News on China's scientific and technological development.

solarz said:

The problem with HSR is that after a certain point, you experience diminishing returns. Remember that trains need to serve multiple stops between major cities. If the interval between stops is too short, high speed becomes meaningless. For example, the Shanghai maglev reaches top speed for only a few moments before having to decelerate. Granted, that one is a tech demo, but the dynamic is the same.

I'm sure there are applications for a 600kph maglev, I'm just not sure those applications exist right now. Perhaps it can be used for very long distance travel such as between Beijing and Moscow? Maybe once OBOR takes off we will see more need for such trains.

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Actually, it would take only 13.8 km to reach 600kph at an acceleration of 1m per sec.
A distance of 10 or so km to accelerate is still quite okay against a travel distance 100km. A 100m runner has an average acceleration of about 1.4 m/s.

I mistyped: Acceleration should be "per sec per sec" OR " m/s2 ".

Quickie said:

Actually, it would take only 13.8 km to reach 600kph at an acceleration of 1m per sec.
A distance of 10 or so km to accelerate is still quite okay against a travel distance 100km. A 100m runner has an average acceleration of about 1.4 m/s.

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The Shanghai maglev takes 2 minutes to reach 350kph (according to wikipedia), and from my recollection, takes 3-4 minutes to reach its top speed of 400+kph. Assuming it takes just as long to decelerate, and assuming that it takes 4 minutes to reach 600kph, then the whole acceleration and deceleration process would take 8 minutes.

In comparison, at top 600kph, a 100km trip would only take 10 minutes.

SamuraiBlue said:

Try the route between Tokyo-Nagoya and extended to Osaka later on. The Chuo Shinkansen that is being constructed right now and will be inaugurated in 2027 and will be running at 500Km/h with a travel time of 47 minutes. The trip from Tokyo to Osaka will be 67 minutes.

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and what is the relevance of your statement in this thread? This thread is discussing China scientific and technological development, not Japan, wake up SamuraiBlue

solarz said:

The Shanghai maglev takes 2 minutes to reach 350kph (according to wikipedia), and from my recollection, takes 3-4 minutes to reach its top speed of 400+kph. Assuming it takes just as long to decelerate, and assuming that it takes 4 minutes to reach 600kph, then the whole acceleration and deceleration process would take 8 minutes.

In comparison, at top 600kph, a 100km trip would only take 10 minutes.

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Look beyond eastern China, beyond China.

Beijing-Xi'an-Lanzhou-Urumuqi (>3000km)-Astana(>4500km)-Moscow(6700km). Any sections in between these cities are greater than 1000km direct, much more than that when taking nature route. Every major cities in that direction worthies stop. And China has made it clear of her intention of extending HSR line from Moscow to Berlin and the Atlantic coast, to London perhaps (my thought, why not). It is essential for OBOR.

That is a major reason why Chinese HSR will be more successful than HSR from any other country, the applicable market.

China was late in airliner and probably "never" catch up Airbus and Boeing. But with HSR of this speed, China can eat up a big chunk of transportation market of these two over land. Another reason why China put so much effort on HSR.

taxiya said:

Look beyond eastern China, beyond China.

Beijing-Xi'an-Lanzhou-Urumuqi (>3000km)-Astana(>4500km)-Moscow(6700km). Any sections in between these cities are greater than 1000km direct, much more than that when taking nature route. Every major cities in that direction worthies stop. And China has made it clear of her intention of extending HSR line from Moscow to Berlin and the Atlantic coast, to London perhaps (my thought, why not). It is essential for OBOR.

That is a major reason why Chinese HSR will be more successful than HSR from any other country, the applicable market.

China was late in airliner and probably "never" catch up Airbus and Boeing. But with HSR of this speed, China can eat up a big chunk of transportation market of these two over land. Another reason why China put so much effort on HSR.

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The problem with maglev is that it requires a completely new network. I can't imagine that China built its HSR network only to completely replace it in 20 or even 50 years.

I remember when the Shanghai maglev was newly minted, before the time of the HSR, when it seemed like the maglev was the technology of the future. Then the HSR came along, and being able to use existing tracks as well as dedicated lines, could be built at a fraction of the cost of a maglev, with only a small sacrifice in speed.

The maglev is really cool, no doubt about it, but I just can't see a niche (for now at least) where it can become a cost-effective alternative to the HSR.

