Reply #6: Mag-lift, the dream that will never die [View All]

[happyslug]

And should. Every time I do research into Mag-lift I always come across two insurmountable problems. First is between 20 and 200 mph the most energy efficient method of transport is steel wheel on steel rail. Mag-Lift only beats out Steel at speeds over 200 mph. Thus any Mag-Lift to be more practical than Steel Wheel on Steel Rail has to go faster than 250mph, if it goes less you should used Steel Wheel on Steel Rail for it is not only cheaper to install, but cheaper to operate.

The Second problem is spacing the stops so that you can slowly ease the Mag-Lift to full speed and than back to a stop. This is easier if you use small trains (easier to speed up or slow down) but if you go to small you lose whatever operating efficiency you can get. Once you look at the potential train size (i.e something bigger than a bus) you quickly find out that if you restrict stops to lets say, one stop in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, by the time the train gets up to speed (i.e. over 250mph) it has to start to slow down for the next stop. Thus high speed rail makes more sense in the North East Corridor AND ALMOST EVERY OTHER CORRIDOR WHERE MAG-LIFT HAS BEEN PROPOSED.

Now Mag-Lift makes sense on longer runs, i.e. New York City to Chicago, or Washington to Chicago, or even Washington to Orlando (or for the West Coast San Francisco to Los Angles), but this assumes NO STOPS IN BETWEEN THE TWO NAMED CITIES. Once you make a stop between the two named cities the same problem arises as in the North-East Corridor. This is do the the simple fact Mag-Lift is to inflexible compared to Steel Rail to really be an option. In the test beds built (including one in Birmingham England) this problem was one of the reasons the test beds were never expanded (and since all of these Mag-Lifts are custom built after a few years it gets harder to find spare parts).

Now Japan has a Mag-Lift in operation as does Shanghai China, both are used to get to an Airport and were built to show case the technology more than as the best solution to the transport problem their were built to address (mostly getting from Downtown to the Airport). These tend to be two stop Mag-Lifts, the Shanghai does get to 286 mph but on a Bus size car not a full size train so that the car can get up to speed and back down in the length o the track. In my opinion a LRV system could have done the same job, at less cost and without the potential problem that killed the Birmingham Mag Lift (lack of spare parts for the custom made system, an LRV could used parts made by various LRV makers, something to think about when discussing this technology).

In the coming energy crunch people are going to have to learn to slow down. With that the need to go faster than what a Steel Wheel on Steel Rail train can do will disappear. Thus These Mag-Lifts will die long before either Heavy Rail systems (Conventional Trains as most people know them to be) or Light Rail Systems (LRV, or Trolley or Streetcar systems) disappear.

For more on the Birmingham Mag-lift and its replacement by a more reliable bus:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/488394.stm

More on Mag-Lift:
http://www.qhappy.com/wms/pr02.htm
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~clayton/presson/paper.htm
http://encarta.msn.com/text_761579465__1/Magnetic_Levitation_Train.html
http://cem.colorado.edu/archives/fl1997/thor.html
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blrailroad2.htm#TOP

On The Shanghai Mag-lift:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2616339.stm
It gets up to 287mph in its 20 miles trip but it is an bus size car NOT a full size train and only has two stops.