Transrapid
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Transrapid is a German monorail system using magnetic levitation. Based on a patent from 1934, planning of an actual Transrapid system started in 1969. The test facility for the system in Emsland, Germany was completed in 1987, and in 1989 a Transrapid train reached a record-breaking speed of 436 kilometers per hour. Today the speed-record has cracked the 500 km/h limit. The system is developed and marketed by Siemens and ThyssenKrupp.
The Transrapid is said to be more energy efficient than a standard train and considerably less noisy. This is chiefly due to the absence of friction between train and track. (However, for high-speed trains in general, most energy is consumed to overcome air friction, as it scales, other than the wheels' friction, with the square of the velocity.) It is also capable of climbing significantly steeper tracks, rendering it especially suitable for mountainous regions. It is possible to flexibly adapt its guideway to the landscape and to have it tightly follow existing roads, railroad tracks, and power lines. Therefore, no significant interventions in the environment are necessary and pristine landscape is protected. Furthermore, the original use of the landscape under the guideway is still possible (farming or grazing for example). However, track building costs are higher than for conventional high-speed trains.
The synchronous longstator linear motor of the Transrapid maglev system is used both for propulsion and braking. It functions like a rotating electric motor whose stator is cut open and stretched along under the guideway. Inside the motor windings, alternating current generates a magnetic traveling field which moves the vehicle without contact. The support magnets in the vehicle function as the excitation portion (rotor). The respective magnetic traveling field works in only one direction, and therefore makes train collisions impossible, as more than one train on the track section would travel in the same direction.
The superspeed maglev system has no wheels, axles, transmissions, or pantographs. It doesn't roll; it hovers. Electronic systems guarantee that the clearance remains constant (nominally 10 mm). To hover, the Transrapid requires less power than its air conditioning equipment. The levitation system and all onboard electronics are supplied by the power recovered from harmonic oscillations of magnetic field of the track's linear stator (Those oscillations being parasitic cannot be used for propulsion anyway). In case of power failure of the track's propulsion system Transrapid car uses on-board backup batteries that can supply power to the levitation system.
The Transrapid originated as one of the competing concepts for new land-based high speed public transportation for Germany. Another competing concept was the Inter-City Express (ICE). The ICE "won" in that it was adopted nationwide in Germany. It is argued that the ICE won out in part because of its ability to run on conventional tracks (albeit not at full speeds). Nevertheless, for some reason Transrapid development was not scrapped at this point, but continued as well (though the train was not adopted nationwide).
However, in the 1990s, intense political discussions about the Transrapid started in Germany. Though technically superior to normal railroad systems, the transrapid was considered too expensive, as the companies developing it relied on federal subsidies. The controversy mostly raged over the question whether public money should be invested in construction of a track for commercial use. Plans for a track from Berlin to Hamburg were cancelled because legislators were not convinced that the project would ever become profitable and hence were unwilling to invest the money in times of tight budgets -- in spite of the alleged importance of having a working Transrapid system in Germany in order to ease marketing of the system abroad.
The only success so far was in the year 2000, when the Chinese government ordered a Transrapid track to be built connecting Shanghai to its Pu Dong airport. It was inaugurated in 2002. Regular daily trips started in March 2004. However, low passenger numbers, due mostly to the relatively high ticket costs, hampered the line. During the first week, the average number of riders per train was only 73 people out of a maximum seating capacity of 440 passengers. One-way trip prices have recently dropped to 50 Renminbi ($6 USD).
The Transrapid manufacturers had high hopes of obtaining a subsequent order from China for a track connecting Shanghai with Beijing. Hence, it was considered a serious drawback when in 2004 China chose the Japanese high-speed train Shinkansen, to the disappointment of Siemens, which had hoped to sell at least the ICE which is manufactured by them as the Transrapid system partly is.
In the year 2002, it had been decided that a track connecting the cities of Düsseldorf and Dortmund via the city of Essen should be built with financial help by the federal and state (Bundesland) governments. Later, a second track between the two cities might have been built closing the loop via Wuppertal. This track was expected to be operational in 2007 though it was originally planned to be ready for the 2006 soccer world championship in Germany. However, the project has been cancelled by the involved companies as of June 27th, 2003, after the government set a "take it or leave it" maximum on subsidies.
As an alternative, the proponents of the Transrapid (which include the government of Bavaria) are, as of 2004, planning to connect the Bavarian capital Munich to its international airport, which is quite far away from the city center. This idea is controversial as well: Although the current connection via S-Bahn (German city railroad system) takes about 40 minutes for the distance, this is mainly due to the train stopping very often in between; a conventional express train on the existing track would be only about 3 minutes slower than the proposed Transrapid.
See also
- For an overview of competitors to this system, see High-speed rail.
External link
- Transrapid homepage (http://www.transrapid.de/)
- Slideshow on the Transrapid (http://www.transrapid.de/en/medien/praesentation/1.html)
- Transrapid Pictures at Shanghai Pudong Airport (http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20030809_pudong_airport_maglev_in_depth.htm)