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High-speed train plan hits buffers



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Published Date: 28 March 2008
By ALASTAIR DALTON
PROSPECTS of high-speed, magnetic levitation trains coming to Britain appear to have receded, after Germany cancelled a project because of rocketing costs.
Maglev technology, where trains glide over magnets at up to 360mph, has been trumpeted as an option for a new Scotland-London line.

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, and Moir Lockhead, the chief executive of Aberdeen-based FirstGroup, which runs First ScotRail, are among supporters of the technology.

However, the German government yesterday abandoned plans for its first maglev line – and the first outside Asia. It came after the cost of the 25-mile link between Munich and its airport nearly doubled from £1.5 billion to £2.8 billion.

Wolfgang Tiefensee, the transport minister, said: "It is not possible to finance the project."

The decision follows plans for such trains in Germany being stalled for years.





The full article contains 146 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 27 March 2008 10:12 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: The railways
 
1

james.jordan@cox.net,

Washington, D.C. 28/03/2008 02:56:30
Dear Scotsman,

The German Maglev is too expensive and too limited operaionally to be practical. My company invented the superconductng Maglev which was successfully developed by the Japanese has continued to mature the technology and Drs. James Powell and Gordon Danby, the inventors, have developed a 2nd generation system which is much less costly than the German system, less than high-speed steel wheel on steel rail systems. The Maglev-2000 system, www.maglev2000.com, operates at very high speeds, and has the ability to carry fully loaded highway freight "lorries" and earn high revenues from the freight. Carrying high revenue freight subsidize the passenger service and avoids the need to subsidize the passenger service. This system operates in a planar mode as well as a monorail mode and therefore can electronically switch and travel in a levitated mode on conventional railroad trackage into existing stations (something that the 1st generation German and Japanese systems can't do.) We would be pleased and honored to joint venture with a U.K. company to build the system and manufacture the components. I have brought this to the attention of the British Secretary for Transportation at the U.S. embassy about 2 years ago. We had a polite recepton but our proposal did not take hold because the interest in the German Transrapid system was keen. The Maglev-2000 system is perfect for the U.K.

We would be pleased to discuss business options with transporation principals and investors.

Electrification of high-speed guided surface transportation is inevitable because of declining oil reserves and global warming. If the Scotsman would like an article about the Maglev 2000, Dr. Powell and I would be pleased to provide an article or our reports to your publisher to introdce Maglev-2000 to your public.

James Jordan



2

Conan,

Chile 28/03/2008 08:34:55
360 mph train meets our wonderful yobs' chunks of concrete and old washing machines on the track ..... I can see it now!
3

LarryB,

Arlington, Virginia USA 28/03/2008 11:58:13
Mr. Jordan is sadly misinformed when he states that "The German Maglev is too expensive and too limited operaionally[sic] to be practical."

Transrapid maglev was built in Shanghai in record time at a reported cost of US$60 million per mile for a 19-mile line, including one-time costs such as the guideway beam production facility and operation control center. In my opinion, Maglev-2000 would be lucky to match these figures in building such a project.

Transrapid also can travel at very high speeds and has demonstrated that feature for the past twenty years. In a special test five years ago, it hit a top speed of 500 km/h (311 mph) on the existing Shanghai track, with no special modifications to the vehicle. In the past five years it has carried more that ten million paying passengers, hitting top speeds of 430 km/h (267 mph) on every run, and maintaining system reliability levels of 99.9% in daily service.

In Germany, planners have recently outlined a capability to carry heavy freight such as seaborne cargo containers for relieving congestion at ports and servicing inland ports.

By contrast, Maglev-2000, despite Mr. Jordan's statements, does not operate at very high speeds or operate in a planar mode or in a monorail mode. It doesn't operate at all. Maglev-2000 hasn't even been built yet as a prototype. It's another twenty years from being real.

Drs. James Powell and Gordon Danby are icons in the field of magnetic levitation. That is as it should be, given their past accomplishments and contributions to the wider maglev community. But the fact remains that their Maglev-2000 is nothing more than a concept, a promise of future capabilities, at least at this time.

Laurence Blow
MaglevTransport, Inc.
www.maglevtransport.com
4

truthsleuth,

28/03/2008 12:10:59
MAGLEV is an expensive waste of money as are all momo rail technologies.
However they will be useful when the first transatlantic tunnel is built.
5

truthsleuth,

28/03/2008 12:19:15
#3 LarryB

The Germans have cancelled the project
All this technology now does is provides a diversion from the real and present capability of standard High speed rail.
6

truthsleuth,

28/03/2008 12:28:24
£2.8billion for 25 miles with limited access points
comes out at £60 odd billion for London to Glasgow alone.
For this money we could have Aberdeen/Edinburgh/Glasgow/Newcastle/leeds/Manchester/Loverpool/Birmingham/Nottingham/Bristol/Londomn all plugged into the European high speed rail network
Stop messing about lets get on with it.
Remember Hovertrain and other like projects of the 12970s all a waste of money.
7

Andrew,

28/03/2008 19:12:51
I think you'll find that MAGLEVs have more than buffers! How about half a mile of foam rubber????
8

Andrew,

28/03/2008 19:14:38
PS cancelled because of "rocketing costs"!
Now there's a thought!!! Wooooooooooooooooooosh!
9

High Speed Now!,

14/04/2008 10:10:56
#6 I agree completely. Too much time is spent debating projects which are unrealistic while other European countries go on improving their high-speed networks. The new Eurostar route should be the first step to joining Scotland and the rest of the UK to the rest of Europe.

 

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