I ran into this video early Saturday morning and thought I would share it as I thought it was very fascinating.
That Maglev line has been under construction longer than HS2 - it doesn't even have permits for the entire route yet (one local government is blocking) The cost overruns are insane too. $3billion overspend so far just on Shinagawa station - it doesn't help that JR East have placed some quite severe restrictions on JR Central's construction so it doesn't disrupt their commuter operations.
I think it's a cool concept When it comes down to the science of it, but it's very expensive and something I wouldn't see America doing anytime soon… Texas is getting a high speed rail line though which I think is pretty cool and I hope to see America at least upgrade to high speed as it's very beneficial for the economy. Florida has high rail going up to Disney and the only other high speed trains we have are a Acela. There was another high speed project which has been in development for so many years because of all sorts of disagreements and budget cuts for California. The fact that America can't even seem to get a high speed just makes Meglev nothing more than a idea that we will not see it in this lifetime lol. Japan is going to be the first nation to utilize this technology and interested to see how far they take it. I also want to add this would be amazing to see in Train Sim World what would be impossible to run I assume, let alone design/licensing.
Japan aren't the first, the Shanghai high-speed maglev train has been in operation for 20 years now. I know it's not an intercity-sized route, but it is still a "line" (not just a short low-speed loop around an airport terminal/themepark etc)
It is technically the first implementation of the Super Conducting Maglev, I assume it offers some benefits over the Transrapid, but equally could just be they own the rights to this so have to build it. I know a big difference is the SCMaglev can't levitate at low speeds, so runs on wheels up until about 160km/h before takeoff. That's because the track is just coils and the motion of the train induces the magnetic fields needed to levitate - I believe Transrapid track is all magnetised
