Magnetic Levitation: Trains Of The Future

Magnetic levitation or maglev for short is the system of making a vehicle, more often than not a train, hover above the ‘track’ and move by the use of magnets. Magnetic levitation has the potential to move trains more quickly and more quietly than conventional wheel-based trains. Surprisingly, most of the power consumed is used to overcome wind resistance at high speed, not to keep the train hovering in mid-air.

You would be forgiven for imagining that maglev is new technology, but in fact the first American patent was filed by a German inventor in America in 1907. It then took 74 years before the first commercial maglev train came into service in 1984 in Birmingham, United Kingdom. However, that particular system became fairly unreliable and it was taken out of service in 1995.

The highest recorded speed of a maglev train under test conditions was in Japan in 2003. It ran at an inspiring 361 mph, but that is just 3.5 mph faster than France’s TGV, which has been in existance for four decades. The TGV’s top speed of 357.2 mph was surpassed by the Chinese Harmony Express in 2009.

However, these latter day wheeled services are based on tried and tested technology on which hundreds of billions of dollars has been spent during nearly 200 years. If more attention and money were lavished on the maglev, it would exceed conventional train speeds fairly easily.

The most flourishing maglev train in operation nowadays runs to Shanghai airport like the British one ran to Birmingham Airport. However, the similarity between the two ceases there. The British maglev travelled at up to 26 mph, whereas the Chinese, but German built, maglev runs at a top speed of 160 mph.

A lot of the early research and development was carried out in Britain by Professor Eric Laithwaite from after the Second World War to 1973, but Germany is the foremost influence on the maglev train now, although Germany is working closely with the Chinese and the Japanese to improve the technology.

One of the major stumbling blocks for maglev trains is infrastructure. Maglev trains are incompatible with conventional rail rack so they have nowhere to go. Laying new maglev track is not horribly expensive, but it is dear and would involve having two sets of incompatible rails running alongside each other for a number of decades, which would obviously take up twice as much land.

Having said that, some advancement was achieved in designing rails that could be used by both technologies but the project was allowed to fall fallow.

So, the history of magnetic levitation trains started with a German inventor more than a hundred years ago and although they lost track of the scheme for thirty years or so during and after the War, German scientists and engineers are back at the vanguard of this fascinating technology, which will surely replace our traditional train and track systems in the future.

If the electricity required to run them were produced by methods other than fossil fuel, these very quiet trains would go a long way to reducing pollution in both inner cities and the countryside.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a lot of subjects, but is currently involved with train sets for kids. If you would like to know more about train sets for kids, please go over to our website for some great offers.