Germany To Build New Maglev Railway

EWAdams writes "According to the BBC, the Bavarian state government has announced that it has signed an agreement with Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway system, and the Transrapid consortium, to provide a maglev railway between central Munich and its airport. The only other maglev in full operation at the moment is in Shanghai, again as a city-to-airport service. The cost of the system is estimated at $2.6 billion. No completion date has been announced."

Faster, quieter, low-maintenance, uses less energy

[EWAdams]

Your question is like asking what's the point in hybrid cars because they cost more than a comparable traditional car. The up-front cost is recouped in later savings and it's better for the environment generally, while actually offering a higher standard of service. It's simply a better railway.

I work in the railway industry

[epseps]

Actually for one of the companies involved in building the Maglev.

Copper theft is a problem mostly in open tracks but this one would be closed. The computer systems used can monitor intrusions onto closed tracks but only usually monitor intrusions in closed areas on open tracks like where PLCs are located (the controlers that work things like switches and interlockings etc). Also most new tracks are often made accessable only by maintenence trains rather than just being able to "walk" out onto the tracks.

In the cases of attempted copper theft on open tracks...I have some pretty gory stories that usually start with "what's that smell?"

Re:And...

[homer_ca]

It has a top speed of 280mph in regular service with passengers.

The TGV on steel rails does 200mph in regular service, and it made a record run of over 300mph, but mechanical wear would probably be too high to go that fast in regular service.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Shanghai is Airport to .... uh, no where!

[grebonoj]

If you're headed to Shanghai *don't* take the maglev.

The Shanghai system doesn't actually go anywhere... it gets about halfway (30KM?) from downtown before it just stops.

Interesting in a "we're hip, we've got a maglev" way, but sure would be more useful if you could take it to and from the airport.

Re:Luv it...

[grainofsand]

Whilst the Shanghai maglev is indeed a great train ride experience, it does not actually terminate anywhere near "downtown" Shanghai. It terminates about 15 kms from the Lujiazui central business district and does not cross the Pudong river to the Puxi side (Huaihai Road or Nanjing Xi Lu) business districts.

The reality is that the Shanghai maglev is poorly used because it fails to deliver travelers to where they want to go. The Shanghai maglev would be a spectacular success if it actually terminated in one of the major business districts in Shanghai. But it does not.

As it stands, it is a white elephant. A trimuph of engineering and an amazing proof-of-concept - but a terrible piece of transport planning.
 

Re:Luv it...

[fdicostanzo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vactrain [wikipedia.org]

Re:Halbach Arrays

[students]

My impression from the article was that the merit of the chosen design was a passive train. Making the track passive instead would greatly increase the weight of the train and hence the energy cost of getting up to speed.

Re:Shanghai is Airport to .... uh, no where!

[808140]

Informative? What a load of BS. Where exactly would you have the Maglev take you? To your hotel? You do realize that Shanghai is a huge city and that different people have different destinations, right? The Shanghai maglev takes you to the Long Yang Lu metro stop, and from there you can go anywhere you want, essentially, in the city.

Not to mention that the maglev costs 50 RMB and covers in 8 minutes a distance that a taxi costing 100 RMB would cover in 40. So especially if you're traveling alone, the maglev is by far the most convenient way to get in and out of Shanghai. If you're with your whole family and don't want to deal with public transportation, a taxi might be more convenient -- but it will most certainly be slower.

Why yes, I lived and worked in Shanghai for almost 3 years, thank for asking.

Re:Why not a good old electric train on tracks

[jamrock]

Insightful comment, and I agree with you. Maglev technology is really an answer in search of a question. Until high-temperature superconductors become economically feasible, power consumption, and the concomitant pollution from power production, remain prohibitive. Remember that many countries, including China, Germany, and the U.S.A., rely on coal for power generation, and the real cost of the ecological damage and pollution from mining and burning coal doesn't enter the minds of most.

The real question, it seems to me, is why don't they invest those billions in new drivetrain, suspension, and rail technology. The French have achieved wonders with the TGV at a fraction of the cost, by continual refinement of well-proven engineering technology. And they've been in operation throughout France and much of western Europe for more than 25 years, without a single fatality over a speed of 160 kph. The recent successful trials during which a modified TGV set a speed record of 574 kph (357 mph), should be an indication of what is possible. The train had such refinements as more powerful electric motors, lighter axles, larger wheels, and in-cab signaling (the driver doesn't have to rely on trackside signals), and ran a route chosen with long, straight segments, and without sharp curves.

Revolution is sexy and makes the headlines, but the steady progress of evolution is not to be sneezed at. Hell, the x86 processor architecture is still alive and kicking, long after its demise was predicted. I guess nobody told Intel's engineers that it was obsolete, or that further refinements were impossible. Maglev makes headlines with its promise of a Star Trek future today, but TGV's simply keep on hauling millions of passengers in safety and comfort every year. On runs of three hours or less they have largely replaced air travel. Such routine, dependable, reliability is a remarkable achievement.

Re:And magnetic strips on credit and...

