On a recent trip to China I was lucky enough to take a ride on the world’s only commercially operating Maglev train. Carrying passengers from the city’s expansive new airport to an awkward location on the edge of the burgeoning new financial district, the train is amongst the fastest in the world. At a top operating speed of 431km/h, the Maglev takes passengers a distance of 30km in about seven minutes. The train has recorded a maximum speed of just over 500km/h and can regularly accelerate up to 355km/h within two minutes. It is truly an amazing feat of engineering.
While the technology involved in the system is breathtaking (Maglev trains utilize high powered magnets to literally float slightly above the track without any friction), the fact that such a system was actually put into commercial operation is equally impressive. In terms of practicality, there is little reason to have chosen Maglev. Having cost over a billion dollars to construct, the line only travels a relatively short distance and drop passengers off at station where they must continue their journey either by subway or taxi into the busier parts of the city. Even after several years of operation the system still operates at only around 20% of capacity. Critics cite that a conventional rail line could have integrated with the subway system and tied directly into the city centre.
Additional lines, planned to connect Shanghai with Haungzou – a famously scenic city to the southwest – and potentially even Beijing remain mired in concerns about cost and feasibility as well as citizen mistrust about noise and electromagnetic pollution. China has since pursued the rest of its expansive high-speed rail development using more conventional technology.
What is really so amazing then about Shanghai’s Maglev train is what it says about the character of the city that built it. When the city hired a German consortium to build the trains back in 2001 the technology was largely unproven and could only be found on test tracks in Germany and Japan. Building Maglev as the primary link between the airport and the city was a gamble by authorities and is a testament to how far the city will go establish itself as a major world centre of the next century.
The end of the line at Longyang Road Station; conventional tracks are replaced with magnets and guide ways
No expense was spared in the construction and design of the project as French designers were brought on board to create attractive and pleasant stations. Design and construction of the actual trackage was done domestically to help incubate the country’s rapidly growing rail industry. Without a conventional engine and with no friction on what is more of a guide way than a track, mechanical components have longer life spans.
Like other famous projects in China before it, the Shanghai Maglev seems meant not only as a means of practical transportation but as a point of national pride and showcase of technological capabilities. It is a so called “Prestige Project.”
While transportation technology on this side of the world remain staunchly rooted in the ways of the past, China is moving forward with bold steps to fundamentally alter its transportation patterns and manufacturing industry. In the process the Maglev has given the Shanghainese something to be proud about and attracted the attention of the world. Without saying that Toronto need spend billions on a 30km Maglev, we really could do with something close to being as bold and inspiring.
Max speed, as posted within each car of the train
Photos by Marcus Bowman
29 comments
Yeah, too bad Toronto doesn’t have a billion people in essentially indentured-servitude, unenforced labour and pollution laws, a meaningless legal code that can be circumvented with the right payments, and a vulgar imperialism. I’d like some more subway lines, sure, but not at China’s cost.
Most impressive when you pass the train going in the other direction—closing speeds near 1000km/h
We almost had mag-lev built by the Germans in 1973 at the Ex as a demo for what the Ontario government then touted as the equivalent of light-rail. It would have been the technology for the GO-Urban system of lines. GO-Urban became GO-ALRT and eventually all we got was the ICTS system for the RT instead.
Any time someone tries to design something bold and inspiring in Toronto, they are attacked for wasting taxpayers’ precious dollars. This sort of thing has already happened with the Spadina extension stations.
Toronto already did something similar (or Ontario did). A similar technology, ICTS, was used on the Scarborough Rapid Transit line to promote the new technology. But that made it very expensive to expand the line.
Good, concise summary of the Shanghai Maglev train and its reasons for existing.
The Maglev train really serves no utilitarian purpose. It is more expensive than taking the bus, and when you consider the whole trip, it takes just as long to get downtown. (Furthermore, it is more inconvenient. When you’re going to or from the airport it’s likely that you have heavy bags with you. You have to transfer from the Maglev to the often crowded subway with heavy bags in tow. You don’t have to worry about carrying your bags on the bus.) Despite going to the airport numerous times when I lived in Shanghai, I only took the Maglev once–for the tourist experience. I wouldn’t take it again.