Maybe one day there would be economic justification for a transiberian maglev line between northeastern China and western Russia.

solarz said:

The Shanghai maglev takes 2 minutes to reach 350kph (according to wikipedia), and from my recollection, takes 3-4 minutes to reach its top speed of 400+kph. Assuming it takes just as long to decelerate, and assuming that it takes 4 minutes to reach 600kph, then the whole acceleration and deceleration process would take 8 minutes.

In comparison, at top 600kph, a 100km trip would only take 10 minutes.

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Using the wikipedia example with an acceleration of 2.91km/min/min, it would take 17 km to reach 600 kph or, 3.43 min to reach that speed. Accelerating and decelerating takes 34 km leaving 66 km at the speed of 600 kph which would take 6.6 min. So, 6.6 min of steady speed against the accelerating and braking time of 6.86 min which is about 50/50 between them? Not too bad I guess, considering that it would take only 7.6 km to reach 400 kph from 0 kph, which would mean that about 85km (100km - 15.2km) out of the 100km would be above 400 kph.

solarz said:

The problem with maglev is that it requires a completely new network. I can't imagine that China built its HSR network only to completely replace it in 20 or even 50 years.

I remember when the Shanghai maglev was newly minted, before the time of the HSR, when it seemed like the maglev was the technology of the future. Then the HSR came along, and being able to use existing tracks as well as dedicated lines, could be built at a fraction of the cost of a maglev, with only a small sacrifice in speed.

The maglev is really cool, no doubt about it, but I just can't see a niche (for now at least) where it can become a cost-effective alternative to the HSR.

Maybe one day there would be economic justification for a transiberian maglev line between northeastern China and western Russia.

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From regular rail to HSR, the tracks have to be built new. Existing (regular) tracks have much smaller turning radius for HSR over 200kmph, and the gaps between tracks are prohibitive for HSR. And control, electrification etc. are all different. So no, all HSR tracks are newly built, no reuse of existing regular tracks.

HSR did has an advantage over maglev back then, but it is only because of much lower price plus slight lower speed (300kmph vs. 400kmph). That is then. But now we are talking about 600kmph vs. 300kmph, a doubled speed, with the maglev tracks' cost remains flat??

Another thing is, your reasoning against 600kmph maglev also applies to Japan's new Maglev. But it seems Japan pushed for it anyway. China may just take the same decision, but much more scaled up, higher chance to succeed financially.

Also, I think the new maglev (if it becomes reality) is not to replace the existing conventional HSR. They server different purposes. The new maglev will connect big transportation hubs as I listed in my post. While conventional HSR will stop much more frequently. In short, maglev >1000, rail HSR < 1000km, something like that.

Last, 20 or 50 years are nothing really short in today's standard, not China's at least. How many airports Beijing has built? Three. When was the last time Beijing got its new airport (current)? 2008. And now Beijing is building another Mega airport, that is 8 years only. 8 years is very long today, 20 years would be equal to 100 years perhaps in the scale of 2040s.

one more point about 600kmph maglev is:
300kmph HSR makes Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei a mega metropolitan, while Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing being another one.
600kmph maglev will make Beijing to Shanghai a ultra mega metropolitan, the whole eastern Chinese coast.
The two train service are essentially the same, but different scales.

This higher speed is one of the many things for a long development plan beyond 2030 (at least) to 2050. It is for China to maintain a relative high speed of growth, to break the possible middle income trap by extending the market reach from eastern coast to the far west and beyond. 2050 is the key point for China being the number one economy in the world.

antiterror13 said:

me too ... I wouldn't mind here from Wellington to Auckland, it would take 1 hour, faster than an aeroplane

It would be very noisy and not sure of safety

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Huh? How can it be One hour faster when the flight time from Aukland to Wellington is a hour.
We should think big and have a Under Cook Straight tunnel and continue on to Queenstown which is NZ's biggest holiday destination. Many of our tourist arrive into Auckland or Christchurch and hire a car to drive down to Queenstown
IMO up to 20hr long haul flights and then hiring a car to drive down unfamiliar roads to Queenstown which is about about 1500ks roadtrip is a bad combination.

Also people can purchase a $30000 home down country and catch the Maglev to work as well. at 600kph and maybe faster one should be in auckland within two and three quarter hours.

That would be better than paying a million plus for a dump of a house and taking the same time to get to work.

As an afterthought maybe China will build it for us on "mates rates".After all we were the first Western country to recognise the Peoples Republic.