IF IMG can't take this market...who can?
LONG ISLAND OUR FUTURE Chapter 10: Getting There From Here Seeking the Fast Track The race is on to operate the woorld's first successful maglev train system
Tom Morris. STAFF WRITER
10/25/1999
Newsday
NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
Page A13
(Copyright Newsday Inc., 1999)
FUTURISTIC MAGLEV trains that zoom along guideways at 300 mph on a cushion of air have been heralded for more than three decades as the next global transportation revolution.
But the only version that was hauling passengers-a low-speed, half- mile people mover at Birmingham International Airport in England-was junked four years ago in favor of a standard shuttle bus.
Such setbacks haven't dimmed the ardor of international proponents of high-speed maglev (short for magnetic levitation), however, and in fact the chances to build the first systems in the United States seem tantalizingly close. Seven projects, awarded federal grants totaling $12 million, are competing to win $950 million more next year to design and start construction.
One of the seven-a consortium beginning to build a half-mile test track in Titusville, Fla.-includes the Long Island scientists who invented much of the original technology. "Within two years, we will have the first working maglev system in America," boasts promotional literature from the consortium, Maglev 2000, which also includes the state of Florida and Dowling College's National Aviation and Transportation Center in Oakdale.
Physicists James Powell and Gordon Danby, both then at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in 1968 pioneered the use of "supermagnets" intended to lift entire trains and whirl them along a guideway. An Army Corps of Engineers report said maglevs could exceed 500 mph when fully developed-head-spinning ground speed for moving people and goods.
But the United States abandoned its efforts in 1975, and Japan and Germany have dominated maglev research ever since; Japan has built upon Danby and Powell's ideas while Germany came up with a rival technology. Either country could have systems carrying paying passengers in the next few years,but hurdles in funding, politics and environmental protection remain.
There are some technical problems that need to be worked out on test tracks, including stabilizing the fast-moving trains on the air cushion, assuring they can negotiate curves smoothly and developing complex switching networks for trains to pull off main lines and into depots. The Birmingham minisystem was replaced partly because of technical difficulties.
But renewed federal interest is sparking new hopes for maglev in this country.
Two years ago, a panel of experts named by the secretary of transportation concluded: "The long-term development of magnetic levitation transportation in the United States is critical to addressing the nation's long-term transportation needs." Powell said he believes that by midcentury, as regional maglevs emerge, one might be built the length of Long Island, moving freight and passengers swiftly to connecting points such as Grand Central Station and freight depots.
Ultimately, the Florida consortium proposes a 20-mile project linking Port Canaveral to the Kennedy Space Center and Titusville Regional Airport.
Other U.S. applicants are pushing visions including a 45-mile system between Pittsburgh International Airport and the city's eastern suburbs, a 40-mile run between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and a 75-mile system connecting Los Angeles International Airport to downtown and points farther east in Riverside County.
The federal support has limits, however. Under the law, it would pay only for guideways; state and private sector funds would have to pay for cars, stations and the rest. Congress could also decline to start parceling out the $950 million; the impending retirement of Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), a champion of maglev , could delay the U.S. catchup effort.
Most of the delay in maglev 's debut elsewhere has come down to money and environmental concerns. Construction of the German Transrapid system, after years of tests up to 300 mph with people on board, was to begin this year but was stalled again in recent weeks amid battling over the proposed $6 billion, 185-mile Berlin-Hamburg route.
And powerful environmental lobbies in Germany say the magnetically powered trains pose health hazards for people and animals because of their electromagnetic fields; they fanned passions last summer that threatened to bring down the entire program.
In Japan, the government has a larger financial stake but has not decided so far to build a proposed 300-mile Tokyo-Osaka maglev system, mostly because of the estimated $60 billion cost.
Federal Transit Administration officials say a U.S. prototype maglev system of from 20 to 45 miles could be operational between 2006 and 2010, though many experts say that's a goal, not an expectation.
But if the timeline were met, officials say, the United States could have a working system-albeit a relatively short one-before Germany and Japan can complete theirs. The Florida consortium, according to Charles Smith, the Maglev 2000 firm's programs manager, hopes to offer a guideway that could cost about $10 million per mile as opposed to the roughly $40 million per mile for the German system.
Other countries are beginning to think big about maglev 's future. Switzerland is considering a 10-city system that would take 25 years to build, with air-cushion trains racing through underground and mountain tunnels at 400 mph.
But maglev 's future has plenty of doubters. Michael T. Graven, a professor of government at the University of Hamburg in Germany, warned it could become a "sleek, fast costly white elephant." Some say full-blown maglev systems may not be worth the costs because high- speed conventional trains such as those used in France and Japan can do almost as well.
Bill Withuhn, curator of transportation for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., says maglev has great potential but too much is unknown about the technology and the future market. " Maglev ," he says, "is not ready for prime time." THE FUTURE POLL NEED FOR SPEED We asked Long Islanders: By 2020, how likely is it that there will be a high-speed magnetic train, or " Maglev " going down the spine of Long Island? 23% very likely 43% Somewhat likely 32% Not likely at all ABOUT THE POLL: For this Newsday poll, Harris Interactve interviewed 801 Long Island adults by telephone between Aug. 20 and 26. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
ars above will shape the train system's concrete rail. 2) AP Photo, 1997 - An unmanned Japan ese prototype, left, rann at a speed of 341 mph, according to its developer, Cen tral Japan Railway.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
