I wonder if we'll ever get back to "High Speed Air" in my lifetime.

Back in the 70s, you could rock up at the airport twenty minutes before your flight left, jump on with minimal hassle, and cruise along at 600mph to your destination. Now, you need to endure two hours of having your fingernail clippers confiscated so that you can fly at 500mph to save on fuel costs.

That seems to be the true advantage of rail travel. As it said on the loudspeaker in Berlin HBF last time I was there: "Please try to arrive on the platform at least five minutes before your train is scheduled to depart."

Sadly, I bet the way we'll end up equalizing this will be that somebody will eventually bomb a TGV and we'll have to start doing the two hour confiscate-your-kids'-apple-juice routine at the train station too.

Amazing. Writing this from Berlin, which doesn't have maglev trains, but has phenomenal public transit. It's sad to be going back to the US soon where the infrastructure is so primitive.

What's interesting, the speed record for conventional bullet trains is 574.8 km/h, about 30km/h less! This was a TGV train, largely unmodified (although they did increase the tension in the caternary). The wiki article about the speed record is interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV_world_speed_record

Makes you wonder whether the overhead of maglev is really worth it.

Just to reframe this a little:

Commercial aircraft travel in ground-speed terms, around 350-500 MpH on average [0] (sometimes faster with wind behind them). This travels on a "normal" day up to 313 MpH which is nothing to sniff at.

You should also take into account how long you'll spend at the airport (e.g. security, checking/unchecking bags, etc) and taxiing/queuing on/off of the runway, and how long it takes it get up to altitude (aircraft travel slower while ascending).

Even still an aircraft likely is faster than this. But this could theoretically be cheaper than an aircraft, in particular as fuel costs continue to rise (and after the high building costs have been repaid).

These might be wider deployed if land wasn't already "owned" and using Eminent domain to seize it wasn't so politically unpopular. Plus every road you cross either requires a bridge (expensive), tunnel (more expensive), or crossing (dangerous).

[0] http://www.flightradar24.com/BER7382/60eb62e

The article by Kiyotaka Matsuda in Bloomberg Business[1] makes the important point that "Whether any of this makes a shred of economic sense is another matter." Japan has a declining population, and the level of investment required to build a maglev train line is enormous. Countries with growing populations have decided against building high-speed rail lines, and Japan does not appear to have any export market for this technology. Even the first phase of Japan's proposed maglev train line project, running from Tokyo to Nagoya if built, would not be completed until 2027.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-21/world-s-fa...

Imagine NYC to Boston in 40 minutes and the kind of boost it can bring to the innovative power in the region. It will be truly a silicon alley. And imagine two innovative centers in the country competing with each other.

Unfortunately this kind of decisions are not made by innovative people.

How about low-speed maglev? China will open its first line later this year: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_S1,_BCR

I imagine it's much cheaper to build and operate?

They are certainly cool pieces of technology but also expensive ones. The development of the German Transrapid began in 1969, it was declared ready for use in 1991 and then no planned route turned out to be cost efficient. Wouldn't China have bought one there would probably still be none in use. Even the test track in Germany is no longer open to the public since an accident a couple of years ago.

Often people are disappointed when they visit Japan to find that it isn't as technologically advanced as they had dreamed, and I do agree partially, but whenever I discuss it with friends who also live here we always agree: the trains are amazing. Even local trains (in Tokyo) come very often, are fast, and are extremely quiet. But I always look forward to riding the Shinkansen. If you're lucky you can even get a great view of Mount Fuji.

What's truely impressive is not the record but the fact that they will operate at 505 km/h.

Current high speed trains can go over 570km/h but are only operating an 320km/h.

Contrast this with the Caltrain that chugs diesel and barely goes at 80 mph taking over 1 hour and 40 minutes to get from San Francisco to San Jose (the hubs of modern day technology). At this point the only advantage that Caltrain brings to the bay area is that you don't have to worry about parking in San Francisco.

It's sad that in the US, train connections between major living centers isn't even a federal priority. Granted, the US is VERY large and we're talking about much larger investments than in Japan, but our economy is a crapton bigger as well.

I used to be all about public transportation and trains, but I cannot reconcile that anymore with advancement in technology. It simply does not make sense to me anymore to try and build high speed rail on the ground, on fixed "rails" in order to not even get close to even slow airplane speeds.

With the roll-out of more sophisticated air traffic control systems that will allow denser traffic, higher frequency landing / take-offs, I don't see the sense in fixed systems like rail.

It obviously makes a lot more sense in places like Japan or even parts of Europe, but in the USA, where you need to traverse huge swaths of uninhabitable and even inhospitable and unpredictable land, it simply makes no sense.

Take Texas for example. All the idiots that have been moving to Texas from self-absorbed and myopic cesspools of self-importance keep crying about public transportation and high speed rail to connect the San Antonio, Dallas, Houston triangle; but no one wants to address the question as to why. You could and already can travel those paths by air and it will only get faster and cheaper with the improved air traffic control system when fully rolled out.

Do we think that high speed rail will enjoy the freedom that current AMTRAK does where you just drive up, hop on the train and off you go? No! You will have to also go through the TSA security bullshit and you will still have to go to specific locations to get on. It just makes no sense.

I would much rather see some sort of automated flight between regular airports on regional hops like the Texas triangle.

Edit: ... If at all. Something somewhat related that has baffled me for years now. Is why do people, especially in the tech industry need to travel so much? Of all people, why has the tech industry not solved the remote working issue? It's like we are using steam power to make electricity. Again, it makes no sense.