JAPAN | Maglev

[Zenith]

Makes me embarrased to be British.

[snow is red]

Hey Britain is the world's first industrialized country

[33Hz]

And we sat on our backsides ever since...

[pflo777]

[Trainman Dave]

[QUOTE=pflo777;17324151]But the difference now is that they have a perfectly working demonstration line, which is already part of the future Tokyo Nagoya line, and that they now announced to build it completely financed by JR-Central.

I am pretty sure, that this time, its the breakthrough.
(Even though I admit, that I thought exactly that several times in the past...)
QUOTE]

They had a working demonstration line about 25 years ago!!

This line has been one of the most valuable reasearch tools for high speed railways for many years as they have been testing the areodynamics of high speed vehicals for over 20 years.

The issue is congestion on the Tokyo <> Osaka corridor and every time the Tokaida shinkansen is declared to be at capacity or the airlines claim that they cannot carry any more passengers a clever engineer finds a way to increase the capacity again with double decker trains and planes.

Boeing even delivered a version of the venerable 747 which carried 555 passengers for this transport corridor and I am waiting to discover how many pasengers Airbus will stuff into an A380 for this route?

[Tri-ring]

Originally Posted by Trainman Dave

They had a working demonstration line about 25 years ago!!

This line has been one of the most valuable reasearch tools for high speed railways for many years as they have been testing the areodynamics of high speed vehicals for over 20 years.

The issue is congestion on the Tokyo <> Osaka corridor and every time the Tokaida shinkansen is declared to be at capacity or the airlines claim that they cannot carry any more passengers a clever engineer finds a way to increase the capacity again with double decker trains and planes.

Boeing even delivered a version of the venerable 747 which carried 555 passengers for this transport corridor and I am waiting to discover how many pasengers Airbus will stuff into an A380 for this route?

The test track in Miyazaki was too short to do any real proving tests for manned vehicle but the main reason for delay is in the research of cheaper high temperature super conductive materials. The first break-through was about 20 years ago and now they are trying to lower the price still using metalic superconductive material rather than expensive and hard to fabricate ceramic material.

The A380 will have a hard time here in Japan since neither Itami nor Haneda are equiped to accommodate those behemoths for domestic travel.
The price of jet fuel is also driving the price of air travel between Tokyo-Osaka unpreferable with ever rising ridership of Shinkansen near it's potential as proof.

[Mr. Fusion]

What makes me a skeptic is the 2025 completion date. It sounds too distant in the future, as if they are anticipating passenger demand, budget and revenue. A lot can happen in 17 years.

[pflo777]

17 years are not very long, when you take the size of the project into consideration.

Many projects of the same size or even smaller take also 17 years or longer here in Europe.
The Valero/ICE3 Line from Nurembuerg to Erfurt will be finished in 2017. Altoghether it has taken 20 years to construct the line. And its "only" a 320 kmh Wheel/Rail line.

As JR Central says, that they want to build it completely privat-finanzed, and as oil prizies go higher and higher, I could imagine that it will work out, what they plan.

[TRZ]

Originally Posted by pflo777

[IMG]

Translation: Situated along a planned main route in the National Shinkansen Expansion Law, this plan, connecting from the origin in Metropolitan Tokyo to the terminus in Osaka city, with the Koufu city area, the Nagoya city area, and the Nara city area as its main en-route locations, at a speed of 500km/h, by the superconducting magnetic linear motor car, is the Linear Chuo Shinkansen. If the plan is realized, Tokyo and Osaka's connection becomes about 1 hour apart.

[hkskyline]

How much will they charge to pay for the enormous construction cost?

[Tri-ring]

Originally Posted by hkskyline

How much will they charge to pay for the enormous construction cost?

Although it is complete speculation, tickets for Tokyo-Nagoya is 14,000 yen for 1st class(Green seat) so 20% premium of will probably the upper ceiling making it 16,800 yen(at present rate).

[pflo777]

isnt that new high speed train also planned for commuters?
That woudl mean, that the people pay less, but the capatacity his higher---> which pays back for the company that runs it.

