this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
236 points (94.4% liked)

Asklemmy

43905 readers
1155 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Cloak@lemmy.ml
mekhos@lemmy.ml
tmpod@lemmy.pt
14specks@lemmy.ml
236
Why are maglev trains still rare? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
147 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

They were invented decades ago.

They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.

They require less maintenance.

There's obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You still need rubber wheels when it's stopped and at low speed. They retract when it's fast enough for the maglev to take over.

The electrical conductors are expensive as shit. The ones in the train need to be super cooled or something. The track ones need to be built along the entire length. On three sides, one vertically and two horizontally. Along with massive power lines along the whole length. They don't need to move to be expensive.

The right of way needs to be very straight. So compared to normal high speed, you have to spend much more on buying land, earth moving, tunneling, etc.

All this needs to be maintained to an extremely high degree because you can't accept a failure. The engine on a high speed rail fails and you just slow down, no biggie. HSR track is fairly robust and can easily be inspected visually. Since it has the same base as normal passenger and freight you have an entire industry knowledge and inspection machines. Any part of maglev fails and you have a catastrophic failure.