Japanese Train Sets A Speed Record Of 581 kph 764
Azuma writes "Last night, on December 2, a high-speed Japanese train set a new record of 581 kph, breaking its own previous record. The new Maglev high speed had real passengers on board this time. They proved that the distance between Osaka and Tokyo can be covered in one hour's time. However, we wouldn't see real trains for a while now since the cost is prohibitively expensive at this time. However, they expect that the cost would come down over the next 20 years. This seems to be the future of transportation, at least in Japan. Here is a detailed article from The Japan Times."
361MPH (Score:5, Funny)
Re:361MPH (Score:5, Funny)
Have you considered a job working for NASA or the JPL?
Re:361MPH (Score:3, Informative)
Re:361MPH (Score:4, Funny)
But then again, if God did not want us to use the metric system then how come s/he gave us Ten fingers?
Yeah it is late and I have been coding 2 days straight....
Re:361MPH (Score:2, Funny)
Well, just to be pedantic, God didn't give us ten fingers. He went for the more practical combination of eight fingers and two thumbs.
Re:361MPH (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:361MPH (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, for those of us with twelve fingers, imperial measurements are much more natural.
Re:361MPH (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, and every time you hear about alien sightings they have 6 fingers on each hand. Is it a coincidence that those base-12 civlilizations are advanced enough to cross the galaxy, while we base-10'ers are still groveling in the dirt? I think not!
Forget metric - it is cumbersome in its ten-ness. And imperial is out of sync with our numbering system. What we need is a base-12 metric system. And it all begins with genetically engineered 12-fingered children! Who's with me?
352.99407 cubits per second. (Score:5, Funny)
Also, 581 kph = 116.5050712 microparsecs per century.
Re:352.99407 cubits per second. (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, this is Slashdot, I can't expect you've actually read the book.
Re:361MPH (Score:2, Funny)
Re:361MPH (Score:5, Interesting)
Base 60 makes it easy to divide values by common fractions, a half, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Hence 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an degree and 6 x 60 degrees in a circle. The sumerians also gave us positional notation (ie. that the same symbol in different positions in a number means a difference value) which is where our hundreds, tens and units comes from. Some even believe that they invented 0 (in which case it was lost for some thousands of years afterwards) and it's shape comes from drawing () with a stylus in a clay tablet (their write once memory). You can find out more here [stlawu.edu].
Totally off topic but never mind.
Re:361MPH (Score:3, Insightful)
What's simpler? 10 decimeters in a meter? 10 centimeters in a decimeter? Even the prefixes follow a standard pattern...
Compared to: 12 inches in a foot? 3 feet in a yard? fractions for fine measurements (1/8 inch, 1/16 inch)... ever have to reoganize a ratchet set?
Or how about: water freezes at 0 and boils at 100? Makes sense to me. Compare to: water freezes at 32 and boils at 212? God awful!
Re:361MPH (Score:3, Funny)
Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:5, Insightful)
I just wish the US would invest in more passenger trains. They don't have to be super fast (like the one in this article), but imagine how much fuel/electricity we could save if we could all easily commute by train. And hey, you can always sleep on the train on the way to work, something you can't do while driving. (Or rather, something you shouldn't do, I'm sure someone's tried it.)
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a lot less people per square mile here then in Japan and the like.
Personally, I love the Chicago transit authority. I've lived as far away as Milwaukee and still commuted into Chicago every day (in fact, living in Milwaukee the commute was shorter then a lot of other train lines - the train made 2 stops and went 80mph most of the way there, about 45 min commute). And t
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:5, Insightful)
That actually sounds more like a reason why it would be sensible to have a rail system to me, rather than a reason it hasn't got one.
