Transportation Bill Sets Aside $45 Million For MagLev Train

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

[LaskoVortex]

Derided by critics as pie in the sky

Where critics = oil companies and automobile manufacturers

Previous train route cancelled due to low useage

[Starvingboy]

From the very short article

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.

This has to be a joke/troll. 45 Mil for the environmental study for a already failed train route? I don't know if I should laugh or cry.

Re:Critics

[azgard]

Really? I am from Europe, and just have to wonder...

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

[jmv]

And how long did the previous train take. If it took 8 hours, then maybe it's the reason it didn't succeed. That being said, if you're going to build a maglev train, you might as well build it between two major cities, like New York to Washington.

Re: "making it actually useful"

[FurtiveGlancer]

I think they are more concerned with making it actually profitable.

Re:Huge construction project.. recession..

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

Come on, this technology is well proven, there's been a testtrack running for over twenty years at Siemens in Germany, a stretch of track has been taken into production between Hamburg and someplace else (can't remember) and a line between Shanghai and Pudong airport has been running for some years now.

At the moment, it's still to expensive, and all countries/continents where passenger trains are common have extensive networks of traditional tracks ... and let's face it, the French technology in this case, the TGV, is almost as fast and runs on conventional tracks ( which, admittely, have to be purpose built for the TGV with shallower turns etc but still ).

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..

[basiles]

Sorry, a $45 millions budget is not huge. In France, 300 km of a TGV lines cost exceed the 3 billion euros. (See that [wikipedia.org] in French; remember that 'milliard' in French = 1E9 = billion in English). And the LGV line is doing well. And I am not ashamed that it is funded by French taxpayers money. I wish -for American people- that the next USA administration will actually fund (with dozens of billions of US$, not dozens of millions) a better transport system in the US.

Re:Critics

[Anonymous Coward]

Las Vegas - Los Angeles maglev train would be useful, but not economically viable. The distance is too short for such speedy train.

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

[spineboy]

There is already a "high speed" train that runs between New York and Washington D.C. - the Acela Express, for a commute time of 2 hours 48 min. It is limited to a paltry 75-150 MPH (120-240 KPH) due to track conditions. Mostly the speed is limited via the existing infrastructure, the bridges, tunnels, track closeness etc. Higher speeds would necessitate reinforcement of those structures, and the overhead electrical wires to withstand higher speeds. Much of the speed inhibition is in that the train needs to tilt to navigate the sharp rail curves. Pre-existing tracks are to close together to allow for high speed cornering that would require the trains to tilt, thus preventing train collisions between regular trains, and the leaning Acela Express. Of note, there are multiple at-grade crossings on this trains route - these are rarely found on other high speed train lines for obvious reasons.

Re:Huge construction project.. recession..

[SlashWombat]

So, like the american rocket program, you will now need to get yourself more German scientists just so you can come in second place.

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?

[spineboy]

It would seem that Los Angeles to Las Vegas would be more population centered, thus insuring better profitability.

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..

[jimicus]

Tom Harris, the Rail Minister, said: "The argument that high-speed rail travel is a 'green option' does not necessarily stand up to close inspection. Increasing the maximum speed of a train from 200kph [125mph - the current maximum speed of domestic trains] to 350kph leads to a 90 per cent increase in energy consumption."

So instead everyone who can flies, which is so much better for the environment.

And this man's the Rail Minister? Sweet Jesus.

Re:Critics

[amRadioHed]

That's the first thing I though. High-Speed Rail [ca.gov] to San Francisco is what we really need, the current rail situation is a joke. A four hour trip from San Diego to San Francisco for under $100? Yes please!

Re: "making it actually useful"

[Anonymous Coward]

They would make a huge profit from a DC to NY train assuming it had stops in the big East Coast Cities. I grew up in Baltimore and it seems that almost everybody their worked in DC and had to drive all the way everyday. A lot of people would use it for business commutes and many college kids could use it to get home from school (UMD, GW etc) without car.

Re:Previous train route cancelled due to low useag

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

Even if economies of scale get the price down to $10 million per km the cost will be $4 billion.

Let me see if I can convert that to units I can understand...I guess Libraries of Congress per second, Olympic Swimming Pools, and rods per hogshead have the wrong dimensions... how about 0.02 Wars on Terror, 10 bridges to nowhere, or 20 unmanned space probes?

