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posted by martyb on Saturday April 25 2015, @11:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the mach-0.49 dept.

Just days after setting a world speed record of 581 km/h, a Japan Railways Group maglev train set a new speed record of 603 km/h (375 mph):

In terms of actual travel, it will be some time before the actual speeds achieved this week translate into real train journeys. The first commercial maglev trains will run between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027, and will likely run at 500KPH [sic], taking 40 minutes to connect the two cities.

Until then Japanese passengers will have to make do with the existing 320KPH bullet trains that take twice as long.

Those Stateside may also have reason to celebrate: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is due to push the train technology in Washington DC later this month, proposing a high-speed link between America's capital and New York City.

Were that to happen it would reduce current travel time from about four hours to under an hour.

Some question the necessity of newer, faster trains:

One argument against Japan's plan to install new high-speed routes is the country's declining population. Bloomberg reported that the nation's population may fall to 117 million by 2027, down 10 million from the current population. By 2060, the population could be as few as 80 million according to current projections by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. The country simply does not have the demand, said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research Corp. in Tokyo.

"[High-speed transportation is] good for growing, developing countries, but not for Japan that's decreasing in population," Mr. Merner told Bloomberg. "It's mis-allocation of resources. Demand for bullet trains will be limited."

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:53AM

    by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday April 26 2015, @02:53AM (#175242) Homepage

    "Spam in a can" is already an excellent description of today's air travel experience. Unless you've got a window seat, you're not going to see diddlysquat outside the plane -- and lots of those with window seats pull the blinds anyway. Turbulence and loud noise are par for the course -- and, depending on the weather, you may well be stuck in your seat the entire time.

    If high-speed rail (of whatever form) is cheap enough, it can be slower and / or less pleasant than air travel and still win. Or, fiddle those variable around. If it's faster than planes, it can be more expensive and / or less pleasant. If it's luxurious enough, it can be slower and / or more expensive.

    Most likely, it'll be at least almost as fast if not faster (especially considering a different security theatre setup), about as uncomfortable, and much cheaper.

    b&

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday April 26 2015, @03:09AM

    by frojack (1554) on Sunday April 26 2015, @03:09AM (#175250) Journal

    Agreed, fast rail would win over air, at least for short-to-medium distance. Never having seen a bullet train, I don't know if they have food service, or if you have to remain seated.

    The Spam in a can reference was about the infinite loop (pneumatic tube> idea.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Sunday April 26 2015, @07:08AM

      by bob_super (1357) on Sunday April 26 2015, @07:08AM (#175289)

      In my experience, you can run around the whole train at 200mph and buy no-so-good food.

      In Europe, anything below 600 miles has proven to be a sweet spot for HS rail, especially if the stations are downtown. Going to an airport, through security, then back into town at the end, usually requires the same 3 1/2 hours. A 300-mile trip becomes a no-brainer choice.
      Of course, if you're talking about LA, you'll need a car and another 2 hours if your final destination is more than 10 miles from the station.

      • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:04PM

        by isostatic (365) on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:04PM (#175380) Journal

        But in LA the same applies to LAX.

        However I take issue with your sweet spot. There's high speed rail from London to Paris and Brussels. Many of my collegues still fly because it's easier to taxi 30 minutes to heathrow than 60 to St Pancras, and there's a ridiculous secirity check on eurostar anyway. You need to arrive at eat grow 40 minutes before your flight, so time to takeoff for the average person in Amersham or somewhere is the se for heathrow as for St Pancras. You'll be in a cab en route to your destination in Paris before the eurostar passes Calais.

        A couple of years ago I phoned a collegue after a trip to Brussels. We'd both left the office at the same time. He was in a massive queue getting off the train in London, I was sat on my sofa at home in manchester. That was the last time he got the train.

        • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:54PM

          by TheRaven (270) on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:54PM (#175396) Journal

          There's high speed rail from London to Paris and Brussels. Many of my collegues still fly because it's easier to taxi 30 minutes to heathrow than 60 to St Pancras, and there's a ridiculous secirity check on eurostar anyway.

          I find this very hard to believe, for Paris in particular. The security check on the Eurostar is very quick (laptops in bags, no limit on liquids, keep shoes on, just stick your bag in the x-ray machine and walk through the metal detector) and I've managed to catch the Eurostar a couple of times turning up at St Pancras 30 minutes before departure. I generally allow 45-60, but for a flight I'd want a minimum of 2 hours to feel comfortable. At the far end, the Eurostar gets you into the middle of Paris, whereas flights get you to Charles De Gaul, which is about an hour's train ride outside. On the flight, you have to take a tiny bag, or check your bag and wait for baggage reclaim, on the Eurostar you can take large bags with you and pick them up from the luggage rack as you get off.

