There’s been little progress

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Eurorapid
Posts: 266
Joined: 17. Apr 2021, 23:08

There’s been little progress

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When I heard about the superconducting magnetic levitation train that’s set to run between Baltimore and Washington, D.C — with an eventual connection to New York — I was overjoyed.

But that was 2016. Now, in 2021, there’s been little progress with construction. Actually, the project was just put on hold by the Federal Railroad Administration due to an extended environmental review, and there is currently no plan in place to carry out the review. Therefore, the plan is sitting dead in the water, and commuters are left to wait for a state-of-the-art rail connection between two of the East Coast’s largest cities.
Anthony Liberatori is a junior environmental science and economics major.
Source: https://dbknews.com/2021/10/25/trains-t ... vironment/
accessed: 2021-10-26
Not active on Twitter (X) anymore. Too much spam and rubbish there, not much serious stuff.

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jok
Posts: 120
Joined: 3. Apr 2021, 16:07

There’s been little progress

Unread post by jok »

Eurorapid wrote:
26. Oct 2021, 12:11
When I heard about the superconducting magnetic levitation train that’s set to run between Baltimore and Washington, D.C — with an eventual connection to New York — I was overjoyed.

But that was 2016. Now, in 2021, there’s been little progress with construction. Actually, the project was just put on hold by the Federal Railroad Administration due to an extended environmental review, and there is currently no plan in place to carry out the review. Therefore, the plan is sitting dead in the water, and commuters are left to wait for a state-of-the-art rail connection between two of the East Coast’s largest cities.
Anthony Liberatori is a junior environmental science and economics major.
Source: https://dbknews.com/2021/10/25/trains-t ... vironment/
accessed: 2021-10-26
I do agree with many of your points, especially the basic statement that the U.S. needs an efficient rapid transit network.
However, your conclusion that it should be a wheel-rail system is not helpful from our perspective. The U.S. would be better off investing in its own Maglev systems.

Both wheel-rail systems and Maglevs are expensive to build infrastructure. In operation, however, Maglev systems are not only considerably faster, but above all require little maintenance, since they do not involve any friction on the guideway.This low maintenance is the decisive economic factor that saves considerable costs over decades.

From our point of view, it is important for a student to know what the business model is in wheel-rail high-speed transport. The business is to profit from wear and tear and maintenance of the trains. It's not selling trains that is economically interesting, it's the revenue from spare parts, maintenance, repair. And the faster wheel-rail trains travel, the greater the sales and profits: at speeds above about 200 km/h, wear and tear on wheels and rails increases almost exponentially.

With Maglev, the opposite is the case. Wear does not increase significantly even at the highest speeds. This is advantageous for customers and operators - but very unpleasant for the industry, which is used to earning from the wear and tear of trains.
Perhaps you can imagine that the conventional wheel-rail industry has no interest in seeing new, low-maintenance Maglev systems succeed in the USA. Perhaps you can imagine that this old industry will do much to slow down or hinder Maglev innovation.

The U.S. should not be satisfied with expensive technology that originates from the late 19th century. The U.S. should look to technologies that can truly take off and are cost effective to operate over the long term: Maglev - and not the old wheel-on-rail trains.
Best regards,
jok

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