Re:Huge construction project.. recession..

[MtViewGuy]

It's not as big a boondoggle as you think. It could pave the way for essentially obseleting air travel between city centers for trips under 600 miles in distance due to the 300+ mph cruising speed of maglev trains.

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..

[conureman]

The techniques being tested are for tax-dollar extraction. It is extremely complex and requires lots of study and careful planning. Transportation is just a side-effect.

Re:Huge construction project.. recession..

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely not, but with the current administration I do believe we're nearing a level of perfection previously unheard of.

As a Minnesota driver...

[1zenerdiode]

...after having watched part of our antiquated, outmoded, and obviously unused highway system crumble into the Mississippi, I feel that perhaps we should be allocating this money to maintaining the existing infrastructure? Maybe a few of us backward, countryfolk in flyover territory still use these existing carbon-hungry systems? Also, I suffer this delusion that the gas taxes I pay should be channeled not into the general fund, but into transportation projects in my state. If new development is desired, perhaps a few dozen new nuclear plants and an attempt to electrify the vehicle fleet?

MagLev is pointless

[Toreo asesino]

The French made their TGV go much faster than 300Mph on normal tracks by basically giving it bigger wheels - 352Mph to be precise.

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

[legutierr]

Whatever its problems may be, the Acela is the fastest and easiest way to get from NYC to Washington. A flight might be of shorter duration, but when you factor in the inconvenience and delay of ticketing and security, and the time and cost of getting to the airport, the overall trip is faster. Plus you don't have to mess with those stupid ziplock bags, and you don't have to turn off your cell phone. I never fly between NY and DC, it's only the Acela.

It would be great, though, if they improved the tracks to get the full speed out of the train.

Re:Huge construction project.. recession..

[timeOday]

Don't think it will ever make enough money to be profitable. Obviously a pork barrel project!

"Ever" is a long time. Imagine DC without the Metro, what a nightmare. But where did it come from? When it was built, why wasn't it shot down by everybody thinking it's just too gosh darn hard and probably not worth it anyways? It seems we can't accomplish anything anymore, anything that would require new infrastructure is "impossible," so we sit here suffering and doing nothing about it.

Re:Trains, US?

[c6gunner]

Allowing real high speed trains in the US is a threat to our dependence on foreign oil, and the foreign lobbyists simply won't ALLOW it. At some point there will be no wide open spaces left for these trains, and then the public (nimbys) will be against trains on their own, without opposition from Big Oil.

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 ... but if I had realized that it would help establish an entire generation of raving lunatics, I'd have gotten some funding set aside at the pentagon to have the CIA assassinate Fox Moulder .....

Re:Critics

[yog]

Good point, but what do the train riders do once they get there? LA and Vegas are car cities with scant public transportation. It's not enough just to have the inter-city leg. You need to have feeder buses or trolleys at each end, or short term car rentals, or... I don't know.

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?

[Solandri]

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.

Why are companies investing in optical and quantum computing when current semiconductor technology outperforms them and is cheaper? To lay the groundwork for future technologies. If we don't do it know, we'll just have to do it some time in the future. At some point the investment needs to be made trying out this stuff in production, otherwise you'll be stuck using the old technology forever.

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

[canuck57]

Derided by critics as pie in the sky

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

[CdBee]

the French national railway (SNCF) has proven time and time again that electric trains can easily achieve 300mph (a TGV hit 357mph on test in 2007)

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..

[canuck57]

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

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

[Mike1024]

Let me see if I can convert that to units I can understand [...] how about 0.02 Wars on Terror

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

[TheLink]

"Trains should be 3 feet high and passengers loaded like peas in a pod. "

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?

[Original Replica]

It's amazing how much paranoia has become ingrained in certain subsections of modern western society.

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?

[flyingsquid]

I was going to say the same thing. Trains can be good for shorter trips. You can get from downtown(ish) Ottawa, to downtown (real downtown) Toronto in 5 hours. The flight is only 45 minutes, but once you count check-in, security, boarding, taken-off, and travelling from the airport to downtown, you're looking at about the same amount of time anyway. Both are roughly the same price, but the train seats are a lot more comfortable, and the whole experience is much more pleasant.

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?

[RobertM1968]

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

[evilviper]

That being said, if you're going to build a maglev train, you might as well build it between two major cities, like New York to Washington.

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.