I can respect the building of a Maglev train to further technology, but really, this project was about showing how much money China currently has… debatable inspiration for a project when, at the time I lived there in 2007, the subway was crammed-to-capacity most of the day.
Great Article – please send this to Via Rail and Go Transit.
You have to travel China and get to really understand the sleeping giant that is China. The courage and pride that they exude with projects like this symbolize their future greatness and world dominance. There is no challenge too daunting.
The Olympic stadium was a master piece. Only when you see it person do you really appreciate the engineering and cost that occurred. The Three Rivers Damn is a project far too expensive and risky for Western governments however the Chinese added this as another pillar of National pride.
The Mag Lev train is a BLAST to ride on and congratulations on the great article that captures’ the more than just the profitability and ridership numbers.
So they can waste money in China just as well as the west.
Hey Geronimo:
There are considerably more people in prisons in the USA than China. There are considerably more CCTV cameras in the UK than China. We live in an undemocratic fascist state where a government elected with less 40% of the popular vote and without representation by population has twice shut down parliament.
Chief, you need to get off the reservation a little more and visit China. You have been watching too much CNN.
I took the Maglev a few years ago and thought it was a pretty ridiculous experience. Like many other Shanghai experiences (eg. urban planning museum, bund sightseeing tunnel), it was more sizzle than steak. What amused me the most was that the seats on this “prestige project” were reused coach (bus) seats tarted up with flimsy slipcovers. And that “speedometer” was total theatre — it was reading 65 kph as the train came to a halt.
Point of clarification – Aichi, Japan has a functional commercial maglev line as well. It only goes up to 100 and it’s used as a local train line. It was built for the 2005 World Expo, and while not as smooth as the Shanghai line (different technologies) is also fun to ride on but also serves a practical and local transportation use as well.
To call this means of transportation “an amazing feet of engineering” is certainly an amusing typo!
Don Corleone,
Execution lessens the need for prisons.
We too could enjoy such impressive economic growth as China. All we need to do is manipulate our currency, ignore labour and environmental rules and regs, force our workers to sleep in dormitories etc…
China is a house of cards, built upon a unsustainable mercantilism strategy. It is the bubble to end all bubbles, full of illogical capital allocation. Have a look for today’s House and Means testimonies, the pin to prick the bubble is now in sight.
‘Don Corleone’ might deny it, but – despite his moniker – he’s one of those few ethnic Chinese who confuse ethnic identity with nationalism. If you say anything online against China, you rarely get as far as the six comments it took this time for a nationalistic response. This is something like the Godwin’s law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
Bad link. Here is Godwin’s Law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
One does suspect that in any kind of cost benefit analysis had been run (let alone if actual profit was a motive), that this train line would not have been built. Like the Burj Khalifa, I think it’s fine to be impressed, even awed, by a technical accomplishment while not in any way envying the political/economic system that brought it about. MagLev in Canada? For the cost and functionality of this system, thanks, but no.
I rode the maglev in Birmingham UK back in 1987. Seems like Shanghai has a better thrill-ride than Birmingham’s clunky installation, which was eventually replaced by a bus.
Cutting-edge toys have an irresistible attraction for the “Early Adopters” group, but there are advantages to a “wait and see if it proves out” attitude, as well.
@George Dunbar
Thanks for pointing that out, wish the pun was intended
The plan all along (back in the 1970s) was to introduce intermediate capacity transit serving the outer boroughs of the Metro region. It started off as magnetic levitation and died due to technical difficulties involving the reliability of the switches in Canadian winter conditions. It was then revived except that the cars would instead run along conventional railroad tracks but still be pulled along by electro magnets. As far as the speed goes between a maglev and high speed rail it’s a close tie, except that high speed rail costs far less than maglevs. Alstom is now close to having it’s AGV trains in service that can reach speeds of about 500 km/h which can reach such a speed by having all axles powered, instead of having two electric locomotives at each end like all other conventional high speed rail trainsets.
