The only problem with maglev (and the reason it is not being adopted widely, even in China) is its inflexibility and inability to handle the passenger flows moving between cities (3 September, page 38).

Maglev cannot access destinations beyond or between the end destinations. In the daytime, railway operators make money from stopping at stations other than just Manchester city centre and London. Maglev could not do this and so one doubts it would be cheaper at all.

There is also the sticky issue of planning that drives me crazy in this country - can you imagine cutting through this bureaucracy with a maglev that is visible above ground level with the nimbys in charge now?

I fear there are many reasons maglev will not get beyond an airport link, or one or two grand projects linking two cities for show. Indeed, China is pursuing high-speed rail, not maglev. Japan is the only country with a similar density to the UK that has a high-speed model applicable to UK geography. They do this by separating high-speed rail from the rest of the network. I hear you say, well that’s the same as maglev! Yes, I see the point, however, they are also state-owned and many do not make money - a model you could not replicate over here because of companies do not see trains as services but as commercial operations.

Japan started with high-speed rail, and a 250mph target in the medium term is seen as more cost-effective than building a whole new system. TGV loses vast amounts of money, too. Also, no test bed has run maglevs as long as Japan’s shinkansen [bullet] trains or dealt with such volumes of traffic.

Maglev could work as a service and not a commercial operation, but only if we abolish our nimby attitude to progress that would make the Victorians turn in their graves.

But I fear it can’t be made to pay, and so, as with so many great ideas, it will not get built on a mass scale any time soon.

Richard Woodward

Topics