[jkjkjk]

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=467936

[Revas]

Share markets don't seem to enjoy the idea :

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...OQ&refer=japan

JR Central Plunges for a Second Day on Maglev Plan (Update4)

By Stuart Biggs and Hiroshi Matsui

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Central Japan Railway Co., the nation's largest bullet-train operator, fell for a second day on the Tokyo Stock Exchange after announcing a 5.1 trillion yen ($45 billion) plan to build a maglev train link.

The stock dropped 6.9 percent to close at 959,000 yen in Tokyo, the lowest value in two years, after plunging 8.9 percent yesterday. The two-day drop is the biggest in more than 10 years.

Central Japan Rail, also known as JR Central, wants to build the magnetic levitation link by 2025 as an alternative to its Shinkansen bullet-train line that runs 290 kilometers (180 miles) between Tokyo and the central city of Nagoya. Nagoya-based JR Central estimates its long-term debt will peak at 4.9 trillion yen in 2025 when it starts to operate the maglev.

``Many investors think it's too big an amount for JR Central to invest,'' said Mitsuo Shimizu, an analyst at Cosmo Securities Co. in Tokyo. Competition is causing railroads and airlines to cut fares, he added. ``Even though competition will be hard, JR Central decided to have heavy debt. I think it's natural that investors are worried about their financial strength.''

JR Central is considering ``various ways'' to finance the project, Mitsuru Nakamura, an executive director, told reporters in Tokyo on Dec. 25. The company aims to reduce debt to the current level in eight years after the maglev train starts operations. JR Central owed 3.5 trillion yen as of Sept. 30, according to the company.

``Investors are focusing too much on the short-term'' financial burden of the company's plan, said Makoto Murayama, a senior analyst at Nomura Securities in Tokyo, who began coverage of JR Central today with a ``neutral'' rating on the stock. ``The introduction of the innovative service will increase corporate value.''

Maglev trains hover about a centimeter above their tracks, held and propelled by electromagnetic forces. Shanghai, the business capital of China, is the only city in the world to have a commercial maglev train.

In Japan, ``if you don't have a reservation on weekends, you can't get a seat on the bullet train, so it is clear there is demand from travelers,'' Murayama said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net ; Hiroshi Matsui in Tokyo at hmatsui2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 27, 2007 04:10 EST

[ZZ-II]

these japanese guys are amazing! . i would love to sit in a 600km/h fast train

[TRZ]

China is not the only maglev operator these days, there is a local maglev line in Nagoya (Linimo). Why is it that nobody knows about Linimo and they still think China is the only operator? Idiots think that if it isn't high speed it isn't maglev?! Urban maglev is actually superior to its high-speed application in terms of operations expenses (unless a vaccuum model is successfully engineered in the future).

[pflo777]

maybe because nobody is interested in a low speed maglev like Linimo?

When it comes to maintenance cost, I think nothing can beat the shanghai maglev.
From what I read in several publications, the maintenance cost are even lower than expected.
All you have to do, is make a software update on the levitation system every half year, and in the meantime, you have to clean the train. Thats about it. Not comparable to the madness you have do to keep a wheel/rail highspeed train running.

[TRZ]

Originally Posted by pflo777

maybe because nobody is interested in a low speed maglev like Linimo?

Doesn't change the fact that it is a commercially operational maglev line - just as much as China's, so China is not the only one like newspapers continue to mistakenly report.

[pflo777]

so, do we have any furhter news?

Was it really the final breakthrouhgt? Do they really build this thing now, or was it just another newspaper article, stating that a malgev line will be built and nothing happens like we had so many times before.

When do they want to start construction?

[TRZ]

Originally Posted by pflo777

so, do we have any furhter news?

Was it really the final breakthrouhgt? Do they really build this thing now, or was it just another newspaper article, stating that a malgev line will be built and nothing happens like we had so many times before.

When do they want to start construction?

They're already doing work needed to improve the technology on the existing line. That goes on until 2013, and then testing goes on until 2016, after which they will construct the rest, I think. They will likely be doing up the plans for the rest of the line for construction while testing so that they can start right away, but I'm only guessing on that one.

Here's a chart that shows the phases, but it does not include dates.

http://www.linear-chuo-exp-cpf.gr.jp/gaiyo6.html

Image of the route but showing which part is the test track: