China is testing out new ‘super maglev’ design which theoretically can hit 1000 kph
At the moment though, it looks more like a lame theme park ride
Demonstrating once again its insatiable need for speed, China is currently testing out a prototype “super maglev” design that theoretically will be able to reach 1,000 kph — someday.
This ultra-high speed vacuum maglev is being worked on and developed by a team of researchers at the Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, which hosts a proof-of-principle 45-meter-long tube-loop track for testing on campus.
In video broadcast by CCTV earlier this month, a go kart-like buggy can be seen circling around this mini test track at a not terribly impressive speed, while also carrying along passengers and levitating 20 millimeters above the rails.
The design incorporates two important technologies: that of magnetic levitation, which eliminates wheel-rail friction, and that of tube transport, which reduces air friction. Combined together, researchers believe that these two advances will allow the train to go faster than ever before.
Though the tiny track can only carry out tests of up to 50 kph in speed and — honestly — looks more like a lame theme park ride, its designers claim that once applied on a larger scale, the tech will be able to propel a maglev train to 1,000 kph — not far off the speed of sound (1,234 kph).
It’s not clear how far off in the future they are talking. In the CCTV report, one railway expert says that the idea is an exciting one, but also one with numerous cost and safety issues to address. (Hopefully by the time that it is finished, the trains will at least not be open cockpit.)
After all, similar “vactrain” proposals date back decades and have consistently been found either too costly or technologically infeasible because of the difficulty of maintaining a vacuum over large distances.
However, China does at least already have more concrete plans about developing a 600 kph maglev, capable of going from Shanghai to Beijing in just two hours. The train is being developed by China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) and reportedly will be ready for testing in 2020.
Further down the road, China also plans to make these 600 kph maglev trains self-driving.
In fact, we already know that maglev trains are capable of reaching speeds of 600 km/h plus. In April 2015, Japan broke its own speed record with a maglev that topped out at 603 km/h. However, commercial operation of these trains is still a long way away, with concerns about the infrastructure cost of building lengthy maglev tracks, not to mention safety issues.
China is currently home to the fastest commercial train in the world — the Shanghai Maglev, built with German technology, which takes travelers to the Pudong International Airport. Its top operational speed is 431 km/h.
In 2016, China introduced its first homegrown maglev line in Changsha, transporting passengers from the south railway station to the airport at a leisurely top speed of 100 km/h. Last year, Beijing’s first maglev train, also homegrown, went into trial operation, it runs at 100 km/h as well.
While 600 kph and 1,000 kph may sound impressive, China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation has threatened to blow all of these other ideas away with its proposal for an Elon Musk-esque “flying train,” which would be capable of hitting a max speed of 4,000 kph, while apparently not being a danger to its passengers.
[Images via CCTV]
