[kubiiii]

About the land access concern, in France we had the aerotrain which was developped as an alternative to high speed train but did not survive the conventional railroad lobbies. There is still 60 km of test track south of Paris. The track is 10 m above the ground and is built using pillars every 20 m. It has been there for more than 40 years for it's considered too expensive to dismantle for actual very limited annoyment, more limited than high voltage power lines for example. However, land is flat there and mostly non urban.

[TsiCClawOfLight]

Germany has something similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transrapid The Asian maglevs are german engineering.

[seanmcdirmid]

Not like Asia is awash in maglevs, I think the shanghai airport link is the only commercial one.

[TsiCClawOfLight]

I think Japan is working on one, but I might be mistaken. But yes, the Shanghai one is german. :)

[nicwest]

link to google maps of a bit of the track (I think): goo.gl/uxGxUs