          If you're coming from outside London and can get a train to Kings Cross, it's very convenient. Coming from Cambridge, it's 45 minutes on the train into London, 45 minutes waiting, 2 hours on the train into Paris, and then you're usually a few stops on the metro from your destination. Brussels is the same. Getting to Stansted is more convenient (30 minutes on the train), but then you need to be there a good 2 hours before departure, but Heathrow is a good hour on the tube from Kings Cross. If you come into Paddington, St Pancras is about 10-20 minutes away on the tube. Heathrow is about the same distance on the Heathrow Express (although they run less frequently, so it can be closer to 40 if the trains don't line up correctly). That's ignoring the cost though. It's a lot more expensive to take the Heathrow Express.

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          • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 27 2015, @05:45AM

            by isostatic (365) on Monday April 27 2015, @05:45AM (#175596) Journal

            So it depends entirely on where you're coming from and going to. Some places are better served by airports, some by trains.

            Eurostar is good if you're carte Blanche, you get a 25 minute bonus as checking shuts at t-10 rather than t-35. Otherwise ts just a matter of which is closer.

            You (for some inexplicable reason), turn up 2 hours before a flight. This morning I'm flying easyjet manchester to Berlin. I arrived at the airport 0610, and at the gate at 0623. Boarding closes at 0630, and I expect to be in a taxi in Berlin at 0900UK. 660 miles.

            This is on easyjet, and I'm regretting Turing up so early.

            I fly mancheater to london, as its
            Quicker
            More comfortable
            Often cheaper (was always cheaper when Vs were running the route)

            Speed: airlines win by a long way. Time on london is similar (40 minutes from EUS and lhr), time at home is similar (8 mins airport plus 10 for security, so 0630 departure for 0700 liftoff, vs 15 for the train plus 5 minutes to get a ticket, so 0640 departure for 0700 liftoff)

            Comfort: a quiet comfy waiting room if there's a delay vs standing on a Concourse. On board its simialr, but the plane is under half the time as the train.

            Baggage: normally everyrhing I take fits in hand baggage - two weeks out East earlier this month, a 19" computer, a smaller alix one, a couple of small routers, half a dozen cables etc.

            If I'm taking a lot of stuff (11 boxes to TLV is my personal record, although a friend just took 27 to Italy), the plane carries it all without a problem, and perhaps an extra 40 minutes on the trip for a large number of boxes, 25 for a single case.

            But that's because my route is from near man airport to Ealing. If I lived in the centre of stockport or wilmslow and worked near euston it might be better to get the train. Same goes in Europe. I did travel Brussels to Paris by train last year, because I was going from near the station to near the station. I flew back from orly to the UK though, and was on board at the same time as a collegue who'd gone to eurostar.

            Perhaps the U.S. is different. I've only take two internal us floghts, hardly any queues at either.

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday April 27 2015, @08:33AM

              by TheRaven (270) on Monday April 27 2015, @08:33AM (#175620) Journal

              You (for some inexplicable reason), turn up 2 hours before a flight. This morning I'm flying easyjet manchester to Berlin. I arrived at the airport 0610, and at the gate at 0623. Boarding closes at 0630, and I expect to be in a taxi in Berlin at 0900UK. 660 miles.

              For a fairly good reason: I've had one-hour delays in traffic trying to get to the airport, and I've had delays of over an hour in check-in queues before. All of my colleagues who fly regularly can tell similar stories. Now that I've been flying frequently, the check-in queues are less of an issue as I can skip them in the priority lane. Most of the time it's 10-20 minutes between arrival and clearing security, but it has been a lot longer occasionally.

              I've also found that if there's a problem with your flight (weather-related delays are pretty common when flying to/from the US. Not as common within the EU, though the heavy winds two years ago delayed all flights by at least a couple of hours) then being there earlier gives you more options (a couple of times I've ended up being put on a slightly earlier - and much more expensive - flight with a different airline, at the airline's expense when it looked like the first flight would be delayed enough that I'd miss the connection and ended up arriving 2-3 hours earlier than expected).

              Most of the people I know who fly regularly aim to arrive either 2 or 3 hours before departure, depending on their level of paranoia. If you're checking a bag, then you must be at the head of the check-in line one hour before departure with most airlines, so 2 hours doesn't leave very much slack.

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              • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:26AM

                by isostatic (365) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:26AM (#175975) Journal

                Well I live 40 minutes walk from the airport, so traffic has never been a problem. I have had one hour delays in a taxi to the station before though - I don't turn up an hour early for my train just in case though. I've had 20 minute queues to buy tickets too. Everything you ascribe to flying, with the exception of security, applies equally to trains - especially long distance ones like TGV, ICE, Eurostar.

                I fly regularly, and there's no way I'm wasting an extra 100 hours a year turning up an extra hour before takeoff. Checking a bag (again, why?), means turning up at my local airport about T-40. The idiots that turn up there at 8AM for the 11AM flight (rather than the 9AM flight) can block the queues - BA are very bad with the priority lane - but a quick word with someone and you get whisked to the front of the queue.

                I'm in Berlin at the moment, 5 minute walk from Freidrichstrasse station. it's 8AM, if I wanted to go to say Frankfurt main station, 300 miles, it would take 10 minutes to get to the high speed station, 10 minutes wait for the next train, then 4h12 to Frankfurt on ICE, arriving 1230ish.