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:3, Insightful)
As the nation grew, the auto industry fought to suppress the train industry and succeeded. Now trains are mostly relegated to freight. Sure there are occasional passenger train systems across the nation... there are two in my general area (DART and The-T) but AMTRAK doesn't exist out here. And since we all have cars instead of buses and trains (largely! must I
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:3, Insightful)
A nice Big Business conspiracy theory, but it's nonsense. For long distance passenger travel, it was the airlines that killed the railroads. In the densely urban Eastern Corridor (Chicago, around the lakes to the Washington/Boston Corridor), there is more passenger traffic than ever before. One reason the airlines won is their greater convience, the other is that the cou
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:3, Interesting)
ROTFL. There was damm little federal money given to support the railroads. The relationship between the railroads and goverment was cordial hostility at best, which dates from the trustbuster era and the way the goverment nationalized the railroads during WWI. Even if what you say was true, the automotive industry failed signally, as they didn't replace the r
OK, lets privatize the roads then too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:2)
Now imagine that done at 4 times the speed - the hour becomes 15 minutes. I could get 45 minutes more sleep every morning, and 45 minutes more beer / TV / Sex / Xbox in the evenings.
Over the course of a year thats a whole lot of extra EVERYTHING. Roll on the new trains!
So right and So wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
These 4 cities have more traffic between them than any other route in the USA. In fact, most airlines make all their profits doing cargo between NY/Chg.
As to Chi->LA, well, I would argue for 3 East-west high-speed maglevs with stops every 1000M. Likeiwise, 4 North-South (W, Rocky, Missisppi River, E coast) to carry cargo.
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:5, Insightful)
1. In the past, Ford wanted automobiles to be affordable enough so that every American family could own one.
2. Gasoline is much cheaper in the US than in Europe and other parts of the world.
3. In many parts of the US, it is impossible to get by without a car.
4. Americans generally prefer privatization (own a car) over mass/public services.
You forget about the NCL conspiracy (Score:4, Informative)
If it wasn't for that fact, many US cities today could [b]potentially[/m] have suburban railway systems as extensive as Sydney's suburban & inter-urban Cityrail system [cityrail.info]
Really AFAIC railways systems should be publically run & financed through consilidated revenue, just as roads are. Public transport will never reach it's full potential while it's expected to make a profit (or break even), while there's no equilivent expectation in regards roads
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think passenger trains will ever catch on in The States. The population is just too spread out right now. Japan is roughly the size of California but with half the population of the US (If I recall correctly.) You just can't fit all those people on the roads at 1 or 2 people per car. And besides, how will all the salarymen molest the school girls if they're in a car and not crammed into a train
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:2)
There's a reason why Amtrak is (or was) the only profitable railway network in the world: it runs very few passenger trains. Railways don't like passengers because they're a pain in the ass, expect to get places in a hurry and complain if they're late. Freight is the only thing that makes economic sense on railways, with the exception of a few commuter services in and out of big cities with traffic congestion problems.
[quote]imagine h
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad most places don't invest in more trains. However, investment usually implies a return, and most train companies lose money. The more captalistic a country is, the worse this becomes... note in the article " Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) and the government-affiliated Railway Technical Research Institute." that it's a state sponsored initiative getting these things going.
The French TGV is one good example of a system that works, but it's not easy to replicate economically in a country like the UK where there is public outcry at any possible addition of rail links or something close to where they live (and population density is three times higher than France, so routing around people isn't as easy). The Eurostar now has high speed track for part of the link in the UK, shaving 20 minutes off total journey time, but the route is incredibly inefficient and could have been much more direct. Also, it was way off schedule!
The US gave up on trains long ago. Flights and cars are all there is, Amtrak is a joke. Ironic that the rail revolution made the US what it is today, and it has to be the major economy that has turned its back on rail the most. High speed services coast to coast would undoubtedly be too expensive though. I think there must be a magic ratio between average distance travelled by passengers, total country size, train running cost and so on which the TGV manages to get close to. The TGV rocks.
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe in Europe with high gas taxes, but not over here. The United states has artificially low gas prices that definitely do NOT reflect the actual cost of gas use.
In Boston, the T system moves 700,000 people on an average day, and costs are bare minimum compared to the big dig, which is estimated by the Mass highway department to positively affect about 190,000 (those who are sped by it during rush hour and other heavy-traffic times; those who drive in low traffic could care less for the improvements). Though the big dig makes Boston a *slightly* extreme example, I was speaking just yesterday with a friend of mine who interned on project approval this summer at the federal DOT, and only a few percent of the budget goes to subsidize public transit, and it's NOT covered by gas taxes. This is likewise true for state DOTs.
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:3, Informative)
And where are you going to put these better roads? Through all those taxpayers house? More roads -> more traffic -> more congestion -> more roads ->....
