A Japanese rail operator said on Wednesday it plans to introduce the world’s fastest train in the next two decades, a next-generation maglev built at a cost of $45 billion.
TOKYA: A Japanese rail operator said on Wednesday it plans to introduce the world’s fastest train in the next two decades, a next-generation maglev built at a cost of $45 billion.
‘Maglev’, or magnetically levitated, trains travel above ground through an electromagnetic pull. The only maglev train now in commercial operation is in Shanghai. Central Japan Railway (JR Central) plans to build a maglev linear-motor train between Tokyo and central Japan at a cost of 44.7 billion dollars, by the 2025 financial year, a company spokesman said.
“It will be the fastest train ever — if it beats the one in Shanghai — with a velocity of about 500 kilometres per hour, travelling a distance of 290 kilometres,” he said. The Shanghai train, launched in 2002, travels at 430 kph for the 30.5 kilometre run from Pudong airport to the financial district, according to the Shanghai Maglev Transportation Development’s website. JR Central’s magnetic-levitated train hit 581 kph in 2003 in a trial run on a test course in Japan’s central Yamanashi prefecture, the spokesman said.
The maglev train would enter service at a time when Japan looks for a successor to its famed ‘Shinkansen’ bullet trains, which were first rolled out to the world’s awe for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Japan’s fasted train remains the Sanyo Shinkansen run by JR West in western Japan, which travels at 300 kph.
The world’s fastest train using conventional railway technology is currently France’s TGV, which runs at 320 kph. While the JR Central did not specify the exact location for the maglev, the company in its last annual earnings report wrote of a “first phase” between Tokyo and the central industrial hub of Nagoya.
JR Central said at the time it envisioned eventually building a second phase to link Nagoya with Japan’s second city of Osaka. The company’s board approved the plan this week and estimated that it would leave the company with a five trillion debt when the train goes into service in the financial year to March 2026.
The firm projects the train will bring in five per cent additional revenue in the first year, shrinking JR Central’s debt to the current level within eight years of operation, a statement said.
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