[Ksevio]

You shouldn't have to worry about your credit card getting wiped unless you're riding under the tracks where the high powered magnets are, and if you're down there, you probably have bigger problems than having to get a new credit card

Re:Stupid stupid stupid

[Pig Hogger]

1. And I'm still calling B.S. The overall point you are trying to make is that high-speed rail has this magnificent safety advantage while maglev is inherently dangerous or something.

Conventional rail has been developped over the last two centuries, and thus has 200 years of engineering experience [wikipedia.org]. Any self-respecting low-level railroader can tell blindfolded in his sleep what arrangement is safe or not.

Maglev has no such lengthy experience. Maglev is radically different technology, and the safe practices and design have to be determined from scratch.

And while high-speed rail has enjoyed excellent safety, it is completely disingenuous to focus only on TGV and not other high-speed rail systems as well.

Only the TGV and the Shinkansen have the number of passenger/miles AT HIGH-SPEED to give it sufficient experience.

The articulated carriage does lend a measure of safety, but there was also a tremendous amount of Good Luck on the rare incidents where a TGV derailed, and a tremendous amount of Bad Luck one well known example of an ICE derailing.

The only good and bad luck was because of the design. The articulated trainset is an inherent safety feature which neatly paid-off. And the resilient wheel was a fatal feature. Engineers willingly chose to design an articulated train on one side, and to give it resilient wheels on the other. There is no luck in that, only calculation that, alas, proved to be faulty in the case of the ICE.

2. A demonstration of a capability that will never be used in service? What is another word for that?

Never say never. Back in 1955, trains were experimentally run as fast as 206 mph [wikipedia.org]. It took almost 50 years for this speed to be attained in normal commercial service. Never say that there will not be 400 mph TGVs within the next 50 years.

p-u-b-l-i-c-i-t-y The only way for high-speed rail to get any faster *in-service* is through massive investment in new rail lines.

The investment is much smaller than comparable investment in roadways or airlines for the same transport capacity.

In principle, that is no different than investment in maglev except for the fact that maglev is still more expensive.

Maglev will always be more expensive than maglev for the only reason that maglev is not compatible with the existing rail network.

So, instead of riding on existing lines to go downtown, you will either have to very expensively build new lines to reach the downtown station, or have to stay on the outskirt of the city, much like the airports of today. And everywhere you want to go with a maglev, you have to build a line. Not so with a TGV that can go anywhere a train can go.

3. I'm not talking about TGV or ICE. If you notice the context, I was referring to maglev. Germany is doing much of the early adoption for maglev which is great for the rest of the world once they drive down the cost.

The cost is never going to go down.

In order to be profitable, a rail network needs flexibility. One important factor for flexibility is the ability to switch tracks. Not just to get to a particular track in a station, but to go around other traffic.

In order to do this, you need track switches. The more switches in your network, the more flexible it is.

Maglev networks will never be as efficient or flexible as conventional rail networks because maglev switches are so cumbersome that putting as many switches on a maglev as there are on regular rail networks will be prohibitive.

The reason is that a maglev switch has to replace a straight sect

Re:I work in the railway industry

[dotgain]

The whole point of running high voltages like 25kV is so you don't have hundreds of amps of current flow. A human can be killed by merely 30mA of current flow through them, but the amount of current that will flow through them depends on lots of things, like their footwear, the resistance of what they touch the conductor with, how sweaty and dirty their palm was etc.

Volts is a potential. Amps is not, it is a result of those Volts meeting a certain resistance.

Maglev rocks!

[JimtownKelly]

Shanghai maglev is great fun, but only for the short haul on an essentially straight line. At peak speed it is really hard to move out of your seat, and a slight twisting of the train can be felt. While the Chi-Coms are considering building longer routes for maglevs, I don't think that's such a good idea, because of this contortioning that happens. Their first application of maglev technology for airport-city transfer is ideal, however, and it's exciting to hear about Munich's project.

Re:I work in the railway industry

[diskis]

Yes, but 25kV @ 1 amp is 25kW. Enough for a couple of houses, but not enough for an electric train. Especially not for maglevs.

Re:I work in the railway industry

[agingell]

While in principle you are correct you will still have in the region of hundreds of Amps, 100Amps would be 2.5MW which just might power a train, it is still only about 3000 horse power.

You increase the voltage to reduce the resistance losses (Power = I^2R) however you are limited by what can effectively be used in a safe manner with a pantograph.

Even super grid wires which in the UK run at 450 KV still have large currents ~ 1,000Amps which is why they are so hot ~200 deg C when under load (this is actually what limits the max load as the wires sag as they get hotter and they must not fall below the minimum safe height).

To put that into perspective 1000 Amps would be still under 0.5Gw and there is a 6GW power station in the UK, most are around 1GW.

Re:I work in the railway industry

[smittyoneeach]

The other reason to run at high voltage with low current flow is to gain efficiency by minimizing loss due to heat.

Re:I work in the railway industry

[b0s0z0ku]

The whole point of running high voltages like 25kV is so you don't have hundreds of amps of current flow.

Your typical electric locomotive is about 4000 hp. 1 hp is 746 watts. So that's 2984kW output at max power. Allowing for inefficiency, it's actually more like 4000kW used. And the line has to be engineered for more than one locomotive. I can easily see 160 to 300 amps being available from overhead wires, even at 25kV.

-b.