Japan maglev train breaks world speed record hitting 374mph

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

As long a decent price is offered, I venture to guess that they'd have no problem getting the right of ways. As long as it's a fair offer...

a reply to: seagull

I am not so optimistic. In New Jersey we have an already existing Right of Way that NJ Transit is attempting to reopen and it is being fought by NIMBY's even though it required only acquiring a minimal amount of property for one station.

Now imagine a hundreds of mile long Right of Way in the densest part of the country being strung through existing neighborhoods. The furor and the expense would both be stratospheric.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

You're probably right. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I'm not from your neck of the woods...the population density here in the West isn't the issue that it is in the east, obviously.

originally posted by: seagull
You're probably right. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I'm not from your neck of the woods...the population density here in the West isn't the issue that it is in the east, obviously.

It is a bit different over here with the density. Plus, I can take a plane and within 2 hours of leaving my door be in either Washington or Boston, most of the time for under $100.

Them Japanease trains are cool, would love to go on one.

But sadly us Brits are stuck with Sh1tish Rail.

Well for those Brits complaining, the central UK might have had a maglev train set had the Transrapid proposals gone through. Tony Blair as PM was up for it at the time, but it was rejected by the government of 2007 in a white paper.
There was likely an element of risk in the idea, for the distances involved and the infrastructure of rural stations, although on the face of it maglev had/has a lot of things going for it. I suppose the devil was in the detail with the transrapid scheme, although there is one of their systems operating in Shanghai.
What's interesting here with this latest news from japan, is just how long the technology has been going on there, up to 1979 they had maglev doing over 500kph on test tracks regularly...very similar to the actual proposed operating speed of this current train set, even though it can much go faster at present, it just shows how long all the research has been going on, with another decade or so to be up and operating.

Anyway, a short video for this thread,

Im a pilot and can safely say that, such speeds are dangerous on the ground and not a good idea.
a reply to: gortex

A new sport, mag-lev track skiing.


weeee..

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: gortex

Just how do cars and people get out of the way of such a thing? Or are the rails all raised above street level (which I assume they'd have to be). If you get teens or idiots climbing up on these rails for fun, they would have very little time to get away, if any.

You may as well be asking where we should start constructing fences along every cliff edge, you know, to stop people from falling off when they forget they can't fly.

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: gortex

Just how do cars and people get out of the way of such a thing? Or are the rails all raised above street level (which I assume they'd have to be). If you get teens or idiots climbing up on these rails for fun, they would have very little time to get away, if any.

The UK proposal was for a raised system to minimise land grabbing, I would guess much of Europe would have similar proposals. The one envisaged for Australia was/is for a ground based system, and therefore expected to cost a deal less,
However, all these ideas run into the billions, while it is not yet clear if another Siemens and partners grouping will be formed, and in the meantime the German testing track and buildings are to be broken up.

a reply to: Biigs
Hi Biigs as to answer your question on the impact on a loco hauled train from a trespasser on the line
There is very little damage to the Loco/Dvt,

You see the body on impact (Say 90mph) litterly explodes on impact like a tomato, The driver is well protected because off up armoured windshield's (Because some people think its funny to hang breeze blocks on ropes from bridges).

On a suicide attempt one instance I remember is a guy who jumped under a train when it was doing 20mph,
His legs ended up over his head, He lived for a while in agony but that's Darwinian for you,

Another more tragic one was when a young girl walked in front of an express from Belfast and was impacted at 60 mph
And dragged under the coaches,
That's the worst ,
The body acts like its in an industrial tumble drier and tumbles under the train for quit abit (Think industrial wood chipper) there's nothing really left but the stench and bits of gristle and a few teeth.
Not a nice job to clean this up.
The Train is solid steel most off the time train out trumps body every time.

Fox.

a reply to: gortex

374 mph is mighty impressive for a train.

You do relise if the were to enclose these things in tunnels and suck out most of the air they could most lightly double that speed utilizing current technology, imagine such a system running from London to Glasgow/Edinburgh?

Still one hell of an impressive achievement!

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: gortex

374 mph is mighty impressive for a train.

You do relise if the were to enclose these things in tunnels and suck out most of the air they could most lightly double that speed utilizing current technology, imagine such a system running from London to Glasgow/Edinburgh?

Still one hell of an impressive achievement!

There are proposals for a tube maglev train, Switzerland have a scheme on going.

Wow! Talk about a bat outta hell! That’s cookin’!! Warp speed, Mr. Sulu!

In America our train engineers don’t use the “Warp speed...” command. If they wanna increase the speed a little they just issue the “Giddyup” order. Same thing, different effect.

Thing is, we here in the US of A have no use for hi-tech gadgetry, and other such nonsense. We have other priorities. Our money’s all tied up in projects like invading foreign lands, decimating entire cultures, rebuilding the nations we’ve already invaded, cutting taxes for the wealthy, and making really bad reality TV shows.

Once we get all that cleared up, though, I hear we might be upgrading our government systems to Windows XP. That should be exciting. And if we’re really lucky, we may even be lookng into steam engines soon after that. That’s probably just a pipe dream, though, and nothing to get too worked up about yet.

Seriously, though, awsome thread! I’d love to take a trip on a high-speed maglev. Would be a real hoot. Thumbs up to Japan!