better alternative, again, good example given by tehachapi-dave on what's happening in China. Transrapid (German Maglev) has abandoned further development, which is too bad, because their monorail-based design would have been more economical than Japan's SCMaglev, which is more exotic and complex, requiring superconducting magnets on the vehicles travelling with two "rails" (propulsion magnets) located on the sides of the guideway.

Are high speed trains running PACKED between Washington D.C. and Baltimore with 5 minute headways? I didn't think so. Japan actually has a problem to solve, which is that the world's busiest travel corridor (Tokaido) is STILL congested, witnessed by yours truly on countless sold out and/or standing room only Shinkansens in that corridor. They're willing to spend gobs of money to offload the longer distant travellers to the SCMaglev, which will be punching through the Japan Alps mountain range, because the intent is to build an airliner travelling on the ground. 

Neither maglvev nor pork-barrel high-speed rail is the answer to this country's lack of decent passenger rail transportation.  What is needed is to rebuild an extensive conventional passenger rail system, such that people can get on a train close to where they live or work and actually be able to make connections to get someplace else.  Everyone who champions high-speed rail being a success in other countries fails to mention that all of those countries have an extensive conventional passenger rail network that connects people to the places where high-speed rail runs.

Conventional passenger rail will likely never be able to compete against air on cross-country travel, but an extensive passenger rail network could compete pretty well on the 100-400 mile market.  People also forget that the conventional passenger rail network of the 1920's had many places where passenger trains were running at 90-100 mph--with steam locomotives, friction bearings, and jointed rail!  So to say that conventional passenger rail has to run at stodgy 60-70 mph speeds is not really true.

High-speed rail (and maglev) are just another example of pork-barrel politics designed to waste the taxpayers' money.  We already have a costly, inefficient, socialized highway system to do that.