It's an endless cycle.
Re:Too bad the US doesn't invest in more trains (Score:3, Insightful)
Manchester to London is about 2 hours 30m, even on Virgin trains. Driving takes anything from 4 hours upwards, dependent on when you start. So if I have a London meeting I can do it in a day by train. If I go by car I can`t.
As far as I am conc
Nowhere close to max speed (Score:5, Informative)
We haven't seen nothing yet. It seems the more juice, the higher the speed. I for one hope to see mass production of Maglev trains. They will be vastly superior to planes at less cost.
I can't help thinking that maglev train development will help achieve cheap spaceflight as well. Imagine a spaceplane taking off from a maglev hitting 1000+ kph.
Re:Nowhere close to max speed (Score:2)
Re:Nowhere close to max speed (Score:2)
Vegas to LA (Score:5, Interesting)
Just remember in ten years, it was my idea
Re:Vegas to LA (Score:2)
Re:Vegas to LA (Score:3, Insightful)
Between getting a lot of road traffic off Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and also reducing the need for air travel between Los Angeles and Las Vegas (imagine 375-450 passengers per train leaving four times per hour from Los Angeles to Las Vegas), that means a lot less air pollution from automobiles, buses and jet airliners.
Re:Vegas to LA (Score:2)
~S
Re:Vegas to LA (Score:2)
A friendly SI usage reminder (Score:5, Informative)
You probably mean km/h.
No need to bastardize a fine international standard.
Re:A friendly SI usage reminder (Score:2)
Impressive (Score:5, Informative)
If you are going to visit Japan, there is a special travel pass you can get, which is only for tourists. It allows you to travel on any train in Japan over one, two, three or four weeks. It is well worth it.
Having spent three weeks travelling around Japan on their trains, I can confirm that they are very impressive. Many of the trains have the kind of luxury fittings that you'd expect to find flying first class. But they are expensive.
Although I believe that Europe is currently developing a Europe-wide high-speed rail system, Japan has had one for years. Why is it only Japan that has such an advanced train system? Travelling by train is great - much more environmentally sound and safer than travelling by car, and of course you get to use the travelling time productively, especially when the trains have plugs for laptops and network connections/WiFi.
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Impressive (Score:2)
You should be thinking speed of light here, not sound.
500 Hz @ 900MHz 1ppm (Score:5, Informative)
The TCXOs (temperature compensated crystal oscillators ("X" being the industry standard abbreviation for crystal - get over it)) used in moble equipment are usually rated about
The more important aspect is the timing skew - GSM and CDMA require the mobile and the base station to have a VERY accurate idea of the time of flight delay between them, so as to keep the transmissions in their allocated time slots (IIRC GSM requires something like a 5 microsecond accuracy, but not being at work yet I can't get the specs right now.)
Moving that fast means the timing skew is going to shift significantly between bursts.
However, most high speed trains are moving to having a cell on the train itself, which then links to the landline system via a dedicated link from train to land.
Re:Impressive (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Informative)
Details on TGVWeb [trainweb.org].
Germany, France do (Score:3, Interesting)
Whilst there are inter-country trains, it's still a damn long way between, say, Hamburg and Rome, and planes would be quicker than the current generation of very fast trains. 600 km/h
And Spain (Score:2)
And Spain is getting there, so before long you'll be able to travel, for instance, Seville-Berlin on high-speed train.
I have read that AirFrance and Lufthansa are having to close some internal routes because they can't compete with the high-speed trains.
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Informative)
You are talking about the Japan Rail Pass [japanrailpass.net]. It doesn't allow you to travel on ANY train in Japan, ONLY the trains on the JR Group lines including all Shinkansen (bullet trains) EXCEPT for the ultrafast JR "Nozomi" bullet trains. None of the many private (Non-JR) train lines accept the Japan Rail Pass. Note however that the Japan Rail bus and ferry lines DO accept the Japan Rail Pass. See this page for information on where the Japan Rail Pass is valid [japanrailpass.net].
If you are eligible to get a Japan Rail Pass and are planning on doing much rail travel in Japan then you will almost certainly want to get one.
