[RU] St. Petersburg - Moscow

[latestnews]

Putin signs off on Europes largest ever high-speed rail project

Quote: https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/278 ... il-project Accessed 2025-09-23

Russia plans to build Europe’s largest high-speed rail network, spanning over 4,500 km (2,800 miles), using domestically produced trains capable of speeds up to 400 km/h (250 mph). Approved by President Vladimir Putin, the network will cut Moscow to St. Petersburg travel time from four hours to just over two and connect other major cities including Minsk, Adler on the Black Sea, Ekaterinburg, and Ryazan. Construction of the first line between Moscow and St. Petersburg (679 km) is underway, featuring a new generation of high-speed trains.

This project will surpass Spain’s 3,970 km network and exceed Europe’s fastest trains like the French TGV (320 km/h). It aligns with goals to enhance connectivity for roughly 60 million people in the European part of Russia.

However, since the start of the Ukraine conflict, railway connections to the West have been severed. Consequently, plans to deploy Maglev (magnetic levitation) technology on these routes, strongly supported by Russian scientists, have been politically shelved. This isolation limits technology exchange and cooperation opportunities despite domestic advocacy for Maglev development.

Overall, Russia’s high-speed rail ambitions emphasize domestically driven infrastructure growth amid geopolitical constraints imposed by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Info based on https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/278 ... il-project with additional Info provided by IMB. Accessed 2025-09-23

[Parrahub1]

China is trying to build a SDS maglev like Japan but better with German assistance as the airport one has failed due to insufficiennt clearence with EMS

[Eurorapid]

China is trying to build a SDS maglev like Japan but better with German assistance as the airport one has failed due to insufficiennt clearence with EMS

Let us clarify your assumptions.

1.) China is investigating ALL currently available levitation systems, i.e. EDS, EMS, and Hyperloop applications.

2) There is no problem with EMS in Shanghai. This is simply not true. The system has been operating flawlessly for 20 years and has a reliability (measured in terms of punctuality) of 99.97% during this time. There is no other system in the world with this level of quality.

Nevertheless, a ride on the Shanghai Transrapid is not as comfortable as it could be. After 20 years with almost no maintenance, there are small track subsidence issues that have not been corrected. The levitation system reacts to these subsidence areas, making the ride a little bumpier than it would be if proper maintenance were carried out. The levitation and propulsion system works perfectly and reliably – otherwise it would NEVER have been approved by the German Federal Railway Authority. As you probably know, the Shanghai Transrapid is a German system.

[Parrahub1]

China is trying to build a SDS maglev like Japan but better with German assistance as the airport one has failed due to insufficiennt clearence with EMS

Let us clarify your assumptions.

1.) China is investigating ALL currently available levitation systems, i.e. EDS, EMS, and Hyperloop applications.

2) There is no problem with EMS in Shanghai. This is simply not true. The system has been operating flawlessly for 20 years and has a reliability (measured in terms of punctuality) of 99.97% during this time. There is no other system in the world with this level of quality.

Nevertheless, a ride on the Shanghai Transrapid is not as comfortable as it could be. After 20 years with almost no maintenance, there are small track subsidence issues that have not been corrected. The levitation system reacts to these subsidence areas, making the ride a little bumpier than it would be if proper maintenance were carried out. The levitation and propulsion system works perfectly and reliably – otherwise it would NEVER have been approved by the German Federal Railway Authority. As you probably know, the Shanghai Transrapid is a German system.

You need to go 600 km/h to remove trucks and planes over 1,000 kilometres and although China daily must embarrass the government by claiming it has the fastest train in the world anybody who knows a bit about maglev knows this is all BS.

[Parrahub1]

China is trying to build a SDS maglev like Japan but better with German assistance as the airport one has failed due to insufficiennt clearence with EMS

Let us clarify your assumptions.

1.) China is investigating ALL currently available levitation systems, i.e. EDS, EMS, and Hyperloop applications.

2) There is no problem with EMS in Shanghai. This is simply not true. The system has been operating flawlessly for 20 years and has a reliability (measured in terms of punctuality) of 99.97% during this time. There is no other system in the world with this level of quality.

Nevertheless, a ride on the Shanghai Transrapid is not as comfortable as it could be. After 20 years with almost no maintenance, there are small track subsidence issues that have not been corrected. The levitation system reacts to these subsidence areas, making the ride a little bumpier than it would be if proper maintenance were carried out. The levitation and propulsion system works perfectly and reliably – otherwise it would NEVER have been approved by the German Federal Railway Authority. As you probably know, the Shanghai Transrapid is a German system.

You need to go 600 km/h to remove trucks and planes over 1,000 kilometres and although China daily must embarrass the government by claiming it has the fastest train in the world anybody who knows a bit about maglev knows this is all BS.

