Could we see a Maglev Transrapid system in the UK?

[si404]

I don't know what route you were looking at

Sorry, I try to avoid the Lyle Langley style sites as what they say is snake oil with made up costings, and so not worth bothering with. I literally care about what UK Ultraspeed proposed as little as I care what some random internet person proposes - because they are pretty much the same thing. I'll happily recant: just replace the 20 miles to Liverpool and 80 to Newcastle with 50 to Nottingham and 30 to Sheffield...

The addition of Liverpool and Newcastle (and the loss of Central London) to the list of places served still doesn't deal with my point about it costing a large sum of money to serve places properly to not have a "last 20 mile" problem that Maglev has - just reduces the place that have that issue.

HS2 serves Central Manchester before the tracks get there - that's not possible with Maglev, and then, given UK Ultraspeed chickened out with serving Central London*, I imagine there's a "last 10 mile" problem with Manchester even when the tracks do get there.

Maglev is great, but limited. And the biggest limiting factor is money - the benefits of going 40% faster than HSR are wiped out by the costs of needing to always build routes to places or the time penalties to get to an out-of-town place.

*instead dumping people either at a massively overcrowded secondary hub whose capacity into Central London has had billions spent on adding capacity and its still not enough, or an airport where only about 2% of North-London travellers want to go. It's like they understand neither site they want for termini, nor do they understand why HS2 has all trains going to station walking distance from quite a lot of destinations and on N-S routes across the centre, having stopped at another one that gives E-W interchange to remove about a third of passengers so the terminus can cope. This merely confirms my view that UK Ultraspeed are just rich crayonistas, rather than anything worth taking remotely seriously.

 

[Malcwatt]

Sorry, I try to avoid the Lyle Langley style sites as what they say is snake oil with made up costings, and so not worth bothering with. I literally care about what UK Ultraspeed proposed as little as I care what some random internet person proposes - because they are pretty much the same thing. I'll happily recant: just replace the 20 miles to Liverpool and 80 to Newcastle with 50 to Nottingham and 30 to Sheffield...

The addition of Liverpool and Newcastle (and the loss of Central London) to the list of places served still doesn't deal with my point about it costing a large sum of money to serve places properly to not have a "last 20 mile" problem that Maglev has - just reduces the place that have that issue.

HS2 serves Central Manchester before the tracks get there - that's not possible with Maglev, and then, given UK Ultraspeed chickened out with serving Central London*, I imagine there's a "last 10 mile" problem with Manchester even when the tracks do get there.

Maglev is great, but limited. And the biggest limiting factor is money - the benefits of going 40% faster than HSR are wiped out by the costs of needing to always build routes to places or the time penalties to get to an out-of-town place.

*instead dumping people either at a massively overcrowded secondary hub whose capacity into Central London has had billions spent on adding capacity and its still not enough, or an airport where only about 2% of North-London travellers want to go. It's like they understand neither site they want for termini, nor do they understand why HS2 has all trains going to station walking distance from quite a lot of destinations and on N-S routes across the centre, having stopped at another one that gives E-W interchange to remove about a third of passengers so the terminus can cope. This merely confirms my view that UK Ultraspeed are just rich crayonistas, rather than anything worth taking remotely seriously.

I'm investigating the proposed stations for Maglev through "someone in the business". UKU did have a plan to go into Kings Cross/St Pancras, I believe they looked at Stratford in the knowledge the Elizabeth line would give extra links to central London over an above the current routes through that station.
The idea of linking to Heathrow was to allow air lines the option of running their own "trains" between the airports to reduce the number of internal flights taking up scarce landing slots and reducing the need for a third runway. I wouldn't have thought that a later option to link to Gatwick and Brighton, to the south, and Stansted and Luton, to the north, would have been out of the way. Certainly, taking more than a few aircraft out of the air must be good for the environment.
Taking maglev into existing stations might have been an easier option, with its facility of running elevated and not needing a lot of space for the planned two guideway, three platform format. However I may find out more about this shortly. There's a lot which needs further investigation if we are to reduce the loading on our already congested rail system.

 

[si404]

Taking maglev into existing stations might have been an easier option, with its facility of running elevated and not needing a lot of space for the planned two guideway, three platform format.

How many trains can they process each hour on that three-platform station (assuming Intercity passengers, which means longer dwell times)? It needs to be at least 10, or either the capacity will be less than HSR, or the number of platforms needed would have to be more.

