They were invented decades ago.
They have fewer moving parts than wheelbois.
They require less maintenance.
There’s obviously some bottleneck in expanding maglev technology, but what is it?
What kind of benefits are there to maglev trains that are not cost related?
They’re faster and more comfortable than traditional rail. They could help to reduce air and vehicle travel
They’re not that faster. Conventional train speed record is 574.8 km/h, Maglev record is 603 km/h. Maglev price doesn’t justify diminishing returns.
And how about the actual speeds they are used with? Another poster suggested the maintenance costs of traditional speeds skyrocket as speed increases, while maglev doesn’t really have a lot of stuff that wears down in the first place.
I doubt conventional trains are regularly traveling at the speed record. Thats a poor way to compare the speeds of things.
Then it’s good that we don’t have them, isn’t it? Kool_Newt’s post implies that it’s due to a failing of capitalism, but this sounds like a win to me. I’d rather my money go towards food and housing than a faster or more comfortable experience doing something I rarely need.
One of the most common flights is US west coast to east coast. Normal high speed rail can’t do this in a reasonable time frame. We need something faster if we want to get reduce those flights.
One of the features of capitalism is externalizing the costs, especially of pollution.
Better acceleration, steeper inclines, tighter curves at same speed, better ride quality and less wear. As someone has mentioned below, normal trains could go a lot faster than they do in practice, because the ride quality, wear and wind resistance get atrocious, and the tracks need to be exceptionally straight. Making a maglev go fast is more feasible, though you still have the wind resistance issue obviously.
