Archive for the 'Maglev train' Category

Shanghai spent $1.25 billion building the world’s fastest train to the city’s Pudong International Airport. The train far is RMB50 ($6.60) which is too expensive for many Shanghainese. The magnetic-levitation, or maglev, line terminates in Pudong’s suburbs, 12 kilometers from downtown, meaning most travelers must get other transportation to reach their final destinations.

Shanghai authorities have put on hold plans to spend $5.3 billion extending the 30 kilometer (19 mile) line — the world’s only commercial maglev train.

The reason is that use has been less than a quarter that was projected. At the same time there have been concerns about radiation and construction costs twice those of other high-speed trains.

Gerd Aberle, a professor of transport economics at Giessen University in Germany says that this could possibly force Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp AG, the maglev’s developers, to scrap the technology and write off at least $2 billion in costs.

He said, ‘It’s the last chance to convince the rest of the world that the maglev is an interesting system. If it’s not realized in China, that may be the end.’

Aberle headed an advisory committee that rejected plans for Germany’s first maglev line, from Berlin to Hamburg, in 2000.

Unlike traditional trains, maglev models lack wheels and rails. They hover about a centimeter above their tracks, held and propelled by electromagnetic forces. The first commercial maglev line opened in 1984 and covered 600 meters from the U.K.’s Birmingham International Airport to a railway station. It closed in 1995 after becoming unreliable. ine maglev lines are under consideration in the U.S., including projects in California, Florida, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Maglev is the future of train travel, says Sun Zhang, a professor of engineering at Shanghai’s Tongji University and a member of the maglev planning committee.

The Shanghai government sort of plans to extend its line 200 kilometers through the city center to Hangzhou, including a 35 kilometer detour to the domestic airport.

Authorities now are assessing environmental and health impacts, says Jiao Yang, a Shanghai government spokeswoman. dhe said the extension, approved by the central government last year, hasn’t been shelved. These are not encouraging words.
Source: Bloomberg

The media office of the Shanghai municipal government has denied that the Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev rail line has been suspended. On the other hand it was not willing to give any information about the timetable for construction, which has yet to start, or if it would be completed in time for the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

If it is built, the line will stretch some 175 km and will carry trains running at speeds of up to 450 kph between the two cities.

The denial was something less than totally whole-hearted. An official from the Shanghai municipal reform and development commission said, ‘We know the National Development and Reform Commission approved a feasibility study on the Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev line in March last year, but that doesn’t mean the project will definitely be built.’

On Sunday, the Xinhua News Agency reported that the Shanghai government might shelve the construction of the line altogether. Xie Weida, a professor at the Institute of Railway & Urban Rail Transit at Tongji University, said China still lags a long way behind Germany in maglev-building technology.

He was quoted in the China Daily as saying, ‘If the maglev line is to be built, the major portions of the train will have to be imported from Germany. So far, we can only handle the construction of the rail and the train’s shell.’ Germany has said it does not want to invest in this project nor does it want to transfer key technology to China. The original report may well be true.
Source: China.org.cn

China has suspended the planned construction of a new high-speed magnetic levitation train route linking the eastern cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou. This is probably the most advanced transportation system in the world and is used in Germany. The reason it has been suspended is that there are said to be radiation concerns.

An official with the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress confirmed a major reason (and in that phrase lies the suggestion that there might be other reasons - for the suspension was the radiation concerns from residents living along the proposed route. He said, ‘The government is working on the issue.’

So what might the other issues be? Cost. It was approved by the central government in March 2006 and the budget was RMB35 billion ($4.5 billion). It was thought the budget conservative and it might over-run up to RMB40 billion.

The maglev project uses German technology which, in theory, let it run at a maximum speed of 450 km per hour. The track was due to be in operation by 2010, in time for the World Expo in Shanghai.

The planned maglev route was separated from some communities by a green belt only 22.5 meters wide, though a blueprint of the local government indicates a protection belt 150 meters wide would be built on either side. Still that is only half the 300-meter specifications applied in Germany.

The locals are plainly worried. The Minhang District government alone received more than 5,000 petitioners in a single day in March.

But the price may have been a major consideration. Wang Qingyun, an official in charge of transportation at National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said, ‘The project is still under study and its final design is subject to approval. It’s still hard to say whether the maglev would be built after all, but even if it would, it’s not possible to complete the project before 2010.’

The operational maglev route between Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport and Longyang Road is having trouble making money. One estimate is that it will take a hundred years to break even.

So instead of maglev a conventional high-speed rail link could be used which would be almost as fast as the maglev but cost only half as much. A trip from Shanghai to Hangzhou by high-speed train would take 35 minutes, only seven minutes longer than the maglev ride.
Source: China.org.cn

China authorities are reportedly fairly close to approving a German consortium, which includes Siemens AG, applying its technology to an extension of the magnetic-levitation (maglev) train line.

Christian Wulff, an official of the state of Lower Saxony in Germany, said Transrapid International has received ‘many green lights’ from the municipal government for the construction of the extended line for the world’s only maglev train in commercial use.

The decision is pending final approval from the State Council.

Christian Wulff said, ‘We have done a lot to bring about the extended maglev line. But time is now tight and we hope we can finish the new link to Hongqiao Airport before 2010.’

The extended line will include a stop at the 2010 World Expo, which runs from May 1 to October 31, 2010, and is expected to attract some 70 million people from around the world.

