How long before the UK adopts Maglev systems?

Those videos keep banging on about the North being economically less well off than London and the South-East but the South-West suffers the same problems but they didn't mention that :rolleyes:

The UK needs massive investment in transport infrastructure but I can't see it happening soon. In Brunel's time they just got on with it but now there would probably be so many focus groups and reports written on disturbing the habitat of the lesser spotted chicken (well you get the idea) that all the money will be spent before the first foundations are laid.
 
Azagoth said:
Using the old argument, when was the last time you heard of the German or French railway system brought to it's knees by the wrong sort of leaves or wrong type of snow on the tracks?
Click to expand...

Why would you hear about it here? I lived in Germany for 5 years and I spend many a cold day stuck at a station because of snow etc. Obviously they are better prepared to deal with it as they have more snow there but it still happened a few times a year on the S-Bahn and U-Bahn trains I used. Bus replacement services seemed just as common there as well for local services.
 
Does anyone here have experience of using the French rail system? We hear so much about TGV, but I've heard that the local services are below par due to the mainlines sucking all the investment.
 
Fusion said:
I'd kill for our 19th Century rail network to be restored- it was easily the most comprehensive, efficient and productive system in the world. We had the Great Central main line from Marylebone to Sheffield- one level crossing on the whole line, built to continental loading gauge, finished in 1897, ripped up in 1966 and better than anything we've seen since, HS1 excluding!
Click to expand...

I agree with your sentiment regarding the Great Central Mainline. It was built way ahead of its time, and was only closed due to ex Midland Railway Staff exerting their authority and choosing the close the Great Central route instead of the Midland Mainline. There is sadly very little to be seen of it in Nottingham City Centre.

When I first moved to Nottingham - 7-8 years ago, the weekday cross tunnel mouth was still viewable, and the viaducts behind the Broadmarsh centre were still there, before being demolished to make way for the ugly steel tram viaducts.
 
Yup HaX. The tunnels built in Nottingham were quite remarkable- the Weekday Cross- Victoria Station tunnel pretty much ran under the city centre, couldn't have been a mean feat. You used to be able to see where the tunnel cap was in place near the newish multistory car park for the Victoria Centre, the tunnel there went north from Victoria all the way to where Clarendon College sits today- around a kilometre I think!
 
Pretty sure this was binned as Edinburgh had committed to the trams, and linking Edin airport in via the Trams.
 
Azagoth said:
Using the old argument, when was the last time you heard of the German or French railway system brought to it's knees by the wrong sort of leaves or wrong type of snow on the tracks?
Click to expand...



The French and Germans cut down every tree within twenty metres of a railway, whereas, if you suggested that over here assorted tree-hugger groups would lynch you. As for snow, they get it every year so it's worth investing the hundreds of thousands of Euros they cost. Over here, it isn't. And if you read up on the "wrong kind of snow" (and I was on the trains two days after that day) then you will see exactly why the expensive snow blowers failed - as would pretty much every other similar bit of technology.

But the answer is easy - money and politics. The continental countries simply pump far more money into their railways. Ever noticed how money spent on the railways here is "subsidy", but money spent on the roads is "infrastructure"?


M
 
Borrowed a few paragraphs from "Rense . com"
_________________________

The cause of this unique case of scientific censorship was the maverick professor of electrical engineering of Imperial College, London, Eric Laithwaite.

Laithwaite was no stranger to controversy even before his shadow fell across so distinguished an institutional threshold. In the 1960s, Laithwaite invented the linear electric motor, a device that can power a passenger train. In the 1970s, he and his colleagues combined the linear motor with the latest hovercraft technology to create a British experimental high speed train. This was a highly novel, but perfectly orthodox technology.

