Transrapid
Transrapid is a German monorail system using magnetic levitation. Based on a patent from 1934, planning of the Transrapid system started in 1969. The test facility for the system in Emsland, Germany was completed in 1987, and on 17 June 1993 the Transrapid TR-07 vehicle reached a record-breaking speed of 450 kilometers per hour. Today the maximum design speed has exceeded the 500 km/h (310 mph) mark and currently stands at about 550 km/h, with the fastest (and currently the only operational) scheduled passenger service reaching 430 km/h between Longyang Road station and Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China. On 12 November 2003 the Transrapid in Shanghai obtained its own new record of 501 km/h as the fastest commercial magnetic cushion train (the world record is now held by JR-Maglev with 581 km/h). The system is developed and marketed by Transrapid International, a joint venture of the German companies Siemens AG and ThyssenKrupp.
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Technology
- See also: Technology in the Magnetic levitation train article.
The synchronous linear motor of the Transrapid maglev system is used both for propulsion and braking. It functions like a rotating electric motor whose stator is cut open and stretched along under the guideway. Inside the motor windings, alternating current generates a which moves the vehicle without contact. The support magnets in the vehicle function as the excitation portion (rotor). The respective magnetic traveling field works in only one direction, and therefore makes moving train collisions less likely, as more than one train on the track section would travel in the same direction.
The superspeed maglev system has no wheels, axles, transmissions, or pantographs. It does not roll, it hovers. Electronic systems guarantee that the clearance remains constant (nominally 10 mm). The Transrapid requires less power to hover than is used by its air conditioning equipment. The levitation system and all onboard electronics are supplied by the power recovered from harmonic oscillations of magnetic field of the track's linear stator (those oscillations being parasitic cannot be used for propulsion) at speeds above 80 km/h, while at lower speeds power is obtained through physical connections to the track. In case of power failure of the track's propulsion system Transrapid car uses on-board backup batteries that can supply power to the levitation system.
Market Segment, Compatitibility, ecological and cultural impact
From a competition standpoint, the Transrapid is a proprietary solution. The track being a part of the engine, only the single-source IPR protected Transrapid vehicles and infrastructure can be operated. There is no multisourcing foreseen concering vehicles or the highly complicated crossings and switches. Different as in classical Railways or in other infrastructure networks (as jointly administrated by the Bundesnetzagentur in Germany) a Transrapid system does not allow any direct competition. Insofar a network of Transrapids involves higher risks and costs - competition of different operators, Roaming of mobile elements on the same or even in different networks as in Tram-train is not possible. In case of any technical or economic problem the high infrastructure costs does inhibit a change of deliverer.
Compared to classical railway lines, Transrapid allows higher speeds and gradients with lower wear and tear and even lower energy consumption and maintenance needs. As common for Monorail Systems, a Transrapid track is more flexible, futuristic and elegantly adapted to specific geographical circumstances than a classical train system.
Transrapids allows maximum speeds of 500 km/h between High Speed Trains (220–320 km/h)and Air Traffic(720-990 km/h). The most significant technical restriction is the low passenger capacity which is lower than a simple tramway or Tram-Train (<20 kPassengers per day). The magnetic field generator, an important part of the engine being a part of the track fixes and limits the system capacity. This is similar to other funicular or Monorail Systems.
However it has to be taken into account that Transrapid does not allow to carry heavy weights and cargo on its magnetic fields which reduces its market segment and possible income significantly.
The niche-only usability had an impact on the addressed market segment. Instead of building up segments of a future Transrapid network, the most realistic or already installed Transrapid lines (Schanghai, ) are just point to point connections for specific urban area venues and not to be seen as start of a future network. The recent denial of European Union officials to use traffic infrastructure funds to help the finacially challenged Munich Transrapid project is pointing in the same direction.
Ecological and Cultural Impact
The Transrapid itself is a electrically driven, clean, high-speed, high-price, low-capacity means of transport able to build up point-to-point passenger connections in geographically challenged surroundings. The value of this connections (e.g. less individual transport) has to be set in comparison with the often problematic effect on heritage and or landscape protection areas (compare Waldschlößchenbrücke). Any impact of emissions has to take into account the source of electrical energy, the reduced expense, noise and vibration of a people-only Transrapid versus a Cargo Train track is not directly comparable.
