Magnetic Levitation railway (MAGLEV)

Magnetic levitation railway, also known as Maglev, is a transport system in which the train levitates over a rail, hold up by magnetic fields.

This suspension state limits the rubbing of the train with the air, allowing that way to reach a speed virtually unattainable for conventional railway (even 600kph in prototypes).

This technology has been under development for a long time, but the high cost of this kind of infrastructure has prevented its introduction.

(c) Transrapid international

Nowadays, there are three kinds of magnetic levitation technologies:

-Electromagnetic suspension (EMS): Allows high speed and generates low danger magnetic fields. It is very expensive, even to produce or to exploit.

-Electrodynamic suspension (EDS): Allows high speeds and high weight freights. It uses high temperature superconductors HTS, that must be refrigerated with nitrogen. The magnetic fields generated are highly perceptible in and out the train, fact that makes impossible to be used by people with pacemakers. Trains must have wheels for low speed itineraries. The cost per kilometre is brutal.

-Permanent magnets suspension (Indutrack): It is a system with lower exploiting costs because is not necessary an electric current to make the train levitate. The permanent magnetic field guarantees suspension in case of electric failure. Trains must have wheels for propelling themselves.

The first commercial system of Maglev trains all around the world has been developed by the German company Transrapid International, a joint-venture between Siemens and Thyssenkrupp industrial companies.

Today, their product is only working in Shanghai, in the line that joins the city financial downtown with its international airport.

(c) Transrapid international

This high speed magnetic levitation train allows to make the 30km route in only 7 and a half minutes.
There are other projects in Germany, USA, United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, and even a great project for joining London and Glasgow, going trough all Great Britain, but at the moment any one of this proposals is approved.

Japan, with Germany, is the most active country in the investigation and development of this technology. Japan Railway Company develops since some years the JR-Maglev project. This system, as the Transrapid, uses EMS technology. The trials of this system are being done in the Yamanashi experimental line, where the speed record for Maglev trains was established, 581kph (in December, 2003).