Nozomi (Score:2)
You talk about Europe as if it's a country. (Score:2)
There are no coherent policies within the European Union, certainly nothing like a "Europe-wide high-speed rail system". The European Union is a bunch of countries who don't really like each other very much getting together to prevent from becoming financially irrelevant as the size of the superstate increases.
Re:Impressive (Score:2)
I'm sure the EU Transport Commissioner would disagree! You're posting suggests your knowledge about the EU is five or ten years out of date.
There is a Europe wide transport policy, and it is having a dramatic effect. Over the last five years or so, there has been a huge rise in the number of internal flights taken within the EU, for instance, due to new airlines like Ryanair, Easyjet etc. These new airlines exist because of changes to rules about airline oper
Converted to MPH (Score:2)
For those who don't want to look it up, 581 kph converts to 361 mph.
I've been on the Channel Tunnel Eurostar train from London to Paris and that tops out at 186mph. That was quite amazing. To think that this thing can hit twice that speed is mind boggling.
Macka
Re:Converted to MPH (Score:2, Insightful)
What they did not mention... (Score:2)
Semi off topic. (Score:2, Interesting)
Before all that gets carried away, a minor side note. There was an article online, and if I find the citation I'll respond to my own post with it, that spoke of why using innerstates as guides for high speed railways was impossible. Basically innerstates have very frequent curves in them, and at
Not quite (Score:2)
Re:Semi off topic. (Score:2)
Now, speaking of straight shots, these high-speed rails would be great in the plains states... Imagine making it from St. Louis to Phoenix in a couple of hours, on the ground!
PLains states? You realize that St. Louis to Arizona would have to cut through either New Mexico or Colorado, and those are mountain states, right?
Japan is linear (Score:5, Interesting)
This is obviously very impressive. Maglev trains are very expensive (especially the track), but they reach enormous speeds. It gets even better if you let them run in a depressurised tunnel, allowing them to reach speeds of several thousand kilometers per hour. Of course, that costs lots of extra moolah, but its an upgrade possibility once maglevs have become more commonplace.
Concerning the question of why other countries don't have trains as cool as Japan - well, several reasons. The US just aren't interested. Appearantly, the American Way means having two cars per family and getting stuck in a traffic jam at least once a week. Besides, there are geographical concerns. America, as well as my home country (Germany) are definitely two-dimensional, rather than a linear strip of settlement like Japan, meaning that one requires a grid of synchronised train lines. Trust me, that's hard.
Also, for the US there's the problem of population density. Sure, in the cities, public transport has customers. But in the rural regions, there isn't enough demand to make narrow-interval trains profitable. And the broader the intervals (say, twice a day?) the lower the interest. After all, why wait two hours for the next train, when you can jump in your car now?
Re:Japan is linear (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Japan is linear (Score:3, Interesting)
I take commuter rail to work. Here's the breakdown of my one-way commute to work:
8:00 leave house
8:18 arrive at commuter rail station, only 3 miles away (variance is high, so I have to leave early)
8:24 train leaves station
8:45 train arrives at terminal
9:00 finish walk to subway
9:03 subway comes
9:05 leave subway
9:08 finish walk to office
As you can see, only 23 minutes of the 68 minute commute is actually spent *on* the train. If I drove into work and planned my arrival
Build your own! (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the picture... (Score:2)
Twenty Years ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
At least in central europa (germany, france, benelux) we have conventional trains running at speeds of 150-300kph since decades. But then europa has a highly incompatible trainsystem. Western Europa (except once Great Britain) uses one type of track, eastern europa another one and while the british system closely resembles western europas tracks its not safe for high speeds.
Thank goodness china desided to use western-europa tracks which will more or less force eastern europa and russia to adopt or wither away.
Re:Twenty Years ago... (Score:4, Funny)
or if it's hot, cold, snowing, raining, autumn, or if Jarvis has been within a mile of it.
Real passengers (Score:4, Funny)
From the article:
You see, they haven't tested it with real people, only with technicians.
Great but not practical, though. (Score:3, Informative)
A better solution is to use the permanent magnet system that was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory a few years ago. Since the LLNL system doesn't need cryrogenically-cooled magnets, that allows for lower train weight, which means more passengers and/or cargo carried. Also, the construction cost per kilometer is quite a bit lower, too. Sure, the LLNL system limits the train to around 500 km/h (310 mph) but that's still way faster than any steel-wheel train in revenue service (that 320 mph test run on the French TGV system some years ago is totally impractical in everyday service).