Just admit 1 cm clearance is insufficient and you need Japans proven 10 cm EDS maglev in a 14m diameter TBM tunnel to allow half the trucks and all the planes on to be replaced with overnight container trains over 1,000 kilometres on busy routes.

There is nothing wrong in admitting it and moving on as I have done.

[Eurorapid]

The Shanghai EMS Maglev has been operating flawlessly for 20 years with an outstanding reliability rate of 99.97% in terms of punctuality. This level of quality is unmatched worldwide. The EMS maglev achieves this reliability through rigorous engineering, extensive testing, and ongoing maintenance. Few systems in the world can match this combination of safety, speed, and operational performance, making the Shanghai Maglev a truly exceptional example of EMS technology in daily commercial use.

We are curious about what makes you think that hundreds of experienced electrical engineers in China and Germany might be mistaken, especially considering the 20 years of daily, error-free operational experience in Shanghai. It’s impressive evidence that the system works reliably.

For your reference, the 10 cm gap in the Japanese EDS system partly exists to accommodate rubber wheels. In Japan, the train levitates only at speeds above about 120 km/h and runs on wheels below that speed, which leads to wear. On the other hand, the EMS Transrapid levitates from the very start, with a gap of just 1 cm—a feature that offers notable advantages.

If you remain skeptical about the 1 cm gap, it’s completely fine to share that as a personal viewpoint. However, most manufacturers, operators, and experts in this field generally support the safety and effectiveness of the smaller gap.

[Parrahub1]

The Shanghai EMS Maglev has been operating flawlessly for 20 years with an outstanding reliability rate of 99.97% in terms of punctuality. This level of quality is unmatched worldwide. The EMS maglev achieves this reliability through rigorous engineering, extensive testing, and ongoing maintenance. Few systems in the world can match this combination of safety, speed, and operational performance, making the Shanghai Maglev a truly exceptional example of EMS technology in daily commercial use.

We are curious about what makes you think that hundreds of experienced electrical engineers in China and Germany might be mistaken, especially considering the 20 years of daily, error-free operational experience in Shanghai. It’s impressive evidence that the system works reliably.

For your reference, the 10 cm gap in the Japanese EDS system partly exists to accommodate rubber wheels. In Japan, the train levitates only at speeds above about 120 km/h and runs on wheels below that speed, which leads to wear. On the other hand, the EMS Transrapid levitates from the very start, with a gap of just 1 cm—a feature that offers notable advantages.

If you remain skeptical about the 1 cm gap, it’s completely fine to share that as a personal viewpoint. However, most manufacturers, operators, and experts in this field generally support the safety and effectiveness of the smaller gap.

The ground may be OK for EMS in Germany but even with twice the supports originally planned and going in a semicircle to avoid the soft ground it only lasted 20 years before it subsided enough to slow it.

Even in a 14 metre diameter tunnel with a single guideway between cities to take overnight container trains to reduce the daytime fare below planes there would be some small subsidence so I do not believe EMS can ever go 600 km/h.

I appreciate the opportunity to debate this as other forums have cancelled me.

[Parrahub1]

This is an interesting article on HSR subsidence.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ea ... 72105/full

[Eurorapid]

Parrahub1 wrote:

The ground may be OK for EMS in Germany but even with twice the supports originally planned and going in a semicircle to avoid the soft ground it only lasted 20 years before it subsided enough to slow it.

This assessment is partially correct from our perspective. The pillars in Shanghai are set at about twice the density that would have been necessary in Germany. The reason was the caution of the Chinese clients, who wanted to safely handle the difficult, sandy alluvial soil surrounding Pudong Airport. For this reason, some of the columns are anchored 70 to 80 meters deep in the ground—which led to the very high construction costs at this site, costs that would not occur elsewhere. Still—and in this respect the original statement is also correct in our view—there were areas where settlement occurred due to soil compaction. The pillars of the track are actually designed for this and could be readjusted, but this has not been done for cost reasons. Hence the relatively bumpy ride. The reason for the speed reduction is not the guideway, but rather the energy consumption at higher speeds. This high speed is hardly economical on such a short route. The airport line was in essence constructed as a preparatory and test track for the later Shanghai–Beijing connection.

Parrahub1 wrote:

Even in a 14 metre diameter tunnel with a single guideway between cities to take overnight container trains to reduce the daytime fare below planes there would be some small subsidence so I do not believe EMS can ever go 600 km/h.

China is testing higher speeds with EMS. From our perspective, this only makes (theoretical) sense if EMS were implemented as a Hyperloop. Otherwise, air resistance would be so great that enormous energy demands would arise. Still, we remain quite sceptical about Hyperloop systems....

[Eurorapid]

This is an interesting article on HSR subsidence.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ea ... 72105/full

Yes, thank you. Details about the Shanghai case can be found here:

• Jiang, Y., Yang, M., Liao, M., and Wang, H. (2013). Deformation monitoring of the Shanghai Maglev system based on the time-series analysis of InSAR data. Shanghai Land and Resour. 34 (04), 17–20. doi:10.3969/j.issn.2095-1329.2013.04.005

[Parrahub1]

Parrahub1 wrote:

The ground may be OK for EMS in Germany but even with twice the supports originally planned and going in a semicircle to avoid the soft ground it only lasted 20 years before it subsided enough to slow it.

This assessment is partially correct from our perspective. The pillars in Shanghai are set at about twice the density that would have been necessary in Germany. The reason was the caution of the Chinese clients, who wanted to safely handle the difficult, sandy alluvial soil surrounding Pudong Airport. For this reason, some of the columns are anchored 70 to 80 meters deep in the ground—which led to the very high construction costs at this site, costs that would not occur elsewhere. Still—and in this respect the original statement is also correct in our view—there were areas where settlement occurred due to soil compaction. The pillars of the track are actually designed for this and could be readjusted, but this has not been done for cost reasons. Hence the relatively bumpy ride. The reason for the speed reduction is not the guideway, but rather the energy consumption at higher speeds. This high speed is hardly economical on such a short route. The airport line was in essence constructed as a preparatory and test track for the later Shanghai–Beijing connection.

Parrahub1 wrote:

Even in a 14 metre diameter tunnel with a single guideway between cities to take overnight container trains to reduce the daytime fare below planes there would be some small subsidence so I do not believe EMS can ever go 600 km/h.

China is testing higher speeds with EMS. From our perspective, this only makes (theoretical) sense if EMS were implemented as a Hyperloop. Otherwise, air resistance would be so great that enormous energy demands would arise. Still, we remain quite sceptical about Hyperloop systems....

Regarding air resistance.

With twice the size tunnel, exhaust valves on launch shafts to allow the pressure build up out and keep the atmosphere at a breathable 11 psi the single guideway would allow 600 km/h between passing stations at cities.

If everybody works together to connect Melbourne to Brisbane with passing stations at Albury, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, and Coffs harbour we may learn a lot and create peace in the south China sea.

[Parrahub1]

Parrahub1 wrote:

The ground may be OK for EMS in Germany but even with twice the supports originally planned and going in a semicircle to avoid the soft ground it only lasted 20 years before it subsided enough to slow it.

This assessment is partially correct from our perspective. The pillars in Shanghai are set at about twice the density that would have been necessary in Germany. The reason was the caution of the Chinese clients, who wanted to safely handle the difficult, sandy alluvial soil surrounding Pudong Airport. For this reason, some of the columns are anchored 70 to 80 meters deep in the ground—which led to the very high construction costs at this site, costs that would not occur elsewhere. Still—and in this respect the original statement is also correct in our view—there were areas where settlement occurred due to soil compaction. The pillars of the track are actually designed for this and could be readjusted, but this has not been done for cost reasons. Hence the relatively bumpy ride. The reason for the speed reduction is not the guideway, but rather the energy consumption at higher speeds. This high speed is hardly economical on such a short route. The airport line was in essence constructed as a preparatory and test track for the later Shanghai–Beijing connection.

Parrahub1 wrote:

Even in a 14 metre diameter tunnel with a single guideway between cities to take overnight container trains to reduce the daytime fare below planes there would be some small subsidence so I do not believe EMS can ever go 600 km/h.

China is testing higher speeds with EMS. From our perspective, this only makes (theoretical) sense if EMS were implemented as a Hyperloop. Otherwise, air resistance would be so great that enormous energy demands would arise. Still, we remain quite sceptical about Hyperloop systems....

Regarding air resistance.

With twice the size tunnel, exhaust valves on launch shafts to allow the pressure build up out and keep the atmosphere at a breathable 11 psi the single guideway would allow 600 km/h between passing stations at cities.

If everybody works together to connect Melbourne to Brisbane with passing stations at Albury, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, and Coffs harbour we may learn a lot and create peace in the south China sea.

I know you want to build a EMS maglev but I am unsure if the 1cm clearance is sufficient to go 600 km/h where Japan has proven the EDS between 1997 and 2011 and the wheels would have no more wear than a plane.

As it is open to the public I suggest you have a ride on the fastest train in the world.

viewtopic.php?f=57&p=2968#p2968

[Parrahub1]

Aussies say the Chinese airport line is now very bumpy and after seeing what a problem subsidence is for HSR in the future I can’t see EMS being used in Russia.