As the Transrapid is not designed for (competitive / multiuser) networks, there is not much trade off with highly pollutive short distance air traffic or conventional High Speed Trains. The reuse of existing tracks and the interfacing with existig networks is limited and clumsy.
The most negative impact might be seen by the fact that the Transrapid indirectly competes for resources, space and tracks in urban and city surroundings with classical and high capacity / medium speed network cabable urban transport systems (metropolitan railways, Tram-train, Karlsruhe model, CarGoTram) which have a more comprisive and area effective point-to multipoint network capability, are able to include cargo and generally provide a better price/performance ratio than the Transrapid. On the other hand, many rail lines near cities are at the limit of their capacity already, which often leads to delays.
All in all the Transrapid is very close to other tailor made single line solutions connecting big city high visitor venues in challenging geographies and surroundings. Even before the days of Metropolis (film), Monorail systems as the Transrapid are especially in German speaking countries a specific cultural feature, taken as synonyme of future technology and innovation in urban areas.
- Alweg and further Monorail Systems
- H-Bahn
- Peoplemover
- Funicular and Schwebebahn Systems in Dresden und Wuppertal.
Most of those systems started being designed or prototyped in German speaking countries. For advantages and disadvantages of maglev trains, see also: maglev.
Implementations
Germany high-speed competition
The Transrapid originated as one of the competing concepts for new land-based high speed public transportation for Germany. Another competing concept was the InterCityExpress (ICE). The ICE "won" in that it was adopted nationwide in Germany. It is argued that the ICE won out in part because of its ability to run on conventional tracks and railway stations. Nevertheless, the Transrapid was seen as the next step beyond the ICE and a major asset for possible export and consequently development was not scrapped at this point, but continued as well.
However, in the 1990s, intense political discussions about the Transrapid started in Germany. Though in some ways considered technically superior to normal railroad systems, the Transrapid was considered too expensive, as the companies developing it relied on federal subsidies, and was difficult to inegrate with the existing railway netwiork. The controversy mostly raged over the question whether public money should be invested in construction of a track for commercial use. Plans for a track from Berlin to Hamburg were canceled because legislators were not convinced that the project would ever become profitable in competition to the existing conventional railway line and hence were unwilling to invest the money in times of tight budgets - in spite of the alleged importance of having a working Transrapid system in Germany in order to ease marketing of the system abroad. Some even got as far as arguing that the Transrapid was generally unsuitable for Germany itself because of Germany's many larger and relatively close cities (with the resulting many stops at short intervals, the time needed to repeatedly accelerate to operation speed and to decelerate before stations becomes a limiting factor in average travel speed for high-speed transportation systems) and that a demonstration line would be better situated in a country where distances between cities are far larger than in Germany. This argument however is flawed in that the Transrapid provides much better acceleration than any HSR alternative does with both in their standard (i.e. commercially viable and operational) configurations, and subsequently, can show its advantages as much with closely spaced cities (acceleration advantage) as with largely spaced cities (top speed advantage).
China
The only success so far was in the year 2000, when the Chinese government ordered a Transrapid track to be built connecting Shanghai to its Pudong International Airport. It was inaugurated in 2002, and regular daily trips started in March 2004. However, low passenger numbers, due to the remoteness of the terminal station from the city center and high ticket costs, hampered the line. During the first week, the average number of riders per train was only 73, while the maximum seating capacity is 440. One-way trip prices have since been reduced to 50 Renminbi (US$6).
Nevertheless, the Shanghai Project was designed primarily to demonstrate the state-of-the-art technology and capabilities of the Transrapid system. A high tilt compared with a relatively high speed of 430 km/h (267 mph) and leaving passengers in the outskirts of Pudong shows that the Chinese authorities were more interested in the technology transfer than commercial success. However, in terms of safety, reliability, availability, and functionality the Transrapid maglev system has demonstrated the readiness of this technology for commercial applications.
The Transrapid manufacturers hoped to obtain a subsequent order from China for a track connecting Shanghai with Beijing. Hence it was considered a serious drawback when in 2004 it is said that China considered to choose the Japanese Shinkansen high-speed train, to the disappointment of Siemens, which had hoped to sell at least the ICE, which is manufactured by them, as the Transrapid system partly is. Public disapproval of the idea shifted the decision further into the future. In 2006, Transrapid was officially excluded from the debate, even though the technology to be used remained undecided.
In November 2004 talks began about extending the track from Shanghai to Hangzhou, 180 km away. A maglev would shorten the travel time to less than a fifth of its current duration, from 2½ hours to 27 minutes. On February 26, Transrapid officials confided to German reporters that they had received initial approval for the line extension to Hangzhou, although they were quick to point out this is the first approval of many required for construction of an extension line. The extension was completely approved in 2006; however, disagreements about technology ownership and political interest continue to hamper the progress of the project. In May 2007 China announced that the extension was stopped, citing electromagnetic radiation risks and high costs. [1]
Germany
Approval is being sought for a 37 km Transrapid connection from the Bavarian capital Munich to Munich International Airport; the approval is currently in the hearing phase and will face objections from residents along the route. Such a connection would reduce the travel time from the current 40 minutes on the Munich S-Bahn suburban rail system to 10 minutes.
United Kingdom
The Transrapid is also being considered by the UK government as a 500 km/h (310 mph) link between London and Glasgow, via Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Teesside, Newcastle and Edinburgh. One of the main advantages of Transrapid over high-speed rail is cited as the requirement of at least two primary lines by HSR to provide the same reach as a single Transrapid route. UK Ultraspeed, the name of the project, provides further information on their website. The project has already gained considerable acceptance from politicians and local councils in the north of England and Scotland, including the CEO of First Scotrail [2][3][4]. However many senior rail chiefs, as well as Network Rail in their recent report, remain apprehensive about the idea. Further information is available in the High-speed rail in the United Kingdom article.
Projects elsewhere
Since the 1990s there have been plans for two Transrapid lines in the Netherlands, the circular Randstad and the linear (Zuiderzee line, Amsterdam–Groningen. Some local politicians even envisioned an extension to Northern Germany via Bremen to the then planned Hamburg–Berlin line. The current situation is stalled and if these lines will be built, the Netherlands probably will choose a conventional system. There has been an EU study in the 1990s to co-fund a high-speed train network for Eastern Europe using Transrapid technology with lines from Berlin to Warsaw(–Moscow), Krakow(–Kiev) and Prague–Vienna–Budapest(–Thessaloniki). Realisation of this huge project in the near future is unlikely.
In the USA[1] there have been several evaluations for federal funding of pioneering links since 1997, especially on routes from city centers to airports and suburban hubs (Atlanta, Las Vegas,[2] Pittsburgh,[3] and Baltimore–Washington[4]). These routes are shorter than 100 km, but could be extended to other cities if successful (Chattanooga, Los Angeles–San Diego/Anaheim, and Philadelphia–New York City–Boston, respectively).
There have been first talks for a project in the Gulf Region, connecting Bahrein–Qatar–UAE.
There were proposals of a high speed train link between Australia's capital and Sydney, where the Transrapid system was in the running but ultimately lost out to a French manufacturer. The project did not go ahead.
Iran currently has a contract with Transrapid for a 900-kilometer line to link Tehran with Mashhad. The line would take about 3 hours to travel, versus the 14 hours it takes to travel by conventional rail. [5]
Accidents
August 11, 2006 fire
On August 11, 2006 a fire broke out on the Shanghai commercial Transrapid, shortly after leaving the Longyang terminal. This was the first accident on a maglev train in commercial operation. Passengers were able to disembark the train safely and no casualties were reported. The fire was thought to have originated below the passenger compartment, possibly as a result of battery malfunction.
September 22, 2006 accident
On September 22, 2006 an elevated Transrapid train collided with a maintenance vehicle on a test run at 170 km/h in Lathen (Lower Saxony / north-western Germany). The train did not derail. The maintenance vehicle destroyed the first section of the train, and came to rest on its roof. This was the first major accident involving a Transrapid train. Most of the passengers were in the first of the three sections of the Transrapid. The news media reported 23 fatalities and several severely injured after end of salvage work, these being the first fatalies on any maglev.[5][6]
There were two men on the maintenance vehicle. They saw the train approaching and jumped to the ground, four or five metres below. The passengers on the train had no way to escape, and those that survived were evacuated by emergency personnel.