The advantages of such a tracked hovercraft are obvious to anyone who sees a hover-rail train running along,suspended in the air above the track -- it is quiet, has no moving parts to wear out and is practically maintenance-free. The significance of this last point quickly becomes clear when you learn that more than 80 per cent of the annual running costs of any railway system is spent on maintenance of track and rolling stock because of daily wear. The British government at first invested in the development of his device but later, after a series of budget cuts, pulled out pleading the need for economy. Laithwaite, a blunt-speaking Lancashire man who did not shrink from speaking unpopular truths, told the Government and its scientific bureaucrats the mistake they were making in no uncertain terms, but its decision to cancel was unchanged.

Laithwaite refused to be beaten and took his invention one step further. He designed an even better kind of hover train -- one in which his linear motor was levitated by electromagnetism giving a rapid transit system that not only provides quiet, efficient magnetic suspension over a maintenance-free track, but which generates the electricity to power the magnetic lift of the track from the movement of the train.

Speaking in the early 1970s, Laithwaite said of his new 'Maglev' system, 'We've designed a motor to propel [the train] that gives you the lift and guidance for nothing -- literally for nothing: for no additional equipment and no additional power input. This is beyond my wildest dreams -- that I should ever see that sort of thing.'

Laithwaite's Maglev design was not quite perpetual motion, but certainly sounded enough like something-for-nothing to make the scientific establishment turn its nose up in suspicion. But this project, too, was cancelled by the government and further development was halted. Today, Maglev trains are being built in Germany and Japan but Britain continues to spend 80 per cent of its railway budget on maintenance of conventional transport systems -- several hundred millions every year.

_______________

I remember going to the royal intitution in london on a school visit once in the early 1970s - to hear Laithwaite speak and demonstrate his linear induction motors. My over-riding memory was of an angry disappointed man seeing his life work being wasted by short sighted government cost savings.

Usual story for GB Ltd sadly.
 
RandomTom said:
The UK Ultraspeed project for commercial Maglev trains to run at around 260-300mph is a long way off, but it's been running in Shanghai for 4 years or so now - has anyone here been on one? They seem like awesome beasts.

Although I've only recently become interested in this stuff, this introductory video (you don't have to watch it all) is pretty interesting. Although the initial outlay of cost is ridiculous at the moment (somewhere suggested £30m a mile) I can't see any other factors detracting from this great technology - if its been a proven success in China.


And an obviously biased economical view behind it:


How long do you think it'll be before the UK adopts a new form of rail travel? Anyone reckon we'll see any new maglev track being laid before 2020?
Click to expand...

Umm, see my post above - but you do know we invented the damn thing, dont you?
 
Why bother changing our current system?
It's awesome paying hefty ticket prices to be packed like cattle onto trains that are often late, with missing carriages. :cool:
Wait a minute... That's not right.
 
I've been on the Maglev in Shaghai and it is damn fast indeed. It only runs between the airport and the outskirt of the city, so it's actually rather pointless at the moment.
 
RandomTom said:
The UK Ultraspeed project for commercial Maglev trains to run at around 260-300mph is a long way off, but it's been running in Shanghai for 4 years or so now - has anyone here been on one? They seem like awesome beasts.
Click to expand...

Yup, been on the one in Shanghai from the airport to downtown, it's ridiculous, it doesn't feel like anything at all when you're just sitting there. It's so quiet and smooth on board, you could hear a whisper across the carriage. The only indication of how fast you are actually going is when you look up and there's a screen displaying the ever increasing KPH, which just seems like it's never going to stop, and then you look out the window and it just looks like you're flying (esp because the Shanghai system is built up high above the ground, like a monorail). Brilliant.
 
thewanted said:
I have :) 400km/h+ is the secondmost awesome feeling I've ever experienced, apart from skydiving.

It takes a while to get to 400km/h because they limit it in the built up areas, but once you're in the countryside it really gets going.

Epic!
Click to expand...

It only runs from the city to the airport though doesnt it? How much countryside could there be in 19 miles? :o :o

I usually take a taxi.
 
The korean highspeed rail system runs at around 300kph...its very nice and i believe its based heavily on the french TGV system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom