Too late, Mom, the mob has spoken!

[khaosworks]

World's first commercial magnetic levitation train opens in China

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji opened the world's first commercial magnetic levitation train, with both sides having much to gain from its success.

The one billion dollar Transrapid magnetic suspension railway linking the sprawling metropolis of Shanghai to its international airport has been built and designed by German engineering giants Siemens and ThyssenKrupp.

Tuesday's inaugural return trip along the 30-kilometre (19-mile) line, with Schroeder, Zhu and around 100 officials on board, represents the first ever application of new "maglev" technology, in which the train literally floats above the track.

Held up by powerful magnets, it can travel at speeds of over 430 kilometres per hour (260 miles per hour). The Xinhua news agency said it successfully reached that maximum speed Tuesday, covering the distance in eight minutes.

Comments

[camwyn]

Faboo.

Meanwhile I'll be over here cheering for the taikonaut program. Nothing motivates my own government to move its ass on technology issues like fear of inferiority, which means we need competitors.

[dietbubba.livejournal.com]

When in the hell is the US going to get its head out of its ass and build stuff like this?

[sydneygb.livejournal.com]

When hell freezes over!

Was that a rhetorical question? I think Americans are too in love with their cars and their ability to go wherever they want whenever they want. Mass transit means you have to follow someone else's schedule, not to mention sit or stand beside them (and they may not have bathed recently) on the way to work/school/whatever.

I've never used public transportation because in my neck of the woods, there isn't any. (I'm just going on what I've heard from folks who have. See, I admit I don't speak from experience!) Well, the SEPTA rail line has stations in North Wales and Lansdale, but I have to drive thirty minutes to reach those places.

Perhaps if gas prices were to skyrocket and stay there (ssh.. don't give anyone any ideas!), someone in government might consider it. Or maybe not. After all, doesn't gas cost the equivalent of $4/gallon in England? Granted they don't have the real estate we have over here.

Shutting up now. :)

[senchen.livejournal.com]

I predict that the American alternative will be hybrid gas/electric cars, phasing into fully electric and hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles after that. I see a lot of hybrids and electrics around town already and the President and Governor haven't even started mandating them yet.

[senchen.livejournal.com]

Another, more important flaw in the train thing is that once you get to the train station at the other end you have no easy way of getting to where you're going (I'm assuming your job isn't at the train station itself). If you're very familiar with the train's destination city, you can take a bus, but that's just asking for disaster if you're not.

So on the one hand:
1.) Drive to the local terminal, find a place to park;
2.) Board the supercool maglev train, if you arrive on time, and it leaves on time;
3.) Ride the train with the ill-favored and unfriendly passengers;
4.) Deboard at the nearest station to your destination, which may be only a mile or two, or may be dozens or hundreds of miles away, considering the size of the country;
5.) Find a way to get from the station to your ultimate destination:
5a.) Walk, if your destination is within walking distance of the terminal. Walking is good for you. Carrying everything you'll need for the day is good exercise. Hate it.
5b.) Ride the bus. Hope it arrives on time. Hope you arrived on time to catch it. Discover the huge step down in class and odor of passenger between the train and the bus. Hate it. Deboard at the closest bus stop to your destination. Hope it arrived on time. Walk the rest of the way, carrying everything you'll need for the day. However far that is. Hate it forever.
5c.) Grab a taxi to take you to your destination. Endure taxi driver's small talk and pungent odor. Pay absolutely hideous fare which ends up being five times what your costs would be just to drive there. And this on top of the ticket for the train. Hope a taxi is actually waiting at the train station when you get there. Wait for one if not. Hope nobody else gets it before you, or if they do, hope they don't take the taxi too far out of its way to make you late. Hate it with a passion.

As opposed to:
1.) Just drive there. Privacy, comfort, all your own amenities to which you are used. Leave, travel and arrive at your own time and pace. Make detours and stops as you see fit. Carry everything you need in the car itself, walk only from the parking lot to the building at your destination. Love it except for when traffic is bad, in which case sigh resignedly and change CDs.