And elevated approaches are deeply controversial in the UK - they aren't a benefit, but a potential problem (good job Maglevs can tunnel like the Japanese one can). Their slenderness isn't a boon: they'd be just as controversial as a conventional rail viaduct. Tunnelling is the only solution to adding capacity on a corridor in an urban area, whatever the mode. And it's very expensive - hence why I'm repeatedly highlighting the inability of Maglev to run on conventional rail, unlike HSR, as to why Maglev isn't an viable alternative to HSR in the UK.

PS: Taking a few extra aircraft out of the air wouldn't happen if the Maglev just repeats the location issue of air travel, nor if maglevs are constantly stopping at airports slowing the journey down for tiny numbers of domestic passengers to board planes to elsewhere. And better links from Airport to City will boost demand for air travel (by reducing the location issue), negating any reduction in domestic flights.

 

[WideRanger]

Where did you see that report (converting to standard Shinkansen)?

In the Japanese newspapers when it was first announced. I was also at a presentation by JR management when they explained it as their 'plan B' if the economics of maglev no longer stacked up at the point construction started. The line was announced, and route set when the Maglev technology was still under testing. It is still theoretically possible that the maglev element might be abandoned - although it is getting less likely the further on the project goes. It's important to note that the broad concept of the Chuo Shinkansen significantly predates the Japanese domestic maglev technology. It's was never a case of finding a route for the maglev, but rather building a new Shinkansen line and deciding what tech to use for it. If you look at the line under construction, its basic infrastructure is designed to be easily converted into slab track. Since most of the route from Shinagawa station in Tokyo to Nagoya is in tunnel, it has to be constructed to allow for lots of possible outcomes because the cost of 'redoing it' would be prohibitive.

 

[Malcwatt]

How many trains can they process each hour on that three-platform station (assuming Intercity passengers, which means longer dwell times)? It needs to be at least 10, or either the capacity will be less than HSR, or the number of platforms needed would have to be more.

And elevated approaches are deeply controversial in the UK - they aren't a benefit, but a potential problem (good job Maglevs can tunnel like the Japanese one can). Their slenderness isn't a boon: they'd be just as controversial as a conventional rail viaduct. Tunnelling is the only solution to adding capacity on a corridor in an urban area, whatever the mode. And it's very expensive - hence why I'm repeatedly highlighting the inability of Maglev to run on conventional rail, unlike HSR, as to why Maglev isn't an viable alternative to HSR in the UK.

PS: Taking a few extra aircraft out of the air wouldn't happen if the Maglev just repeats the location issue of air travel, nor if maglevs are constantly stopping at airports slowing the journey down for tiny numbers of domestic passengers to board planes to elsewhere. And better links from Airport to City will boost demand for air travel (by reducing the location issue), negating any reduction in domestic flights.

Using the three platform system passengers disembarking would do so onto the central platform, doors on that side being opened 30 seconds or so earlier than those facing the outer platform from which passengers would board. It's reckoned that station dwell times in the order of two to three minutes would be long enough. In terminals, as there is no need to trasfer a driver from one end to the other, the train could move off very quickly.
Why are elevated approaches deeply contraversial? I haven't heard this arguement before.
If tunnelling was the last resort the tunnels could be a lot shorter, given maglev's ability to cope with a 10% gradient, and, I believe, narrower than for rail.
Taking air passengers onto the system could be organised in a number of ways. First, dedicated trains calling only at airports, possibly even at airside, to replace feeder flights, checking in and security performed at the airport. They would then skip all other stations.This really is only an option to replace the aircraft itself.
Alternatively, airline dedicated trains or cars on a train, calling at city stations to pickup and drop off at the hub airport.
One advantage is that with the faster and sustained acelleration, adding a station stop would only cause a delay of two to three minutes to an otherwise not stopping train.
If I may add another image

unashamedly promoting the technology

this gives an idea of how quickly the top speed can be gained. The comparison with ICE3 might not still be valid, as I don't follow HSR that closely I'm not able to comment. No doubt you'll let me know if it is wildly incorrect.

 

[si404]

Why are elevated approaches deeply contraversial?

The impacts of noise, shadow, severance, demolition of stuff in the way, and being able to look into buildings' upstairs floors from it, all serve to create legitimate opposition. You only drop that opposition if you go places where people aren't (ie industrial wastelands). That's fine if you are China and can literally bulldoze opposition. That doesn't fly in the UK and your scheme won't be built without a big and expensive fight.


As for 'two or three minutes' for a stop. Ignoring the stopping and braking, the Maglev would travel 14.1 miles while accelerating, according to your chart. During the 4m16, at 310mph, it would travel 22 miles - 8 miles more, which takes about 90s to travel at that 500km/h. Add in a minute dwell time (which is a short amount for intercity trains), and decelerate twice as fast (so fall back 45s vs top speed) and you're already over the 3 minute guide you set yourself.

 

[LOL The Irony]

We're not going to see a tansrapid in the UK for at least the next 50 - 75 years. High speed rail has got us covered until at least then.

 

[Malcwatt]

The impacts of noise, shadow, severance, demolition of stuff in the way, and being able to look into buildings' upstairs floors from it, all serve to create legitimate opposition. You only drop that opposition if you go places where people aren't (ie industrial wastelands). That's fine if you are China and can literally bulldoze opposition. That doesn't fly in the UK and your scheme won't be built without a big and expensive fight.


As for 'two or three minutes' for a stop. Ignoring the stopping and braking, the Maglev would travel 14.1 miles while accelerating, according to your chart. During the 4m16, at 310mph, it would travel 22 miles - 8 miles more, which takes about 90s to travel at that 500km/h. Add in a minute dwell time (which is a short amount for intercity trains), and decelerate twice as fast (so fall back 45s vs top speed) and you're already over the 3 minute guide you set yourself.

Before I start, I'm neither a mathematician or engineer, so let me see how we can come up with a calculation which we can agree on for the "stop" time.
Time to top speed 4mins 16 secs (distance 14.1 miles)
Braking time 2 mins 8 secs ( 7 miles) (thanks for pointing out this could be half the acelleration time)
Total time for stop, ignoring dwell time 6 mins 24 secs (total miles 21)
At 310 mph 21miles takes 4 mins 4 secs
Difference 2 mins 20 secs
Are we ok so far?
Add in the dwell time, somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes. Is that about it?

Other points
noise (25m from source)
70 db(A) @ 200 km/h 125 mph
79 @ 300 km/h 186 mph
86 @ 400 km/h 249 mph
90 @ 500 km/h 311 mph
for comparison
Normal conversation 60 db(A)
normal road traffic 70 db(A)
Lorry at 5m 90 db(A)
Sorry I don't have any rail specific comparisons, I'm not trying to compare one system with another, just showing the benefits of maglev.
Entering urban areas maglev's speed would be restricted to 125mph, so about the same as normal road traffic.

Shadow, not quite sure what you mean here.

Severence, do you mean the track acting as a barrier? Being built elevated, there would be room under the guideway for normal activity to carry on. Even when built "at grade" the guideway would still be elevated so allowing paths for wildlife beneath.

Demolition of stuff on the way, UKU planned the route to use current travel corridors and brown field sites. The guideway is built in sections of up to 102 ft at a height of up to 65 ft, so most undulations in ground level and the crossing of road or rail can be achieved without need for cuttings or embankments.

Being able to look into building's upper floors? At 125mph plus, is this really an issue?

Finally can I just say, I look upon maglev to supplement and complement a rail system, not to replace it, There is, and always will be a place for rail.
However, I think I can demonstrate the advantages of maglev.

By the way, who is Lyle Langley?

 

[LOL The Irony]

By the way, who is Lyle Langley?

Lyle Lanley is a sham who sold a dodgy monorail to Springfield in the season 4 episode of the Simpson's, Marge vs. the Monorail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marge_vs._the_Monorail

 

[Malcwatt]

Lyle Lanley is a sham who sold a dodgy monorail to Springfield in the season 4 episode of the Simpson's, Marge vs. the Monorail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marge_vs._the_Monorail

Wow, never followed the Simpson's so don't know what I'm missing!

 

[Malcwatt]

I suppose the main benefit of maglev is that it is cheaper to maintain than rail, especially HSR. The attached graph demonstrates the difference especially in that maintenance costs remain the same no matter what speed the guideway and maglev vehicles are used at. The graph also shows the

effects of mixed traffic on HSR.

The Shanghai system has needed guideway maintenance measured in minutes over its life so far.

Taking the cost of construction into account, the Transrapid system was costed out, by UK Ultraspeed at £30m/km which compares nicely with £32m per km quoted as an average amount for HSR quoted in a recent report by HS2. They also quoted the cost of HS2 phase 2 as being £81m per km.

Even if UKU's forecast had been way out, which they claim it hadn't, figures having been calculated by The Railway Consultancy, Faithful and Gould and Siemens Transportation Systems it still would have been a bargain, in my eyes.

 

[coppercapped]

I hope you forgot all the stuff about gyroscopes!

I agree the technology is interesting; it's very whizzy and sci-fi to be able to make a plain simple metal plate hover in the air and move about with nothing touching it. Trouble is (as is often the case when some whizzy sci-fi concept turns out to actually be possible in reality) it's next to useless for any purpose other than showing off how whizzy and sci-fi you are. In the case of maglev, this is because it's a solution to a problem which not only has already been solved, but has been solved so long ago that the existing solution has been implemented on a national or international scale, and the old and new solutions are entirely incompatible. In the case of maglev in the UK, it's also particularly prominent that any advantage the new solution does have over the old is rendered nugatory by the small and crowded nature of the country, and the same factor makes the disadvantage of incompatibility all that much the more significant.

High speed transport is a waste of energy. That maglev has less loss from track-interaction drag than wheels on rails does not significantly change this. At the kinds of speeds that "high speed" refers to in this kind of discussion, the loss from air resistance is so large that it swamps everything else. For a journey of a given distance, the energy lost to air resistance rises as the square of the speed (and the power required as the cube) - ie. to do it in half the time requires four times as much fuel (and an engine eight times as powerful). So "high speed" means that any claim about rail being "green transport" goes right out the window before you even start.

Nor is there any need for rail to keep increasing speed in order to match speed increases of alternative methods of transport - because there aren't going to be any. There's no chance that either the statutory 70mph national maximum road speed limit or the effective 40mph single-carriageway limit are going to increase, but congestion will increase, so roads are only going to get slower. Aircraft speeds, if anyone cares, are what they are because they have already hit practical limits imposed by physics, so no increase there either.

And in the UK, journey distances are too small for there to be any point increasing public transport speeds anyway. All that happens is that the total journey time comes to be dominated by the time spent getting to and from the stations at either end. We're already well into this region with HS2, where for all the masturbating over knocking a few minutes off the time spent on the train, it makes a lot less difference, proportionally, to the total journey time even in the most favourable cases, and does nothing at all for the majority of the population, who don't live within a few miles of its measly handful of stations. (And all the more so when the difficulty in finding suitable station sites means they end up being put in unsuitable places instead, like Toton, ffs, yes it may be half way between Derby and Nottingham but that just means it serves neither of them, not both.)

A totally incompatible system just makes things even worse because everything has to be new, and yet still somehow fit in with all the stuff we have already. The only thing it can be is an isolated point-to-point system, unintegrated with existing transport and with even more awkwardly-sited endpoints - yet still trying to serve those routes which are already the best provided for by existing facilities. It would basically be an utter waste of resources that are much better spent on improving those areas where the existing facilities don't provide a good, or any, service.

And that's all before even getting as far as considering the specific system this thread is about - ie. "Transrapid". This is one of the stupidly-resource-intensive maglev configurations where instead of putting all the electrical parts on board the vehicle and keeping the track as simple as possible, it's done the other way round so the whole flipping track is a traction motor. How anyone can be dumb enough to even consider this for any scale larger than a laboratory experiment is beyond me. It's bad enough for small local shuttles, but we're being asked to consider it for inter-city distances. Hundreds of miles of great big copper coils - hundreds of thousands of miles of wire - and most of the time it isn't even doing anything, just sitting there waiting to wake up for a second or so when a train comes past. Copper is a finite resource and there is already concern that it will run out - on a much shorter timescale than other finite resources like oil that there is much more fuss about - and while there are many alternative sources of energy, most of them are electrical, so they depend on copper, and there is no alternative to that (perhaps aluminium, but it's a poor substitute, and not suitable for most uses). An electricity-dependent society trying to get by without copper is a worse mess than an oil-dependent society trying to get by without oil, and when it's the same society in both positions at the same time...

I agree - a comprehensive analysis.

For what it's worth there was a Transrapid proposal to link Munich Airport with the Hauptbahnhof with the route running near existing S-Bahn routes until a final tunnel through the inner suburbs to the HBf. The idea was to cut the journey time between the airport and the town centre from about 40 minutes to about 12mins. The debates went on for years until finally the idea was dropped about 10 years ago. The reasons were cost and electrical efficiency. The journey time reduction would have been, for most people, irrelevant as it would only benefit people going to the HBf; for anywhere else one would have to change. The two existing S-Bahn routes, although slow because they stop at all the stations (there being no equivalent to the Gatwick or Heathrow Expresses or dedicated rail links such as the one in Oslo) do make connections at various points with other S-Bahn routes, the U-Bahn and buses as well as going right through the centre of the city. Both the existing S-Bahn routes would have still continued to run so all the Transrapid link would have done is to increase operating costs considerably.

If the Transrapid technology really had any economic advantages, then by now there would be more routes. The fact that none have been built - except under a centralised, autocratic regime which also only built one line - tells everyone all they need to know about the technology's usefulness.

