h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I heard a suggestion on the radio this morning that the Maglev system would be good for the UK. This was illustrated by saying that London to Manchester could be done in 40 mins, taking thousands of people several times an hour.

Is this really the best way of investing in rail transport? Do that many people want to travel intercity to justify it?

My feeling is that the majority of (prospective) rail travellers want shorter, local journeys to be cheap and fast, rather than long distance.

won't work anyway. Brum had the first commercial maglev in the world, and it kept breaking down. Sso much so it was retired for ages and is now a normal shuttle train service. And it didn't exactly go far...

I'd much rather be able to not live within the hideously expensive south east but still have husband be able to commute into london for work. It would ease the pressure on housing around london.

I can't see it ever happening though. I don't see anyone other than a national body making that kind of investment.

A train running from an airport to a city may not be easily or economically scalable to a national transport system.
In any case, if tracks were going to be built, what's wrong with proper rail tracks, and a TGV-like proper train?

...Should have been:
A *maglev* train running...

Well, I think it was George Osborne (Tory shadowsomethingorother) who was proposing it, and the way the interview was going was that it could replace domestic air travel - though this came from the interviewer rather than Osborne himself.

I'm with Teasswill on the last paragraph - especially if you add reliable to fast and cheap.

I have to disagree Ictoan - there is already a working commerical maglev system in Shanghai:
"The world's first commercial application of a high-speed maglev line is the IOS (initial operating segment) demonstration line in Shanghai that transports people 30 km (18.6 miles) to the airport in just 7 minutes 20 seconds (top speed of 431 km/h or 268 mph, average speed 250 km/h or 150 mph)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_train


As Potholer pointed out though, why not just have the TGV? It runs at up to 200 mph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV), faster than the current system.


Seems like it's a question of whether the UK wants to take part in the development of maglev technology. There won't be an immediate payout, but building one now could be thought of as a "research project", so that down line, maglev trains could reach their full potential - airline competition with speeds of 400 mph.

Of course it's ridiculous how bad the US rail system is, so I'm not criticizing anyone here, I don't have a leg to stand on. But maybe with the energy crunch people will re-think the whole train thing.

By the way, I've always assumed that trains are more fuel efficient than planes - is that actually the case?

Why not have a TGV?

Probably because of space... You'd have to run a completely new set of tracks in and out of London to get it working efficiently, re-design existing stations and rip out existing tracks on the station approaches. (or just build new TGV stations out of town.)

France has much more space than the UK to play with when putting in this sort of infrastructure.

Look at the fuss the channel tunnel link has caused - multiply that by 100 to take into consideration two lines from London to Scotland and another down towards the SW and you can imagine the chaos.

A TGV would require new rail lines, but would presumably be somewhat easier and cheaper to lay down than Maglev track, and TGV could run over existing track at slower speed for access to city centres if desired.

>>"France has much more space than the UK to play with when putting in this sort of infrastructure."
Indeed. And possibly a more honest approach to planning. Rather than p***ing around with 'consulatations' and then going ahead with the original plans anyway, it seems the attitude there is more one of "It's been decided, so get used to it."

"TGV could run over existing track at slower speed for access to city centres if desired"

It can - but that rather defeats the objectives of having a high speed train... You've then got to timetable them to take into account slow moving goods trains moving through the same stations and along the same lines, plus you've got to slow them down to get them round the bends.

And then you're comprimising on safety - one of the reason's the TGV is so safe is that the track is better quality and there's no risk of it running into something coming the other way or climbing slowly up a hill.

Yes, but if you're talking of using a 10 mile stretch of existing track into Central London, you may only be losing a handful of minutes having to run over it at slow speed before getting onto dedicated track.
At the very least, the ability to use existing track does add flexibility, and the possibility of getting a system running initially without having to build an end-to-end network of TGV-specific track.

True, but by the time you've added in the ten minutes at each and every station along the route - plus the problems with timetabling to avoid running into something - you'd probably add an hour onto a journey - which would be a complete waste of the extra money you'd spent building the rest of the track.

The London stations themselves wouldn't necessarily be the main problem I'd suspect - look at the number of lines and the shear size of the land covered by those lines going into somewhere like Kings Cross - it'd be relatively easy to either squeeze in another couple of lines... The major problems would be where the existing mainline runs over viaducts and bridges (or through tunnels).

Personally I think it'd be better to get the existing trains running on time before sinking billions into a new system.

But what if the current infrastructure is simply too obsolete to get much better?

I think the current system certainly needs upgrading. Not sure how easy it would be to 'squeeze in extra lines'. The Kings Cross route is overburdened with mainline & outer suburban traffic. The rail operator keeps saying that there is no more capacity & no means of expanding.

The issue of introducing a high speed link between major cities is that the small inbetween places get left out. So getting to & from the major stations becomes so tedious that as said, the time gained on one part of the journey is lost on the remainder.

To install brand new dedicated tracks would probably eat up a great deal of countryside. perhaps that is worth doing if the overall impact is more ecological than air travel.

I'd rather have a service that ran on time every time than money put out for another maglev in the UK (the birmingham one closed in 1995 according to the airport - http://www.bhx.co.uk/page.aspx?type=T0NaZj9WNoU=&id=5sqdhXe0N48= ).
Upgrading the current infrastructure can be costly. The west coast upgrade has turned out several years and several billion pounds over the initial estimates, and that's after they cut the project back a bit, so to get a true high speed line it would need to be built from scratch (eg the channel tunnel rail links).

For places <100 miles from a place like London, train *speed* would seem likely to be less important than train *frequency*. Conventional traisn run properly should be sufficient.
I don't see a problem with very-high-speed intercity trains being expresses that stop infrequently along their journeys.

"I have to disagree Ictoan - there is already a working commerical maglev system in Shanghai:"

http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/MagShang.html
"Construction began in April 2001 of the first commercial Transrapid system. Despite the fact that the maglev was the first revenue-producing point-to-point high-speed maglev in the world, the system was up and running by 2004."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/488394.stm
"The Maglev shuttle between Birmingham International Airport and the nearby railway terminal was abandoned in 1995 because it was unreliable. "
" It operated for nearly eleven years, but it was unreliable and was replaced by a bus."

So the birmingham one was built a full 17 yrs before the Shanghai one was even started.

Arnie: "Seems like it's a question of whether the UK wants to take part in the development of maglev technology"
"A British scientist, Eric Laithwaite, first demonstrated its potential in the 1950s."

So the Brits were the first to prove the concept and the first to make a working commercial one.

Not a bad contribution to the technology really.

or did you mean that you think it will work?
In which case you are right, cos it wasn't built by brummies!

Hi Ictoan

I thought you said it would never work, so I was giving an example that showed it did work.

I'm not sure what the point of the Birmingham example was.

I wasn't attacking British contributions to science.

I was merely saying that building a maglev train, on the basis of practical considerations or advantages over conventional trains, doesn't make sense right now b/c as others pointed out, conventional trains are as good or better. But building one would fuel research into the area for help down the road.

Arnold