Transportation Bill Sets Aside $45 Million For MagLev Train 402
tbischel tips us to news that the MagLev train project which would run from Las Vegas to Disneyland has received approval for $45 million in funding. The project has been in the planning stages for quite some time, and it was delayed further by a drafting error in a 2005 highway bill.
"Derided by critics as pie in the sky, the train would use magnetic levitation technology to carry passengers from Disneyland to Las Vegas in well under two hours, traveling at speeds of up to 300 mph. It would be the first MagLev system in the U.S. The money is the largest cash infusion in the project's nearly 20-year history. It will pay for environmental studies for the first leg of the project."
Critics (Score:4, Insightful)
Where critics = oil companies and automobile manufacturers
Previous train route cancelled due to low useage (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Critics (Score:5, Insightful)
What about building the first Maglev between Washington and New York? What about San Francisco and Los Angeles? What about making it actually useful?
Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: "making it actually useful" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:5, Insightful)
At the moment, it's still to expensive, and all countries/continents where passenger trains are common have extensive networks of traditional tracks
The technology is nice, proven but at the moment there's not really a business case to be made for longer stretches of MagLev tracks.
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Critics (Score:2, Insightful)
A good line would be Chicago-NY or Chi-LA. Being in the middle of the country has the advantage of a hub. Viable for tourism in summer, and supported by business commuters all year round.
Infrastructure problems in the East prohibit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the environmental study is going to cost 45 million, the construction costs are going to be multiple billions. Don't think it will ever make enough money to be profitable. Obviously a pork barrel project!
Why Maglev? and why Vegas to Anaheim? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as mag-lev - why? Building a proven TGV type of track, would allow other trains to use it as well, also aiding in cost-benefit. Plan on multiple side junctions to allow the TGV type train to pass the slower trains, thus permitting dual use for freight, etc. I can't imagine the mag-lev train to be that much more efficient, since fuel cost , at those speeds, is all about fighting wind resistance, and not rolling resistance.
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:3, Insightful)
And this man's the Rail Minister? Sweet Jesus.
Re:Critics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "making it actually useful" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, Chicago could become a MAJOR hub for maglev trains, with these lines going from Chicago in a spoke-like fashion:
1) To Milwaukee, WI-Madison, WI-Eau Claire, WI-Minneapolis/Saint Paul, MN
2) To Rockford, IL-Davenport, IA-Des Moines, IA-Council Bluffs, IA-Omaha, NE
3) To Champaign, IL-Saint Louis, MO-Columbia, MO-Kansas City, MO-Wichita, KS
4) To Indianapolis, IN-Cincinnati, OH-Louisville, KY
5) To South Bend, IN-Toledo, OH-Cleveland, OH-Erie, PA-Buffalo, NY
6) To Grand Rapids, MI-Lansing, MI-Detroit, MI
Given that maglev trains aren't limited by the width constraints of standard gauge rail, you can create trains that could seat 500 passengers per train or more travelling every 18 to 20 minutes on the same route. You would actually encourage people to not fly or drive between these two cities due to the very fast transit times.
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:1, Insightful)
As a Minnesota driver... (Score:2, Insightful)
MagLev is pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6521295.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Why pay so much for a technology giving you so little? MagLev isn't cheap. You could just copy the French...........ah what am I saying...
Re:Infrastructure problems in the East prohibit (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be great, though, if they improved the tracks to get the full speed out of the train.
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trains, US? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's amazing how much paranoia has become ingrained in certain subsections of modern western society.
You know, I too enjoyed watching X-Files in my youth
Re:Critics (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, hopefully they'll get this thing off the ground and generate some me-too reactions from some of the other busy routes around the country. Boston-to-New York comes to mind, and Chicago-to-anywhere (St. Louis, Detroit, Des Moines).
Eventually there should be a national high speed rail alternative to air travel, and we will see less airport congestion and, perhaps, a more humble attitude on the part of the airlines when they have some real competition for a change.
But "should" does not translate into "will", unfortunately. The money and the political initiative just aren't there at this time.
Re:Why Maglev? and why Vegas to Anaheim? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the reason so many hi-tech advances come from the military - they're not afraid to throw money at new and risky projects when cheaper proven alternatives already exist. (Actually I have a theory about mag-lev and budgets for railgun development, but that's another topic... ;)
Re:Critics (Score:5, Insightful)
Where critics = oil companies and automobile manufacturers
Did you read the article? Lets recap this:
There is no train on the route Amtrak's Desert Wind between Los Angeles and Las Vegas was canceled in 1997 because of low ridership.
Now what makes anyone think after the hoopla is over the drivers will take a maglev train?
$140 a barrel? $200 a barrel? $300 barrel?
Me, I drive because I like to drive. While today's $140 barrel hurts the budget, I will still drive. Not because I don't live any where near the train, I could take a bus or plane. But because at $100 it is still cheaper than golf for hours entertained. People like driving.
Derided by me too (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just 3mph slower than the fastest ever Maglev Monorail.. but it runs on standard gauge rail track that can be time-shared with commuter trains and railfreight traffic.. Heavy Rail in the USA is something that had its time then went away, but don't be surprised if it makes a return again.
300mph trains between city-centre stations can compete with 600mph aeroplanes flying from heavily-secured out-of-town airports.