The accident is reported to have been caused by a combination of human error and a technical flaw. The maintenance vehicle carried out routine sweeps of the track to remove debris, fallen branches, etc. and was supposed to report back to the control centre via radio once it had cleared the track. Control personnel should not have alloweed the Transrapid train to depart the station before the maintenance vehicle had cleared, but it appears that they failed to check the maintenance vehicle's position before the Transrapid vehicle departed.
The compounding technical flaw was that although Transrapid vehicles on the guideway are automatically tracked and controlled by the OCS, the maintenance vehicle did not operate in the same way and thus was not known to the computerized control system. Had the maintenance vehicle reported its position electronically as all Transrapid trains do, redundant computerized safety systems would never have allowed the passenger vehicle to approach.
The test track in Lathen is very simple. It consists of a main track and a single station with a side track. When you are in the station, it is easy to see whether the maintenance vehicle is somewhere on the track: if it is not parked in the station, it must be somewhere else.
Alleged theft of Transrapid technology
In an incident in December 2004, Chinese engineers entered into the Transrapid maintenance room in the middle of the night in Shanghai, took measurements of the train, and even filmed the whole incident, according to the German Economic Weekly, Wirtschaftswoche. Wirtschaftswoche further speculated that it was a case of Transrapid technology theft. Furthering the Transrapid Consortium's unease, the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group has announced it has developed its own high speed maglev technology, which it claims to be superior to that of Transrapid's, less than two years after the break-in. Trials are supposed to begin this year of the new Chinese maglev technology in Shanghai. According to the Spiegel Online however, the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group has been tinkering with maglev technology since 1986, so it is unknown if the maglev train about to run test trials in Shanghai is the result of technology theft or actual domestic research culminating in the creation of this new maglev train system or a combination of both.
However, the Changchun Railway Vehicles company announced in 2001, before the Transrapid maglev was in operation in Shanghai, that it was developing a competing maglev system and project in northeastern China. It is one of a few Chinese companies now extensively and independently researching maglev technology.
Recently new announcements by Chinese officials planning on cutting maglev rail costs by a third have stirred some strong comments by various German officials and more diplomatic statements of concern from Transrapid officials. The Deutsche Welle reports that the China Daily quoted the State Council encouraging engineers to "learn and absorb foreign advanced technologies while making further innovations." *[6]
Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber commented, "What's happening in China smells suspiciously like technology theft," shortly after learning of the new Chinese plans to build their own maglev train. The Premier suggested that the G8 take up the issue of Chinese intellectual property rights violations at their next meeting.
The China Aviation Industry Corporation said in their defense that the new "Zhui Feng" maglev train is not based or dependent on foreign technology. They claim it is not only a much lighter train, but also has a much more advanced design.
History
Vehicles
Date | Train | Location | Present location | Comments | Top speed (km/h) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1969 / 1970 ? | Transrapid 01 | Munich | Deutsches Museum, Munich | By Krauss-Maffei. Indoor benchtop model. Only 600 mm long track. | |
6 May 1971 | MBB Prinzipfahrzeug | MBB's Ottobrunn factory (near Munich), West Germany | By MBB. First passenger-carrying principle vehicle. 660 m test track. MBB: Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm, Prinzipfahrzeug: Principle vehicle. | 90 (1971) | |
