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Why are maglev trains still rare? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

146 comments fedilink hide all child comments

They were invented decades ago.

They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.

They require less maintenance.

There's obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?

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[–] Aux@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maglev's top speed record is just 5% faster than conventional train speed record. Thus if Maglev is more than 5% more expensive, then it doesn't make any sense to build them.

[–] flux@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Speed records aren't usually representative of regular use top speeds, are they?

[–] Aux@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Well, if we look at actual maglev deployments in the real world, then they are much slower than conventional trains. All of them top out at 160kph, while conventional trains going below 200kph don't even count as high speed. There's only one Maglev line in the world which actually goes fast. So if we want to talk about regular speed representation, maglevs are slow and useless.