Re:Ouch... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ouch... (Score:5, Insightful)
And much less hassle as well.
Train:I, for one, welcome our new super-fast trains. I've used the 300kph trains (TGV,Eurostar,etc) and they are a really nice way to get around. For travelling within continents, these will a far better alternative than flying.
Re:Ouch... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ouch... (Score:5, Insightful)
From a terrorist point of view, I suspect that a building is a better target than a train: easier to get to, easier to get away from, and more likely to kill lots of people.
In fact, even when it comes to airline security, Americans seem to be going from one extreme to another without ever getting it right: prior to 9/11, airlines just didn't want to inconvenience passengers even though even simple measures could have prevented 9/11. Post 9/11, US airlines seem to be working hard to make their passengers' lives as miserable as possible (without necessarily improving security much).
Re:Ouch... (Score:3, Insightful)
> has been attempting to turn them into
The left what? The left hand? The left foot? Oh, you mean the Left! It seems your grasp of history is as tenuous as that of spelling, otherwise you'd know that a lot more social change has taken place because of public disobedience by what you call "the Left" than by (presumably) your own camp. Attributing conformism to the hippies of the 60s, or the civil rights marchers of the 50s, or even what you would probably c
Re:Ouch... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ouch... (Score:3, Informative)
You make a good point though. The first section of the high-speed (186mph) line from the tunnel to London recently opened and we've already had an attempt by the local low-lifes to push a car onto the track... Don't think it was terrorism though, just Kent.
Re:Ouch... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ouch... (Score:3, Insightful)
They've been running since 1964. I would say almost 40 years of constant use with no accidents is a pretty damn fine record. JR are very good at safety.
Jedidiah
Re:Ouch... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ouch... (Score:2)
Re:Ouch... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ouch... (Score:2)
if they don't superelevate they could use hydraulic jacks to tilt the train to one side as it turns, but that technology isnt just restricted to mag-lev trains.
Re:Ouch... (Score:4, Interesting)
Safety is only obtained by rigorous track maintenance and inspection. In Japan they have the earthquake hazard, nothing they can do about that. If the track buckles, at that sort of speed, disaster is inevitable.
One good thing is that this particularly fine piece of engineering is not maintained by either Balfour-Beatty or Jarvis, who between them are responsible for quite a few disasters and near-disasters in the UK. Basic things like not putting a piece of track back, and not telling the signaller it was not there (Twice!)
The Japanese are more meticulous than most when it comes to carrying out regular inspections, even so this is fairly risky.
Re:Ouch... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ouch... (Score:3, Funny)
Dunstan
Re:Ouch... (Score:5, Informative)
Because the train is linked upon boggies.
That's not the reason (Score:3, Interesting)
What made the TGV survive its derailments are:
1. it's designed so that the train sets, once the cars are attached one to the next, is very rigid, so if it goes out of the track, you have a long big dildo slipping through the country until it stops
2. so far, it encountered no overpassing bridge during a derailment (the track is designed to overpass as much as possible, but sometimes it's not possible)
The ICE at Eschede didn't have the luck of point 2.
I really
Re:Ouch... (Score:5, Informative)
I for one welcome our Maglev overlords. At 581kph it should limit my 43 minute train time to school to roughly 8 minutes. Cross country [utexas.edu]? At most 30.
Re:Ouch... (Score:2, Funny)
Presumably they did the test at night so the passengers wouldn't be able to see anything and get scared... (apart from the 2001 Space Odyssey style mind-bending light show)
Re:Bye Bye Airplanes (Score:2)
Umm, a Boeing 747 has a maximum cruise of 490kts which is around 580mph (although in service you wouldn't necessarily go flat out). The rather smaller Airbus A320 is a little slower (but only by 5kts or so).
Incidentally, fuck the "Terrorist Threat Factor". If you fund terrorists, you get terrorism. America is very lucky that it has only had a couple of terrorist attacks.
Re:Obligatury Simpons quote (Score:2, Interesting)
How long before they place a bomb on a plane? (Score:2)
Re:UK is waaaaay behind on this one (Score:2)
You've obviouslt had better experience of the UK rail network than I have.
