China on Thursday rolled off the production line a prototype magnetic-levitation train with a designed top speed of 600 km per hour in the eastern city of Qingdao.
The debut of China's first high-speed maglev train testing prototype marks a major breakthrough for the country in the high-speed maglev transit system.
The testing prototype, which has one car only, can check and optimize the key technologies and core system components of the high-speed maglev system and lay a technological basis for the forthcoming engineering prototype, said Ding Sansan, head of the train's research and development team and deputy chief engineer of CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., the train builder.
China is the third-largest country in the world by area. If they successfully implement a high-speed rail network, will American objections to scale finally be overcome?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 26 2019, @11:34AM
> If it is worth doing it once, then that is a strong argument for doing it more than once, particularly given the usual competitivity arguments that come from having multiple suppliers.
In the case of rail in USA, I think we have things ass backwards. We have the rails owned by private companies and the rolling stock (Amtrak) owned/supported by government.
If the government owned and maintained the rails (a sensible parallel with the highways and airports), then industry could compete on the trains.