The Christian Science Monitor
After a few minutes playing with toy magnets, even a child quickly sees that one magnet can push or pull the other around.
But it took a rocket scientist at the turn of the past century to make the conceptual leap of using magnetic attraction and repulsion to replace the thunder of locomotives with the whoosh of trains that rarely touch track. Instead of clacking along steel rails, trains would ride on a cushion of magnetic fields at speeds of up to 300 miles an hour (483 kilometers/hour), propelled by manipulating the magnets' attraction and repulsion.
Now, nearly a century after Americans Robert Goddard and Emile Bachelet conceived of magnetic-levitation trains, maglev is beginning to move from the test track to the main line. In China, the United States, and Germany, plans—and, in one case, guideways—are being laid for modest systems that backers hope will demonstrate the technology's potential to unclog airports and highways.
"It's a technology whose time has come," says Christopher Brady, president of Transrapid International USA Inc. in Washington, D.C. Transrapid USA's German parent company is building a system in China, and is said to have the inside track on several projects in the U.S.
Research and Development
Research on maglev trains has been under way for decades, with Japan, Germany, and the United States spending about $1.5 billion each on maglev R&D. But while government-funded research ended in the U.S. in 1975, the other two players pushed ahead.
American maglev activity received a boost, however, in the omnibus transportation bill Congress passed three years ago. Among other provisions, the bill set up ground rules for a competition that will lead to the first substantial maglev demonstration line in the U.S.
Last January, Rodney Slater as U.S. Transportation secretary, selected two finalists from seven competing projects.
Pittsburgh plans to run a 47-mile (76 kilometer) line connecting the city to its airport and eastern suburbs, while Baltimore plans a 40-mile (64 kilometer) stretch of guideway from Camden Yard to Union Station in Washington, D.C., via the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
The winner garners $950 million in federal grants to help pay for construction.
Last week, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta made additional money available to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, which didn't make the final cut, to continue studies on their proposals. Atlanta, another sidelined competitor in the federal program, is pressing ahead on studies of a line to Chattanooga, Tennessee, on its own.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate's version of an economic-stimulus package contains a $7-billion bond program to fund expansion of high-speed rail, including the introduction of innovative technologies such as maglev trains.