> Unless you're in London, of course, where the tube is pretty good...
Unless, of course, you're a Londoner
Re:UK is waaaaay behind on this one (Score:2)
Are you living in some kind of parallel London I don't have access to? I'd call the tube many things, but good wouldn't be one of them.
Re:Sad... (Score:2)
Maglevs have to be suspended, so that makes them a bit easier target (RPG, Missle, etc). Of course, somebody could simply hit the engine of the a number of trains here and that would cause similiar damage (hit one that carries loads of chemicals and see how politicians and c
Re:Maglev has been promised for 50 years (Score:2)
But other than test units, none have been deployed.
AFAIK, not too long ago, a Transrapid (the german maglev train) has been deployed in China - with the german chancellor Schroeder, one of the guys that prevented it from being deployed in germany, attending the inauguration.
So indeed, there exists at least one deployment in "production" conditions, not testing.
MOD DOWN, Please (Score:5, Informative)
SWITCHES? [calmaglev.org]
Nothing deployed? The Germans and chinese will be very upset that they do not exist [transrapid.de]
Then the mention of lack of land, all the while ignoring that the train is elevated.
Earthquakes? well, since the train is elevated, the supports are designed to handle earthquakes. It is LRT and Heavy Rail that has problems due to the fact that they are heavily anchored to the earth through every inch of the rail. This allows for the rail to be moved from underneath the train while it is moving.
BTW, In japan, the monorails have had NO problems with earthquakes/Typhons, etc, while LRT has to be stopped and adjusted after each item.
Cusion of air for aerodynamics???? It is a "MAGLEV"; it is supported by magnetic force, not aerodynamics.
As to evironmental impact, give me a break. The amount of force is FAR less than an MRI.
Re:Maglev has been promised for 50 years (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the one in Shanghai, PRC, has been 'deployed'.
Of course the maintenance on regular trains is a wee bit higher - unless you think replacing those big steel wheels and the brake systems due to wear and tear is something that's cheap.
Really ? So what, exactly, do you call this thing then ?
http://www.transrapid.de/en/medien/praesentati
Maglevs can easily operate on levitated tracks above existing tracks if so needed. Of course replacement would be a better option, but disrupting commuters is likely not a viable option, so alternative transportation would have to be introduced for as long as construction would last.
Rail, yes. But this is maglev. Rail doesn't give you an inch leeway. Maglev does. Maglev gives you way -more- than an inch leeway. Slight disruption of the guideways won't be much of a disaster.
Speaking of which - maglevs can't derail. You don't happen to know the -main- cause of rail incidents is, would you ?
But if the segment does get destroyed, you install a new segment. Yes, it'll be more than a bit of steel and welding, depending on the maglev construction (i.e. linear motor in carriage, or linear motor in segments). But either which would not take much longer than replacing a segment of steel rail.
Moot point. These things are meant to go fast, not slow.
When do regular trains ever go slow ?
1. When going through neighborhoods to prevent too much noise from being generated.
- Maglevs are MUCH more silent, not an issue
2. When leaving a station
- Maglevs accellerate much faster, not an issue*
3. When entering a station
- Maglevs decellerate much faster, not an issue*
* where they do go too slow, no worries - the levitation is generally not handled the same way, but rather by batteries in the carriages. They can levitate just fine without external power. Should they run out of internal power as wel, they generally 'land' on plain rubber wheels, and can be collected by another maglev.
You're talking about te type of system where the linear induction motor is inside the track. The track segments get switched by the passing of the train. The magnetic field is directed upwards and does not extend a lobe of more than 10 meters at best.
Which means that you have to be standing on the track, when the train passes over it, to be affected. I *think* you would have other worries at such a time
Even if you think a bird may be affected, though, a track section's length is up to 62 meters in length. Even if travelling at 'only' 400km/h, that's passed in 1.79 seconds, with the length of the segment decreasing over that time as the train passes over.
Inside the train the magnetic field is negligable - less than a CRT monitor.
Kids these days put their coins in Tesla coils anyway
Re:Speed of bullet (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Japan = tiny, little country (Score:3, Informative)
Relatively low population density countries with long distances such as the US make it muc