PS: I notice that the paper quoted by Malcwatt is dated 2004, this is before the German Transrapid project was cancelled so refers to a technology which has since been rejected and has seen no further development.

 

[duffield]

I get the impression that the following applies to quite a lot (not all) of the maglev/hyperloop enthusiasts in this country:
What they say "Why are we building an old technology rail line when the future is maglev/hperloop?"
What they mean "Cancel HS2. After that's achieved, I don't expect maglev/hyperloop will ever happen and if it did I'd probably be against it".

 

[6Gman]

And elevated approaches are deeply controversial in the UK - they aren't a benefit, but a potential problem (good job Maglevs can tunnel like the Japanese one can). Their slenderness isn't a boon: they'd be just as controversial as a conventional rail viaduct. Tunnelling is the only solution to adding capacity on a corridor in an urban area, whatever the mode. And it's very expensive - hence why I'm repeatedly highlighting the inability of Maglev to run on conventional rail, unlike HSR, as to why Maglev isn't an viable alternative to HSR in the UK.

I was going to make a similar point. Good luck getting the people of London, Manchester or Birmingham to accept trains on a viaduct running above them!

 

[Malcwatt]

I prepared a spreadsheet to show journey times based on Transrapid and ICE3 specifications. I can't find a way of posting it here.
Any ideas?

 

[Malcwatt]

I was going to make a similar point. Good luck getting the people of London, Manchester or Birmingham to accept trains on a viaduct running above them!

I agree tunnelling would be expensive. Given the ability to handle gradients of up to 10% without loss of speed, they could be much shorter, I guess.
Where there is space in a station for an elevated platform, possibly a guideway running above the current rail track might be acceptable?

 

[MarkyT]

I prepared a spreadsheet to show journey times based on Transrapid and ICE3 specifications. I can't find a way of posting it here.
Any ideas?

Take a screenshot using PrtScrn key and attach as a .jpg or similar?

 

[whhistle]

Hyperloop is a different kettle of fish, my personal feeling is that it will never be commercially successful, well not for passengers at least. Goods perhaps, but they need to be really time sensitive if the need to be hurtled around at 700mph!

But imagine being able to live in somewhere like China but work in Iran or live in South Africa and work in Sudan.
Even smaller distances, like live in Northern France but work and commute in Southern Spain could be doable.

Take a screenshot using PrtScrn key and attach as a .jpg or similar?

OR "print" it to a PDF (Windows 8.1 and above can do this natively) and attach that.

 

[Malcwatt]

You might like to watch this video, it's a bit dated as it talks about the building of the Shanghai Maglev.
Worth a watch, in my opinion.

 

[Malcwatt]

Here's the pdf.
if you want to alter the acelleration profile of the ICE3 to something more up to date, I'm willing to alter the spreadsheet for you.

 

[Malcwatt]

 

[Japan0913]

I received a warning.
Remove and then Logout.
We apologize inconvenience.

 

[LOL The Irony]

In the United States of the Northeast Corridor, it is progressing movement to introduce this Maglev.

That seems like ultraspeed's proposal. Just that. And it only half replaces the NEC, nothing north of NYC.

 

[Malcwatt]

I am not going to continue posting here!
Some people might be glad of this.
Anyone who is interested in the subject would be very welcome to join us on
https://www.facebook.com/groups/maglev.uk/
Bye

 

[Deerfold]

I am not going to continue posting here!

Bye

Why not? Too many questions?

 

[PR1Berske]

We're not going to see a tansrapid in the UK for at least the next 50 - 75 years. High speed rail has got us covered until at least then.

I was about to answer with a simple "No, we couldn't", but your response is perhaps just as accurate! If we are ever going to get HS2 (and I won't drive myself down that cul-de-sac here), then we can certainly kiss goodbye to anything else being proposed yet alone funded yet alone built.

I suspect that, for the most part on both HS2 and Maglev-style construction many of us on this forum, and I include myself in this, could well be deceased.

 

[edwin_m]

I suspect that, for the most part on both HS2 and Maglev-style construction many of us on this forum, and I include myself in this, could well be deceased.

You may get a sense of your own mortality if you wander round the streets west/north of Euston or the old Curzon Street station site in Birmingham. HS2 enabling works have been in progress for some months.

 

[PR1Berske]

You may get a sense of your own mortality if you wander round the streets west/north of Euston or the old Curzon Street station site in Birmingham. HS2 enabling works have been in progress for some months.

A topic for another thread, I think.