China unveils 600 kph maglev train

Re:China unveils 600 kph maglev train by sudosysgen on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @12:47PM (#27896090)

Old HSR, yes. Maglev? No.

The issue is that steel wheels on steel tracks doesn't provide enough grip to accelerate, so the train takes a lot of the time to get up to speed.

Maglev, meanwhile, uses a linear motor, so you can accelerate very fast if you want to.

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Re:China unveils 600 kph maglev train by majormajor on Tuesday July 20, 2021 @01:00PM (#27896263)

I think the bigger constraint would be noise. Wikipedia talks about a 70dba noise limit in residential areas after protests and such, but doesn't say what speed exactly they're running at to meet that.

70dba is rather a lot, though, I imagine you'd end up with a lower limit in the US since I don't think most people are going to be easily convinced that another inter-city transit method is going to be worth the noise to them.

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