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Berlin’s plan for driverless magnetic trains derided by climate groups
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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They are a needless complication. You're not going to go that fast for intracity transport, and high speed intercity trains are getting along fine without it, anyway. It takes more power, complicates rail switching, and you can't have a third rail for providing direct electricity.
Nothing wrong with traditional rail. Maglev is cool on paper, but solves no actual problem.
Maglevs are generally advertised as being city to city transport.
They do have a higher power consumption than bullet trains at high speed (the LO uses about 90-100 kw/seat - km vs the N700 series which is 70 kw/seat-km), however they are going up against air travel which is far less efficient (Airbus A319neo uses ~209 Wh/seat-km). So compared to flying they are still way more efficient. I'm not sure about the rail switching, it looks like they have fewer moving parts but I haven't looked into it. I'm not sure my having a third rail is that important? There are other methods of providing power to trains for example using pantograph or induction or by recovered harmonic oscillation of the magnetic fields created from the track.
Maglevs reduce travel time, better acceleration, better incline performance, lower maintenance costs, are quieter than conventional rail, can operate at higher speeds during rain or snow since the don't rely on friction for breaking, and are still more efficient than air travel. However, running costs (mostly from power consumption) are more expensive and they can't use existing infrastructure. So on paper they solve many issues while having fewer cons than conventional high-speed rail.
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.
It solves the problem of long travel times if you're not flying. Not in this case of course, but in general. Even a straight line HSR line from e.g. Hamburg to Munich could never compete with a plane. Maglev could.
There are plenty of caveats in the additional requirements for higher speed trains, but there is a reap problem to be solved.