China's new high-speed train just set a new record as the world’s fastest — and it could travel faster than an airplane
China's new high-speed train just set a new record as the world’s fastest — and it could travel faster than an airplane
When completed, the maglev train will reach 621 miles per hour, much faster than commercial flights.
It's probably faster than an airplane if you also factor in the time lost at airports going through meaningless queues.
n China, the trains are awesome and pretty much everything else sucks hard.
Chinese train stations are a fucking nightmare compared to the rest of the world. First, they have a funneled entrance from the subway that goes through multiple choke points. For example, at Shanghai Hongqiao, you're in a mob of hundreds, forced to go up two long escalators.
Next, people there don't have freedom of travel, so there is a security check to actually enter the station, where they look at your papers and make sure you're approved for your destination. The queues are super long and people constantly cut in line. It's rage-inducing.
Then they subject you to a baggage check, metal detector, and frisking.
Now you're inside the station, but you can't just go to the platform. Instead, you wait at a secure gate until maybe ten minutes before scheduled departure. Again, it's a giant mob of people, trying to form a line in a station that's also just overcrowded. They finally open the gate and everyone rushes through and down to the platform.
You have to arrive an hour ahead of your train's departure else you're going to have a very stressful time.
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That's the huge advantage of trains in my opinion. Instead of having to drive out to the airport, and deal with check in, boarding, and so on, you just go to the train station downtown and get off downtown of the city you want to go to. That alone saves a ton of time and hassle.
I worry that the more useful and prevalent high speed trains become, the more the population will use them… and the more likely the long useless queues will also move to trains.
Trains can have more stations to spread out the load, but then they won’t be as high speed.
Still, I’ll happily take advantage of the currently short queues.
In airports it's usually the security theater that causes the long queues.
I think this is unlikely to happen. Going through security is one of the big sources of useless queues at airports, which trains don't have. Trains also tend to have more doors to get, which should reduce the length of queues to get on the train.
I feel that could be resolved by adjusting ticket prices and providing alternative options, like regional buses/coaches. Another possibility is adding more doors to each carriage, spreading out queues across the platform, but at the cost of less seating
Where I am, the regional/inter-city train costs are very competitive with the alternatives, and sometimes enable more flexibility with travel. It's still nowhere near the affordability of some parts of Asia though, and is overpriced IMO. My biggest gripe though has got to be only 2 doors on each carriage side, one at either end. And they're narrow AF, good luck carrying a bike on board. What sadist designed these trains 😭
Canada is pathetic.
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I wish when governments said they want to be competitive with China they did like the one thing China does that would raise our quality of life. As in make trains.
I remember how maglev was supposed to be the future when I was growing up but most European projects went way over budget and were eventually scrapped so I'm really happy to see that the Chinese finished this thing and that it actually works and delivers in terms of speed.
This feels so much more futuristic than boring tunnels.
Unfortunately, the west’s political systems disincentivize projects that take longer than an election cycle. Everyone needs short term wins to secure re-election and it has stopped us from doing most things that inherently take a long time to show results.
And all the NIMBY's who definitely don't want a train line going "here" where they live, since it would be way better "there". And then the local politicians who listen to them.
My knowledge might be outdated but my understanding is that maglev is still unreliable and frequently breaks down or has to operate at slower speeds. Not yet a completely mature technology I think... but very interesting for sure.
My knowledge might be outdated but my understanding is that maglev is still unreliable and frequently breaks down or has to operate at slower speeds. Not yet a completely mature technology I think... but very interesting for sure.
Nice to read a wholesome post about China once in a while
I feel like it's a lie because of how the Japanese have engineered their trains. Theirs have a huge leading "nose" structure to help them move the air in a fluid manner. I'm thinking the engineering behind that hasn't just suddenly been out done.
China's been working on these trains for over a decade now, there's nothing sudden about it. Also weird to think that what Japan did can't be replicated, if you look at the picture of the actual Chinese maglev train it too has a large nose structure https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-fastest-maglev-train-intl-hnk/index.html
I hope there are not too many tunnels or that they found a way to relieve the pressure when going through them at high speed. This is a thing I noticed in France when taking the TGV (300kmh), when going inside tunnels at a rather high speed, there is a lot of pressure, it kind of feels like a plane landing, but shorter and more intense