• LwL@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Japan has been building a long distance one for a while now. It got held up in one prefecture because of environmental and political reasons though. Currently running maglevs anywhere are all kinda gimmicky (really no point in going super fast when the distance is very short anyway, waste of money).

      • stumu415@lemmy.zip
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        16 hours ago

        In China they will run it between Shanghai and Beijing initially, which is about 1200 kilometer. Currently it is either a 2.5 hour flight plus getting to and from the airport or a 4.5 hour high-speed train which starts and stops in the heart of both cities.

        With the maglev the duration will drop to 2 hours. That is not trivial as you suggest. It is a genuine transport solution to counter the more polluting flights. In China people prefer the train over plane wherever possible. It is more comfortable, quiet and enjoyable.

    • stumu415@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      Shanghai also has a Maglev since 2001: 25 years ago, from the airport with a topspeed of 430 km/h.

      But this new Maglev will be a proper commercial maglev to replace the older generation high-speed trains.