This article inquires why so little progress has been made with magnetically levitated trains (MAGLEV) after about 30 years of work and billions of dollars of research and development worldwide. No MAGLEV train has been used in any long-distance passenger service, and only a few short-hop commercial projects have been completed. In 1995, the last of these was closed down at Birmingham Airport, England. The USA left the MAGLEV field in the 1970s, and Germany and Japan, the only two nations to pursue it seriously, have yet to progress beyond test tracks. It seems unlikely that MAGLEV technology will ever compete seriously with airlines, other trains, or cars for distances under 800km. One reason is that the present operating range of the fastest high-speed trains, 300-350kph, is not far below the maximum feasible speed of a MAGLEV train, 450-500kph, so that MAGLEV would usually achieve intercity journey time savings of an hour at most. The cost of doing this might not be commercially viable. The best chance for a MAGLEV service to appear is the Transrapid, on the 292km high-speed line between Berlin and Hamburg, scheduled for 2005. But Germany has important objectors to this project. For the covering abstract, see IRRD 896880.
Abstract