| Stephen,
>I cannot verify your technical reply on Maglev which is contrary to the article from a magazine, >will revert. Those arguments apply to the type of Magle were the "rail" is dumb and passive, but the drive is in the vehicle. Just BECAUSE this might cause big problems at high speed, as the whole power has to be fed to vehicle, the situation is reversed on high speed Maglevs, where the "rail" is active (hence so expensive) and the carriage only does the levitation (actually they say on the website, they can stay levitated up to an hour on the on board battery alone!). In fact, that means that the carriage is not really "driven" by the vehicle directly but it only sends commands to the control room, who accordingly controls the respective parts of the "rail"way (not all are energized at the same time) and controls the vehicle speed via the AC frequency! They say this is an extra factor of savety, if two train on the same rail come so close that they enter the same "segment", they only can run at the *same* speed because they see the same AC frequency, hence no back-on collisions possible! See here (and around that website): http://www.transrapid.de/en/index.html Respectively the noise I really would like to experinece it myself from the outside. Also the German enviromentalists heavily argue(d) against the Maglev because itīs so "loud". However, in the Maglev, the only noise will come from the air friction with the vehicle, the drive does not make noticeable noise. (As from the info I got, its from 0 to 300 Hz, a very audible region, and I did not notice any low frequency, sine-like sound on the trips!). SO, it can only be QUITER than any other system at the same speed which will also cause noise from vibrations etc. in the wheels. Joachim |
Inside Pudong Airport Maglev Train