China operates the world’s only commercial maglev train. It connects Shanghai Airport and the city center, and reaches top speeds of 430 km/h. China is also testing a near-vacuum-tube train which claims it may achieve speeds of up to 1,000 km/h in the future.
Interestingly this project aims to demonstrate 800 km/h later in 2025. That speed is almost as fast as the cruising speed of commercial airliners.
Will it need special rail tracks? This is the Japanese test maglev train passing people at 500 km/hr.
400 mph in 7 seconds: China’s maglev breaks speed barriers with new record
To be fair, this is a 1.1-tonne test vehicle. While the Japanese maglev is an entire train. I guess the real issue, though, is to get it from a tech demonstration into a prototype and then into an actual product. China doesn’t even have a prototype with that. And the maglev in Japan is just a prototype. I think it’s on a test track to show off a few times a day, but doesn’t transport people anywhere. And we had other people fail early on with the entire vacuum tube idea. Like Elon Musk also promised that a decade ago and it’s scrapped now.
I believe that it has been documented that Elon spread the tube train idea with the single purpose of derailing traditional high speed train from being planned. The reasoning supposedly being that fewer people on trains means more people in cars.
Nice theory. Was there a plan to construct high speed trains across the USA? I heard people there don’t really want a good train system in the first place, and I must have missed it if any political party put that on their agenda.
When he proposed the idea, he explicitly framed it as a response to California’s high-speed rail project that is currently ongoing
Ah thanks. That makes sense.
404 mph not found.