Launched in 2003 and using German technology, the current maglev train rides on a 30-km-long magnetic cushion between suburban Shanghai and its international airport in Pudong New Area.
Source: China Daily

Maglev may be an exciting technology with no need for conventional tracks but its future in China in the short term is for local services, not long haul traval.

Wang Yongping, spokesman for the Ministry of Railways (MOR), said, ‘At present, most countries use tracks. Maglev technology is a new means of transport that still needs to be researched and improved.’

The National Development and Reform Commission approved a project last year that would use maglev technology on the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway. In contrast, Wang said, MOR, which is responsible for building national rail lines, had ‘never chosen to use maglev technology’ and ad not done any research on it.

The Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway and the maglev train serving Shanghai’s Pudong Airport — the world’s first commercial maglev train — are both local railways.

MOR has been upgrading the country’s railway transport capacity using high technology in other areas. Since 2004, it has incorporated engine and car technology from France’s Alstom, Canada’s Bombardier, Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Germany’s Siemens AG and the US’ GE and EMD.

The bullet trains that have been running at 200 kph since the recent sixth railway speedup rely on French and Japanese technology although domestic manufacturers have built at least 70%of the country’s high-speed trains. In addition, China has built on the available technologies to develop even faster trains.

Jiang Jing, chairman of the board of CSR Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock in Qingdao, Shandong Province, said, ‘A Chinese-designed 300-kph bullet train will roll off the line at the end of this year. It will be used on the Beijing-Tianjin passenger rail line next year.’

He said at a press conference his company would provide ten of the new bullet trains for the Beijing-Tianjin line, which will open to traffic next year. The route is expected to cut the one-hour travel time in half.
Source: China.org.cn

Bullet trains will link Chinese capital Beijing with six major cities from tomorrow according to First Daily, a Beijing newspaper.

The trains will travel at speeds of between 200 and 250 kilometers per hour between the capital and the six cities of Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenyang, Changchun, Harbin and Qingdao, reducing journey times by an average of two hours. The journey between Beijing and Shanghai will take ten hours.

Ticket prices for the bullet trains will cost 50% more than the current express trains, which usually travel at 115 kilometers per hour.

Non-stop express trains would also start to operate between Beijing and the three cities of Nanchang, Nantong and Fuzhou. These are the first of a projected China 120 high-speed trains coming into service this year as part of a nationwide speed upgrade in the railway system. Some 17,000 km (10,655 miles) of new passenger and freight rail networks are expected to be added by the end of the decade. China’s 11th Five-Year Plan, which ends in 2010, calls for spending $190 billion on rail infrastructure.
Source: English People’s Daily Online

The Ministry of Railways (MOR) reports that nearly RMB3 billion of foreign funds was invested in China’s railway sector in 2006. This is the first time that the MOR has released details about foreign investment in China’s railways.

Analysts, who admit they only get it right half that time, think this reflects more open financial policies in the industry. This seems likely. Foreign investment made up less than 2% of the RMB155.3 billion invested in railway infrastructure in 2006. So, announcing that foreign investment exists could be seen as firstly, being more open reporting and secondly, an encouragement for even more foreign investment.

Of the railway investment in 2006, no more than RMB60 billion came from traditional sources such as treasury bills, bank loans and local government investments. The rest, as in RMB100 billion, came from the stock market, private investment and that minute particle of foreign investment.

Take it a step further. China has boosted its railway transport capacity consistently throughout the last two decades. Despite this it still cannot meet market demand in a booming economy. And that is demand in both passenger or freight capacity. Thus some extra investment from overseas might be seen as been very welcome.

Minister of Railways, Liu Zhijun, said earlier this year that the investment in railway infrastructure in 2007 would be RMB256 billion. Useful if a slab of that was foreign investment.
Source: China View

It is indicative of the interest that China has in high speed trains in that it has entered into two contracts with Alstom, a French company which is at the cutting edge of the technology for ultra-high speed trains.

With these trains, because you are going from city center to city center, any journey under 300 kilometers is ALWAYS quicker than flying unless you have a private jet. In many cases, the distance can be as long as 500 kilometers. And with the new security precautions even this figure could be extended.

Patrick Kron, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alstom, has signed in Beijing two contracts for a total amount of more than 350 million euros (US$460 million or RMB3,614 million) with the Chinese Ministry of Railways, for the manufacturing of electric freight locomotives and the electrification of a high speed line.

The first contract is to build 500 electric freight locomotives in conjunction with China’s Datong Electric Locomotives. The second contract is to electrify a high-speed line between the cities of Shijiazhuang and Taiyuan.
Source: CargoNews Asia and research

According to a government report from the Ministry of Science and Technology China will develop its own magnetically levitated (maglev) trains that can travel at speeds of up to 500 kilometers per hour. A 30-kilometer-long test line will be built before 2010.

If and when they come into service these trains will be, by a long stretch, the fastest passenger trains in use in the world.

Wang Xiaofang, director of the ministry’s planning bureau, said the maglev trains are listed in the ‘national scientific and technological support projects’ of the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010) that aims to ’solve crucial science and technology problems that hamper China’s economic and social development.’

China built a 30-kilometer-long maglev link from Shanghai to the city’s main airport, Shanghai Pudong International Airport, in 2003 using German technology. 15 of its new ‘bullet’ trains helped deal with the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Day. The current ‘bullet’ trains have a maximum speed of 200kph.
Source: China View