Magnetic trains

[mickydaniels]

Almost in the future world we've envisioned all this time, huh?


I saw this in the Times the other day but posted the article instead of a link cause I know that many of you are too lazy to take the two minutes it takes to just register for something free.



SHANGHAI, April 16 - There was something almost prosaic about the way the sleek white train pulled out of the city terminal: no whoosh, jolt or roar as it progressed gently through a long, lazy curve, passing the station's flowered gardens, farmers' plots and then a jumble of factories.

The effect changed quickly, however, as the train seemed almost magically to gather speed. This fact is evidenced not by any sense of barreling down the tracks, for there is none, but by the display in every car, its red digits blinking nervously past one century mark after another - 100 kilometers per hour, 200, 300 and so on.

A gaggle of international passengers speaking English, Italian, Chinese and Japanese was awestruck. "It's so quiet," said one. "It's so clean," said another. "The engineering is amazing," said one man in a German accent - somewhat immodestly, because the technology for Shanghai's new magnetic levitation train, the world's first in commercial service, comes from his country.

Their digital cameras were flashing furiously now, and passengers began calling friends on their cellphones, eager to share the thrill. With a glance out of the big bay windows came an impression of art to accompany the technological awe. Mondrian and Dali came to mind as the farmers' plots were reduced to streaking geometrical abstractions, and time seemed to bend, with the thick traffic on the parallel highway down below zooming in reverse.

For a brief instant, the car's friendly display read 432 kilometers per hour (268 m.p.h.), the train's peak speed, and just then a passenger cried out: "Slow down, this is way too fast. Whoa, where are the brakes?" Faster-than-a-bullet-train technology is a marvel to be sure, the man's cry seemed to say, but in an eight-minute train ride to the airport there is no time to read, or scarcely even time to think.

And this could be one reason the Shanghai maglev has yet to catch on since the eight-minute service was begun in January. On an average day there are reportedly only 4,000 riders, less than one-sixth of capacity.

Surely there are other causes, from the nearly $10 a one-way ticket cost originally - reduced to $6 this week in an effort to lift ridership - to the five-minute hike from the terminus to the airport, to the train's once abbreviated, somewhat irregular schedule in the early months after it began operation.

Then there is the lack of prominent signs inside the airport, which looks like a futuristic Steven Spielberg set. "I wanted to take the new train, but I couldn't find it," said one befuddled Shanghai resident as he jumped into a taxi for the heavily trafficked 20-mile ride to the city. "I was looking all over for it. How does one ride it?"

Yet in a city with a knack for accumulating superlatives, from China's biggest, wealthiest population to the country's tallest building and the world's highest hotel lobby (54th floor) - and now its fastest commuter train - might the lack of interest also be due to a feeling of exhaustion with breakneck change; or at least a desire to pause to catch one's breath?

"It may take me longer, but the taxi is more convenient," said Jin Ri, a smart-suited businessman who puffed on a cigarette anxiously as he waited in an airport taxi line. In fact, almost everyone in the line was either smoking a cigarette or talking on a mobile phone, or both.

"Sometimes I feel like a two-week vacation is too much," Mr. Jin, a 28 year old corporate manager said, nodding vigorously when asked if life in Shanghai was already hectic enough. "I like a fast rhythm, but it is still a lot more comfortable to sit in a cab that will take me all the way to my door."

One taxi fare after another reprised the thought. "I don't want to change cars again, even if it's faster," said Jing Minzhang. "Once you get to the train station, I'd have to get into a taxi there, and I don't want to do that."

The mere idea of taking a train can conjure notions of relaxation, dreams, rumination or renewal. The great blues musician Muddy Waters captured the feeling with a lyric about being so tired and lonely he "took a freight train to be my friend."

But built for speed far more than comfort, Shanghai's maglev leaves little time for daydreaming. The train, suspended above the track and propelled forward by the repulsive and attractive forces of magnetism, travels much faster than an ordinary train because of the lack of friction. Its seats are thickly cushioned. Their backs have little indentations, where a little table might fold out. But the tables are lacking, as if to say, "Who has the time for refreshments on an eight minute ride?"

A few minutes into the high-velocity excursion, a voice came over the loudspeaker to announce that the next stop will be Long Yang Road Station, an oddly superfluous declaration for a train that makes no other stops. At the city terminus, the light load of passengers filed out of the station, past a forlorn vendor of bottled sodas and Maglev postcards.

If only it could find more passengers like Zhou Hao, however, the maglev service would be assured of a brilliant future. And surely in a business-crazed population of 1.3 billion Chinese, about 14 million of whom live in Shanghai, there must be hope.

On this day, however, the 26-year-old businessman, who flew to Shanghai just to make a bank deposit in person on a Saturday before the close of business, stood all alone on the maglev platform. Rail-thin and dressed in a black suit, he shifted nervously from one foot to the other, as if he could not bear the wait for the train. "I can save about 30 minutes and the cost is about the same as the taxi," he said, explaining his choice of the train.

But isn't life hectic enough without so much rushing? "I'm very young," he answered. "I'm in a hurry to make money."