Re:Huge construction project.. recession.. (Score:5, Insightful)
And if appropriately managed, likely would cost less than the war in Iraq/Afghanistan. And employed Americans doing it. Better yet, something to show for the trillions.
Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag (Score:3, Insightful)
In discussions about US government programs I often hear Iraq war comparisons. It's understandable - there are a lot of exciting things we could have done with the $500 billion we've spent in Iraq.
However, we've spent that money; we can't un-spend it. So we don't have $500 billion sitting around waiting for an application. What we have is a toilet that's had $500 billion flushed down it, a budget deficit and $9,410 billion [brillig.com] in national debt.
Maybe we never want to pay off that debt; that certainly seems to be the view of our politicians. But if we want to get the national debt under control we have to realise that, to paraphrase Everett Dirksen, ten billion here and ten billion there and pretty soon you're talking about serious money.
Re:Infrastructure problems in the East prohibit (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt that's a good idea, it's unlikely that you'd manage to convince people to put up with that AND the near requirement for passengers to wear diapers or something similar.
If a trip takes more than a few hours and there are many passengers on the train the probability of someone needing to go to the loo is going to be very high.
"Tall" trains can already go 250-300kph. How much faster will such midget trains be after sacrificing the ability for passengers to easily walk to the toilet or elsewhere while the train is moving?
Re:Trains, US? (Score:5, Insightful)
In terms of the American political world, given how often what is called "paranoia" turns out to be close enough to fact twenty or thirty years later it's not really a surprise. In the 1980s global warming was considered paranoia,even though it had been theorized in 1896. [lenntech.com] Treehuggers were fringe political freaks thirty years ago, now we know that they were mostly right. Orwell's 1984 was thought a bit over the top during most of it's literary history. But thoughtcrime and doublethink are a modern reality. Predictions of government abuse of "anti-terrorism" laws were written off as treasonously unpatriotic just six years ago.
Given how much "Big Oil" countries have been investing in the US, it would be foolish to think that they didn't have considerable influence here in the US, both through lobbists and through business and real estae acquisitions. Also given is the oil import/export relationship is the prime source of income to most OPEC countries, it only makes sense that they would act to protect it. Maglev trains powered by stationary nuclear plants don't burn nearly as much imported oil as jumbo jets. Now exactly how successful they would be in their efforts to block the progression of an oil free infrastructure taking hold in the US is a potential topic for debate, but the fact that they will use what considerable influence they can to that end would seem obvious.
Re:Trains, US? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree with you completely, but I'd argue that trains work best when they're connecting two mass transit systems together. In New York, you can hop on a subway to 34th St. Penn Station, and then jump on a train to Washington or Boston, and then take mass transit to your destination. It's a doorstep-to-doorstep solution. Disney Land to Vegas lacks that advantage. After arriving in Vegas, I'm going to need a car to get anywhere, so it starts making sense to drive, so you'll have that added flexibility and convenience of not needing to rent a car or take cabs.
The only other angle I could see is that this would effectively allow you to hit both on a single vacation. The problem is that I don't see these markets overlapping much. Disneyworld sells a wholesome, innocent world of talking mice, princesses, and teacup rides. It's pure. It's where to go when you want a world that's unadulterated, and Vegas is where you go when you want adultery. Disney Land tries to be like Eden before the fall, innocent and sinless. Vegas is the city of sin, it's more Sodom and Gomorrah. It's about gambling, gorging yourself on buffets, going to the strip clubs for your buddy's bachelor party, maybe buying a hooker. It's trying to be more family-friendly than it used to be, but still... there's no way in hell I would go to Disney Land unless I had young children. And there is no way in hell I would go to Vegas with young children.
Re:Trains, US? Idiocy? Greed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your post is sadly accurate. This "venture" does nothing except line more pockets already stuffed with cash.
I would think a better allocation of the money and plans would be building a MagLev from certain rural and suburban communities to the not-close-enough-to-drive-to cities to bolster employment, housing and more. As a for instance, in New York, people and politicians (yes I consider them a separate group) often complain about the decline of Upstate New York. Upstate New York has numerous river towns, all arranged in a nice straight line, all with rail beds or rail in place (yes, I know you cant use existing rail for a MagLev - but you can use existing (defunct or not) areas where that rail did or does exist to put a MagLev in, saving LOTS of money in not needing to grade terrain, remove mountains or hills in the way, etc). So... hundreds of small towns, suburbs and rural areas could be connected to areas like Albany, Troy, Plattsburgh, etc... with travel time from the most remote being in the matter of minutes instead of hours by car or regular rail.
What a neat way of building up the area... really short commute to work/the "big" cities, really cheap and affordable housing, lots of land to build more on... which, in the not-too-long run would be what happens as each area becomes more and more self sustaining, both through an influx of new people looking for affordable housing close (time wise at least) to available jobs - and through having financial ties back and forth between the cities and the growing rural and suburban areas (a financial benefit to all involved - and also an incentive for more businesses to move into the cheaper upstate area to help continue that growth).
Nah... that would help too many people - both those who live up there, and those who live in less affordable areas who would consider moving there to have a decent lifestyle, home and job.
Much better to line the pockets of the already insanely rich.
Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag (Score:3, Insightful)
Los Angeles and Las Vegas are pretty-damn-big cities. What's more, the traffic traveling between the two on a regular basis is enormous, and the length of the route in addition to the congestion means getting people out of their cars could be a HUGE win.