Eastern Railroad Discussion > Maryland Governor Wants a Maglev Train

Here we go again.  It was just announced in the news today that the current governor of Maryland, Westley "Wes" Moore (D) has just visited Japan and took a ride on one of their Maglev Trains and now he wants to have one in operation here in Maryland.  How foolish can he be?  First of all the State of Maryland has a very large deficit that we are all facing and he has proposed that we will have much higher taxes coming this year.  Where does he get this crazy idea that has been talked about for too many years.  Once again, we need to make him understand that this would be totally impractical for Maryland in that where this thing has been proposed before makes no common sense.  The idea to run a Maglev Train between Baltimore and Washington D.C. is a stupid idea in that by rail right now on the CSX (former B&O Railroad) the distance from Baltimore's Camden Station to Washington's Union Station is only 37 miles.  The current MARC Commuter Trains on both the CSX Line and the Amtrak Northeast Corridor (former Pennsylvania R.R. Line) do NOT go from Baltimore directly to Washington as they make many additional stops along the way to pick up and discharge passengers.  Passengers who rides these trains do not necessarily commute between these two major cities only, thus this Maglev would be starting and stopping without ever getting up to any kind of fast speed.  Why is it that all these politicians cannot understand this?  If a Maglev System is to ever be built in this country, surely it needs to be built somewhere between two major cities that are far apart, more than a 100 mile at the least, otherwise this is a total waste of taxpayers money, something we here in Maryland do not have.  I cannot make this any clearer and I'm begging all of you in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area, along with all other Marylanders, to tell this governor to forget about any Maglev System here in Maryland.  If we can pay down our current debt and balance our budget to get rid of this deficit, then let's put any money that we have into upgrading and improving our current MARC Train Service, perhaps adding trains to a few other places withing the state of Maryland.  Please, no more "pie in the sky" ideas, Governor Moore.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

I guess he hasnt seen his name in the papers for a while. Lets just mouth off about anything.  What an idiot.

`We should make sure to invite him to visit the B&O Museum on 28 Feb 27.    I'll have to check, but i believe the current Camden Line MARC trains are slower than the RDCs in the 50s.   If MD were to follow VA's moves, buying a third main on the Camden line, and perhaps paying for a passenger use main from Baltimore out to Hagerstown (ex WM), talking CSX into allowing catenary--best done by having MD pension funds buy enough stock to get CSX attention, and offering real estate tax discounts--we could have more frequent and faster service.  Not to fotget, adding  catenaryto Brunswick or Martinsburg .  Why catenary? So all of the next MARC fleet can be 1, faster, 2, used as neded on any of the routes.   FWIW, Caltrain since going all EMU has seen major ridership increases both M-F and off hour/weekends.   Before Snow got pissy, MARC was able to fill specials to sports events in Baltimore.    The market is there.
Maglev is 'shiny'  Frequent fast reliable service brings riders.

I want a pet unicorn too.  Its about equally as realistic.

BrynMawr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> `We should make sure to invite him to visit the
> B&O Museum on 28 Feb 27.    I'll have to check,
> but i believe the current Camden Line MARC trains
> are slower than the RDCs in the 50s.   If MD
> were to follow VA's moves, buying a third main on
> the Camden line, and perhaps paying for a
> passenger use main from Baltimore out to
> Hagerstown (ex WM), talking CSX into allowing
> catenary--best done by having MD pension funds buy
> enough stock to get CSX attention, and offering
> real estate tax discounts--we could have more
> frequent and faster service.  Not to fotget,
> adding  catenaryto Brunswick or Martinsburg . 
> Why catenary? So all of the next MARC fleet can be
> 1, faster, 2, used as neded on any of the
> routes.   FWIW, Caltrain since going all EMU has
> seen major ridership increases both M-F and off
> hour/weekends.   Before Snow got pissy, MARC was
> able to fill specials to sports events in
> Baltimore.    The market is there.
> Maglev is 'shiny'  Frequent fast reliable service
> brings riders.
Probably one of the nuttiest proposals I've ever read on here, and that's a pretty low bar.
You must not be familiar at all with the X-WM's characteristics between Baltimore and Hagerstown.
NoMoore.org



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/25 13:04 by bigsavage.

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For the past 5 years there have been many lawn signs in Greenbelt MD just outside DC proclaiming "Stop the Magvev Train". 

Greenbelt - Stop the Maglev

While my memory of riding the line is ancient--1966 and 1978 IIRC,  my point as someone who grew up around DC is that MD needs to facilitate economic activity beyond merely DC and Baltimore.   Transportshould be part of the effort.   MD put up money to get Random House to move its national warehouse from NJ to Westminster. 

I'm still counting how many mansions he built with the 4 billion he stole from md. coffers!!

BrynMawr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> While my memory of riding the line is
> ancient--1966 and 1978 IIRC,  my point as someone
> who grew up around DC is that MD needs to
> facilitate economic activity beyond merely DC and
> Baltimore.   Transportshould be part of the
> effort.   MD put up money to get Random House to
> move its national warehouse from NJ to
> Westminster. 
While that's fine, what administration was that? Penguin Random House is still in Westminster, but no rail service.
MD doesn't have any money right now, which is the whole problem here.
MD does have robust growth in places like Hagerstown, but its based around truck-intensive megawarehouses and the Hitachi plant. No rail service there.
Frederick is booming with tech and gov't related research, but the CSX local has very little to do now in the formerly traffic-rich industrial parks.
MD Midland gets by with 2 major customers, and about 5 other smaller customers. They have added 1 account in the past 15 years.
Moore has admitted that the state has an overeliance on federal employment, but MD has not encouraged private industry investment in many decades, and lost many prospective jobs to WVA and Va in particular. The lower Shenandoah Valley is far ahead of any place in MD with economic development, just ask Proctor &Gamble.

Having once lived and worked in MD I can tell you from industry experience that the tax structure toward business helps no one. Just like Amtrak, commuter services (MARC) would not exist except for govt money. The MAGLEV battle has been fought before. And those ball park specials ended because too many patrons didn’t know how to handle their liquid refreshments.
CR

Posted from iPhone

How is the MD sponsored Purple Line train coming along? That was Larry Hogan's deal. Lots of folks did OK with that project.

Posted from Android

Seems to me that I recently read that their rolling stock was undergoing some testing.  
As to the need for taxpayer funding, how many times must one of us remind everyone that exactly ZERO passenger hauling services on the planet are self-sustaining from the farebox under GAAP. 

Sooooo, the CAHSR (California Hoped Speed Rail) which is costing a small fortune to just get thru 
Fresno. Can you imagine the costs having to buy sufficient ROW between Baltimore and DC? Nice
estimate of $4B/mile should cover it. Deficit? Hey no problem, just go out and borrow more!

Out