Article: Fast train can hit 581km/h

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From the Courier Mail click here!

Fast train can hit 581km/h

Fast train can hit 581km/h
Article from: The Courier-Mail

By Hiroshi Osedo in Tokyo

November 01, 2008 03:02am

JAPAN is edging slowly closer to a future where trains will be travelling very fast indeed.

By 2025 commuters on a "maglev" line between Tokyo and Nagoya will be hurtling along at incredible speeds of up to 581km/h.

They will travel the 290km in just 40 minutes. The next step is a Tokyo-Osaka trip of 480km in one hour.

Rail officials say as many as 200,000 passengers a day could make the journey.

By comparison, a Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train takes 2 1/2 hours to travel between these two cities.

All this is set to be faster than China's maglev links.

The proposed speed of a Chinese train linking Shanghai and Hangzhou is 450km/h. When this line is completed in 2014, the 169km trip will take 27 minutes.

The French TGV, the world's fastest conventional train, has reached a top speed of 574km/h.

A "magnetically levitating" train floats about 10mm above its guideway on a magnetic field and has low maintenance costs.

It is the next step in rail engineering but the first Japanese commercial service is still years away because it requires a massive construction project.

The Tokyo line to Nagoya and Osaka would be constructed on the shortest straight route going through the Southern Japan Alps, industry sources said recently.

Central Japan Railway Co, known as JR Tokai, announced in December last year that it would spend 5.1 trillion ($72.8 billion) to construct the section to Nagoya.

It has been reported that some 80 per cent of the route go through tunnels - particularly in the densely populated Tokyo and Nagoya areas.

The Alps route has been challenged by local governments which are upset they will not be serviced by the line.

The Nagano Prefecture Government wanted the Lake Suwa resort or Ina city - a city with hot springs - to be included. But JR Tokai is reluctant to choose either of the two northern options which are between 50km and 100km longer than the Alps route.

It was some 40 years ago that the state-owned Japanese National Railways started the project to launch a maglev train system. The maglev train system is popularly known as "Linear Motor Car" in Japan.

A three-car operated by JR Tokai set a world-record speed of 581km/h in 2003.

JR Tokai says the maglev lines could act as an alternative route if the Tokaido Shinkansen line was blocked by a major earthquake.