                If instead I jumped in the taxi waiting outside, it would take 18 minutes to Tegal, arriving 0830, plenty of time (at Tegal) to get the 0915 to Frankfurt, arriving 1030, so at airport station at 1030 and at Frankfurt high speed station before 1100.

                If you didn't like the idea of an excessive 45 minutes at Tegal (where security is dedicated to the flight, so it won't leave while you're in the queue), there's a 0945 flight too that gets you to Frankfurt at 1130, still an hour before the train.

                This is from city centre to city centre, in Germany, which isn't exactly a backwater when it comes to high speed trains, for a journey of 270 miles as the crow flies.

                For Paris to Frankfurt, operated by the flagship TGV, 290 miles. I don't do Paris much, but lets assume leaving from the Eiffel tower, heading to frankfurt station.

                Google says
                8:24 AM–12:58 PM
                (Walk, RER, Metro, Train from l'Est at 0910)

                Google says currently (rush hour), it's 34m to CDG, 28 to ORY.

                So 0824, arrive airport 0900, ready to board the 1000 AF1618, arriving FRA at 11:25, so in central Frankfurt at 1200, an hour faster than the TGV. And that's the fastest TGV on that route. If you're sat there at 0900 at l'Est it would still be faster to fly (arr CDG 0930, 1040 LH1029, arr FRA 11:55, in town at 1230, half an hour before the TGV gets there.

                These are proper Euro train routes, of 300 miles, with the challenge built to favour the train based on departure time and location, and the OP claimed

                In Europe, anything below 600 miles has proven to be a sweet spot for HS rail,

                I disagree, for typical 300 mile journeys the plane is still faster.

                • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Tuesday April 28 2015, @12:59PM

                  by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @12:59PM (#176038) Journal

                  I have had one hour delays in a taxi to the station before though - I don't turn up an hour early for my train just in case though.

                  The difference is, if you miss a train, there's usually another one along to the same destination within an hour and you can usually get on it at no (or a very small) cost. For flights, there often either isn't another one the same day, or there's a large rebooking fee.

                  Checking a bag (again, why?),

                  Because you're going for more than a couple of days and have more luggage than will fit in overhead bins?

                  means turning up at my local airport about T-40.

                  Which airline? Most of them that I've used require checked baggage to be handed in one hour before departure.

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                  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:28PM

                    by isostatic (365) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @09:28PM (#176265) Journal

                    I went to Singapore and Sydney earlier this month, 12 days. I took a small laptop bag containing 2 laptops, 2 power cables, a couple of network cables, USB/serial cable, phone charger, 2 aus-uk power adaptors, some bose headphones, pens, etc, and a larger bag - 56cm x 45cm x 25cm - containing
                    * clothes for 13 days
                    * toothpaste/brush/razor/small travel toiletries just in case
                    * An alix PC (http://www.pcengines.ch/alix3d3.htm)
                    * A Steatite PC (http://www.steatite-embedded.co.uk/industrial-1u-pc-with-core-i7-haswell-cpu-230mm-deep.html)
                    * More network cables
                    * IEC power cable
                    * a small mikrtoik 951n and power
                    * 25 cage nuts, 25 cage screws

                    But if you pack heavily fine, BA bag drop at Manchester closes at T-30, so arriving at T-35 is fine. At Heathrow T5 I believe it's T-45 that it closes. KLM in europe is 40 minutes. Norweigan 45 minutes.

                    In any case arriving more than an hour before checkin seems extreme, even on budget airlines.

                    When I do check stuff in, its far too much to take on the train in any case. For instance taking 2x36KG Supermicro servers from London to Manchester.

                    As for taking a later train - flexible train tickets, Berlin to Frankfurt is €246 on train, €250 on plane. Planes go every hour.

  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday April 26 2015, @04:55PM

    by isostatic (365) on Sunday April 26 2015, @04:55PM (#175377) Journal

    I flew back from Sydney last week, I had a nice quiet suite for the first leg, brief glass of champagne before take off, snoozed a couple of times, played some cities: skyline, and the 8 hours were over pretty quick. Then had a window/aisle bed for the overnight leg, then a window seat with more legroom than my car for the final hop over the North sea.

    Tomorrows 90 minute flight to Berlin will be
    Taxi 0600
    Airpott 0610
    Secirity cleared 0615
    At gate 0620
    Boarding 0625

    I'll then read my book with just as much room as I have on the train to London, except this is quicker, cheaper, and easier.

    I've then got a week off and a week in the UK before a flying dormitory back to Singapore. Pre flight dinner and drink, slag get up to hate, step on board, coat taken, watch a top gear (still got a backlog), then out to sleep for a few hours.

    I don't recognise this "sardine" environment. This year, Secirity takes 5 minutes, at MAN, HEL, SIN, SYD, FRA, TXL. Even LAX was only 10 minutes, PHL was 2. RIO was poor, I'll give you that. Perhaps the key is to avoid the Western Hemisphere? I've waited 5 minutes at SEA before, but that was the Sunday afternoon after thanksgiving.