Geronomo:
Sorry Chief; Don is half English and half German and not an “ethnic chinese”. Your ridicule of Chinese Nationalism is interesting. The last time I visited Tiananmen Square it was late December. The lineup outside of Chairman Mao Zedong’s tomb was estimated to have been about 600 people or more and growing. It was 4 degrees with a brisk wind and yet even in the off season the faithful were lined up in mass to pay there respects. He died 34 years ago!! Anyone lined up in Ottawa, Washington or London… not a chance.
I rode the Transrapid TR-09 maglev train on their test track in Germany. It is extremely fast (410+km/h), nearly silent (no wheels!), accelerates and decelerates much faster than AGV/ICE trains (5km vs. 30km), making station stops less costly in time and, apparently, right-of-way costs are about the same as for conventional (wheeled) high-speed trains. Operation and maintenance costs should be much less than AGV/ICE, because there is little wear on the roadbed ( no contact) and no catenary (power lines) to wear out.
The Toronto-Pearson Airport link would be an ideal test for
maglev in Canada, because there would be no diesel exhaust and very little noise to disturb those living in its corridor. It would also facilitate local stops as diesel- or electric-powered trains can not, due to its high acceleration rate. These three factors weigh very heavily on those living in its path, and should weigh very heavily on those responsible for technical decisions about the new line. The very rapid speed of construction of the Shanghai line could serve as a model to those here who have already wasted years talking, while doing nothing.
It is time for Metrolinx, GO, and their ilk to look into
maglev for new trains in Toronto and, indeed, all of Canada.
Downtown Toronto to downtown Vancouver in 10-15 hours…
@Glen,
“Execution lessens the need for prisons”
it seems to me that your comments logically implies that Chinese execute millions of people so that it can account for the discrepancy between the number of people in prison in China vs. in US or Canada (per capital). Of course that is far from the reality. Or your comment could imply that death sentence is very powerful deterrent of crime, which I am not quite sure if it is the case. In any case, it would be better if you can clarify what you meant.
Just in case somebody would accuse me of hiding behind a faux identity, I am a Chinese Canadian. The views towards China tend to be rather polarized, either the next world super-power or the house of cards that will collapse soon. The reality most likely sits in the middle of the two extremes though.
Geronimo maybe Done Corleone, while adopting the name of an of the fictitious head of the Italian mafia, is really a member of the Wu Mao Dang instead. He has made $1 for his participation in this thread.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
Hi, Glen,
you over-estimated China’s financial resource 🙂 “50-cent-party” is supposed to make 50 cents in RMB (chinese currency) instead of in dollar. The exchange rate is around 6~7 : 1
@Robert Bernecky – if Munich gave up on Maglev for their airport shuttle, promoting their national champions Siemens, I’m guessing we can too. The challenges of ramming an incompatible technology diagonally through our urban fabric are a little too tricky for my liking.
Yu, the prison remark was a poor tongue and cheek comment. But to elaborate, it was related to the lower threshold for the use of capital punishment. That being said, making meaningful comparisons between incarceration rates is near impossible for a myriad of reasons. I don’t hold for one minute that any country holds any advantage in virtue. People are people regardless of the latitude and longitude of their place of birth.
RE the Wu Mao Dang payment, I am willing to top it off to equal $1 Canadian. 🙂
Glen,
be careful with your pledges please, as that may result in millions of dollars of unfunded financial liabilities 🙂
Glen, you seem to think China’s going to burst. Me, I think it’s undergoing an industrial revolution and that its future is bright indeed. If there was a betting ring predicting the future economic performance of China, I’d be willing to drop a few thousand on my prediction over yours.
Dean,
Long term China should do very well. What I am saying is that the current ‘export based development model’ that China is operating on, has made major distortions. Both within China and out. There is a tremendous amount of mal-investment/over-investment. By 2012 it will come crashing down. Afterwards growth will restart but based on a more sustainable model.