6 October 1971 | Transrapid 02 | Krauss-Maffei's plant in Munich - Allach, West Germany | Krauss-Maffei, Munich | By Krauss-Maffei. 930 m test track which included one curve. Displayed at Paris Expo from 4 Juneto 9 June 1973. | 164 (October 1971) |
16 August 1972 | Transrapid 03 | Munich | Scrapped | By Krauss-Maffei. Air-cushion vehicle (ACV or hovercraft) propelled by a linear motor. The system was abandoned in 1973 due to the too high noise generation and the too large consumption. Attempts in France (Aérotrain) and in the USA ([7]) led in the following years to similar decisions. 930 m test track. | 140 (September 1972) |
1972 / 1974 ? | Erlangener Erprobungsträgers (EET 01) | Southern edge of Erlangen (near Nuremberg), West Germany | By Siemens and others. Electrodynamic suspension (EDS) (like JR-Maglev). Unmanned. 880 m circular track. Erlangener Erprobungsträgers: Erlangen Test Vehicle. | 160 / 230 (1974) ? | |
20 December 1973 | Transrapid 04 | Munich - Allach, West Germany | Technik Museum Speyer | By Krauss-Maffei. | 250 (end 1973), 253.2 (21 November 1977) |
1974 / January 1975 ? | Komponentenmeßträger (KOMET) | Manching, West Germany | By MBB. Unmanned. 1300 m track. | 401.3 (1974) | |
1975 | HMB1 | Thyssen Henschel in Kassel, West Germany | By Thyssen Henschel. First functional longstator vehicle. 100 m guideway. Unmanned. | ||
1976 | HMB2 | Thyssen Henschel in Kassel, West Germany | By Thyssen Henschel. World's first passenger-carrying, longstator vehicle. 100 m guideway. | 36 (or 40 ?) | |
17 May 1979 | Transrapid 05 | International Transportation Exhibition (IVA 79) in Hamburg. Reassembled in Kassel in 1980. | ThyssenKrupp, Kassel | 908 m track. | 75 |
June 1983 | Transrapid 06 | Transrapid Versuchsanlage Emsland (TVE), West Germany | A part is in Deutsches Museum, Bonn | Presented to public in Munich on 13 March 1983. 31.5 km track. | 302 (1984), 355 (1985), 392 (1987), 406 (1987), 412.6 (January 1988) |
1988 | Transrapid 07 | Transrapid Versuchsanlage Emsland (TVE), West Germany | Munich International Airport and Infozentrum Lathen (TVE Emsland) | Presented in public at the International Transportation Exhibition (IVA 88) in Hamburg. | 436 (1989), 450 (17 June 1993) |
August 1999 | Transrapid 08 | Transrapid Versuchsanlage Emsland (TVE), Germany | Destroyed 22 September 2006 in accident | ||
2002 | Transrapid SMT | Shanghai Maglev Train, China | 501 (12 November 2003) | ||
2007 | Transrapid 09 | Transrapid Versuchsanlage Emsland (TVE), Germany |
See also
For an overview of competitors to this system, see High-speed rail.
- Aérotrain
- JR-Maglev MLX01
- Land speed record for railed vehicles
- Magnetic levitation train
- Shanghai Maglev Train
- Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev Train
- de:Transrapid-Versuchsanlage Emsland
References
- ^ Map of the United States with proposed routes
- ^ Las Vegas–Primm
- ^ Pittsburgh
- ^ Baltimore–Washington
- ^ NDR:Mehrere Tote bei Transrapid-Unglück im Emsland
- ^ BBC News: Magnetic train crashes in Germany
External links
Official
- Transrapid homepage
- SIEMENS Transportation Systems
- ThyssenKrupp Transrapid GmbH
- DB Magnetbahn GmbH
- UK Ultraspeed Project Homepage
- TVE
Other
- WikiMaglev
- [8], [9],
- [10], *[11], *[12]
- Information about the Munich Transrapid connection
- German Museum, Bonn - The Transrapid is one of the exhibits
- Maglev video gallery
- Transrapid Pictures at Shanghai Pudong Airport
- Transrapid - Maglev in Asia (China, Shanghai), Japan (Yamanashi) and Germany (Munich; TVE)
- Google Map of Lathen-Doerpen test track facility
High-speed trains: Acela Express • Alfa Pendular • AVE • ElettroTrenoRapido 4xx • InterCityExpress • JR-Maglev MLX01 • HST • HSR-350x • Pendolino • Shinkansen • TGV • Transrapid • Treno Alta Velocità • X2000 |
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High-speed lines: Beijing-Tianjin • CTRL (London-Channel Tunnel) • Cologne-Aachen Cologne-Frankfurt • French LGV lines • Hanover-Würzburg • Northeast Corridor (Boston-Washington DC) Nuremberg-Ingolstadt • HSL 1 (Brussels-Paris) • HSL 2 (Leuven-Ans) • HSL 3 (Liège-Aachen) HSL 4 (Brussels-Netherlands) • HSL-Zuid (Netherlands) • Japanese Shinkansen lines • Taiwan High Speed Rail |
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