The maglev era has already begun.
On January 23, 2001, China
and Germany signed a contract to
begin the construction, in Shanghai,
of the first magnetic-levitation
rail line in the world, which began commercial operations on December 31st, 2002. The implications of
this first contract were summed up
in an evaluation in Executive
Intelligence Review of November
2, 2001:
“This revolutionary new technology
is not only suited for passenger
travel at velocities of up to 500 km/
hour—for which the German maglev
system Transrapid was optimized—but in the future will also allow the creation
of fully automated systems of freight transport, with performance parameters
which up to now are completely unattainable. Such future freight systems will
automatically transport containers from one chosen spot on the network to
another, like a computer-controlled industrial conveyor belt. At speeds of up to
250 km/hour, a single maglev container freight
transport line could support as
much freight daily, as 20 or more
parallel conventional railroad lines.
“With the Transrapid, the ancient
invention of the wheel is for the first
time becoming obsolete. There is
no longer mechanical contact between
train and track; instead, the
train is suspended and propelled
forward by electronically steered
magnetic fields alone, in a friction-free
manner. As a result, magnetic
levitation technology allows, in
comparison with conventional
wheel-track technology, a much
greater rate of acceleration, steeper
ascents, narrower curves, low noise
volume, higher safety because of
fully automatic operation, and greatly
reduced wear-and-tear on the train
and roadway.
“Studies of maglev routes in Europe have shown that not only is the technology quicker than
air travel for relatively short routes, but that even for such longer routes, as
from Berlin to Moscow or Kiev, maglev is more than competitive. Especially
if one keeps in mind the transfer
time between airports and city centers,
and the lengthy checking-in and
boarding procedures of air travel.
At the same time, the Transrapid system
has all the normal advantages
of passenger railroads: above all,
that not only the terminal points of
a line, but rather an entire series of
cities in between are serviced by the
same train, with the unlimited possibility
of stopovers for the passengers.
“The Transrapid thereby contributes
to the general development of
the entire corridor. Whereas for an
airplane there is only uninhabited,
empty air between takeoff and destination.”
The Chinese roared ahead
with their Shanghai-Pudong maglev
project. “Commander” Wu Xiangming, the director of construction for
the project, organised the construction in a military-engineering style, which
allowed the project to be completed in less than two years. The Chinese took
only six months to build an entire new factory near Shanghai, which started
producing the concrete and steel components of the line in November 2001, to the
amazement of German journalists who visited the site. As China extends the line
to Beijing, the system’s components would no longer be produced in Germany, but
entirely in China, with a view to export to other Asian countries, just as we
could establish our own maglev industry in Australia.
The Shanghai-Pudong project
has provoked an explosion of interest
and large-scale proposals in
the Netherlands, Germany, Poland,
the U.S. and other countries. In Australia,
when examining options for
a link from the city of Melbourne
to the airport, Victorian former Premier Steve Bracks expressed interest in a
maglev line. An express trip would
take eight minutes, while a trip with
two stops, at Keilor Park and Sunshine,
would take only 13 minutes,
with speeds hitting 250 km/hour. In 2008, a line linking Frankston-Melbourne CBD-Melbourne
Airport-Avalon Airport-Geelong was proposed by ThyssenKrupp Transrapid. In
NSW, Transrapid also has a concept
for a regional/orbital system to link
Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle.`
For two decades now, Australian federal governments have been dithering and
doddering over a Sydney to Canberra or a Sydney-Canberra- Melbourne high speed
link, with one proposal after another being turned down as not cheap enough.
But, in retrospect, perhaps all this stonewalling will prove to have been
useful, since it prevented Australia from being stuck with a much slower, less
effective technology than the maglev.
The most insightful recent evaluations
of high speed trains for Australia
in the past two decades are found
in two reports by former MP Peter
Nixon, who in 1995 chaired a working
group reporting to the Victorian
State Government on rail strategy.
His committee’s report, “The High
Speed Train Report” was updated
by him in July 2000, in his ‘High
Speed Trains in Australia: Beyond
2000.”
In the latter, he makes a couple of
crucial points. First, that “Our country
is similar in geographic area to
continental United States and mainland
China. A large proportion of
our relatively small population live
in coastal cities separated by significant
distances. Almost half of that
population live in and around our
two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne,
separated by a distance of
approximately 900 kilometres. Millions
more live in the cities and major
regional centres of the east coast
corridor, and the aggregation of city
and regional Australians along its
path, that high speed trains will be
required to effectively serve.”
The benchmark for trains in this
corridor, he notes, is an express trip
between Sydney and Melbourne in
three hours or less, to effectively compete with air travel. Some
“wheel on track” technologies
could conceivably do this. “However”,
Nixon observes, “in a world
of rapid technological change, there
are indications that conventional
‘wheel on track’ rail systems will in
the very near future be succeeded
by ‘wheel-less’ trains propelled by
the principle of magnetic levitation
(maglev). Over the past quarter century,
such systems have moved from
the development stage to operational
readiness. Maglev, with its promise
of a quantum increase in operating
speeds, remains the ‘new technology’
seeking to challenge the established
performance of ‘wheel on
track’ systems…. [E]nough international
experience has been gained
to demand that the proper evaluation
of a major east coast high speed
rail network in Australia must include
a thorough and objective assessment
of the maglev option. At a
time of generational change in the
rail industry the technology equation
remains paramount. The high
speed option selected for Australia
will be required to overcome the related
tyrannies of distance and time
for the next 100 years or more.”
But, even more important than the technical aspects of maglev, is the call with which Nixon ends his report, which is an implicit call for a
great maglev scheme, as part of a
broader national purpose of nation-building:
“Nations need to build. Citizens
and communities need, and overwhelmingly
seek, to be a part of that
embrace of a national purpose. The
strength of a national high speed
train project lies in the fact that such
a project will deliver much more
than an alternative transport mode
to service existing travel needs. Such
a project would provide an important
national focus for the development
of Australia into the 21st Century.
Considerations of national vision
and national purpose go to the
very heart of our Australian character
and psyche.”
Well said. Now, let’s get on with
the job!
Continue on to Go Vacumn Maglev!
