| > But maglev was researched extensively and then we decided against it. The people against it were the Boomer-Greens, the same generation that got us Harz-IV and favoured Coal over Nuclear. Their anti-transrapid standpoint was just a political counter point to the policy of the CDU, which is absolutely insane, considering that todays greens would be super happy if the CDU started to propose better faster trains. The BUND (Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz) made some wild claims about bird sanctuaries, ignoring the fact that the reduced noise level and lower ground area requirements would have been a huge improvement for bird sanctuaries, compared to ICE.
The same BUND that has a working group against cell towers and community wifi because of RaDIAtioN. > Regarding prices: those are actually very reasonable prices for High-speed-trains. That's only if you book months in advance, and even then it's often cheaper to take the plane, which is absolutely insane. > Maglev is so much more expensive to build At 17Mio/Euro per double KM, it's EXACLY the same as high-speed ICE tracks.
The more costly linear accelerator tech is set of by the cheaper pylons. Turns out preparing the ground and piling up a 5m pile of Gravel is really really expensive. > I simply can't see how that would lead to better prices The main ticket price contributor is not the tracks, it's energy and maintenance.
Both are significantly reduced for a contact free system with no moving parts and no vibrations. > The one that failed everywhere they tried?
Because solar panels don't like being driven on.
But the Transrapid would just float over the solar panels embedded into the center of the track. You might argue that one could also put solar panels in between regular train track, but the vibration and material dust would quickly render them useless. > Or you could place them literally anywhere else, there is no shortage of space to put solar panels in. NIMBY NIMBY NIMBY. With solar transrapid pylons kill two birds with one stone, the track even provides the infrastructure to transport the electricity. You also forget that the self contained shuttle design of the Transrapid would allow for completely new routing schemes. Instead of a fixed timetable you could use much more flexible "package" based routing, where trains are scheduled on demand. You'd also be able to save a lot of energy lost in regenerative breaking at ever stop by booking a single train from say, Hamburg to Rome, without any stops. |