China wants to develop self-driving maglev trains that can hit 600 kph

Coming some time in the next decade?

While you might think China’s high-speed trains are pretty darn spiffy at the moment, just wait another five or ten years.

According to Ding Rongjun at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, whom state media calls a “leading figure in the country’s high-speed railway technology development,” China is currently hard at work developing a new model of bullet train with an operating speed of up to 400 kph.

Ding says that this new breed of bullet train will also be able to adapt to different track widths, meaning that it can be used to transport goods and people across the “new Silk Road” that is being spearheaded by China.

The 400 kph trains are scheduled to enter service within five years.

More ambitiously, Ding also spoke about China’s plan to develop self-driving maglev trains with a top speed of 600 kph within the next decade. He says that the trains will employ “advanced self-driving systems that can predict abnormal conditions and automatically slow in case of emergencies” — systems which will be ready to go in just three years.

However, speed and functionality aren’t the only things on the minds of China’s train researchers. This next generation of public transportation promises to come equipped with even more added leg room, high-speed wifi, and first-class seats which boast personal entertainment systems, including a window that can also act as movie screen.

In addition, the trains will apparently do away with the inconvenience of regular paper tickets, installed with scanners that can automatically check passengers when they board and exit and deduct fees accordingly.

Ding was a leading figure in developing the Fuxing class of bullet trains which were rolled out last year. The first bullet train to be fully developed and manufactured in China, the Fuxing trains included a number of upgrades over the old Hexie models.

Most significant was a speed boost to 350 kph, marking the first time that Chinese trains ran at that blazing speed since they were capped at 300 kph in 2011 following the train crash in Wenzhou which killed 40 people and resulted in a corruption probe that brought down some top officials in the transportation ministry.

Since then, China has had no major train accidents.