Hasta La Gadget!

This maglev train’s length of development sure can’t a hold a candle to its speed — it took its creators almost six years to finally give it a test run. The five L0 Series cars zipped along the 26.6-mile track in nine minutes, hitting 311 mph within the first three miles. The reporters on board the futuristic vehicle couldn’t feel or hear any disturbance, except for the odd blown mind. Outside, however, watching members of the public felt a shockwave followed by a deafening roar as the duck-billed train zoomed past. Using results from this trial, the company will be assessing the platypus-like train’s potential environmental impact and looking for ways to reduce its maintenance costs in the future. You won’t be taking a ride on this levitating wonder during your next Japanese vacation, though — — CJCR’s got a few more tests to run before its 2027 launch date.

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Source: The Asahi Shimbun (1), (2)

Fourteen years from now, when Japan’s magnetically levitated, approx. 300MPH/482KPH Chuō Shinkansen comes online, it’ll be among the world’s coolest people movers – maybe even top of the list. And the world’s most fantastic train should have equally fantastic train stations, yeah?

Maybe not.

While the existence of this train is old news, released just last week were Japan Railways’ design proposals for stations on the initial Tokyo to Nagoya route (with eventual extension to Osaka). Suffice it to say, as proposed these supertech trains would be stopping at stations with an aesthetic that aggressively bypasses any notion of post-modern minimalism and instead lands somewhere in the vicinity 1970s Soviet chic. They’re basically elevators, stairs, automated ticket counters, toilets, and tracks.

Those interested can see the plans here & here (PDF; Japanese only).

Train Stations are Not Just Train Stations (in Japan)
For one who’s never traveled here, this might not seem like such a big deal. Because it’s just a train station, for a very fast train at that, so who’s looking to linger? Well, the thing is, in Japan even medium-sized and smallish train stations can be the nuclei of entire neighborhoods or city wards, and they’re often social & economic ecosystems unto themselves; think variably sized multilevel shopping malls where trains happen to stop. This is particularly true in places like Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka where rail stations serve literally millions of passengers on a daily basis.

Japan Railways is calling the designs “modern” and “revolutionary,” but here in rapidly aging, often techno-contradictory Japan (yes, the rumors about ongoing fax machine usage are true), dispensing with the niceties and familiarities of strongly analog and strongly full-service rail travel culture might be too tall an order – the natives might revolt… which basically just means they’ll demand that their local municipalities cocoon the stations with restaurants, convenience stores, souvenir shops, coin lockers, and little out of the way cubbys with those stand-up irons to press your pants.

Remains to be seen, but we’ll keep you dialed in as things unfold.

Addendum on Nomenclature:
Oh, by the way, the ultra-utilitarian stations aren’t the only thing that could use a bit more thought: “Chuō Shinkansen” might sound exotic and Japanesey, but it really just means “Central Shinkansen.” And, though the name’s gained a domestic and international cache of high-tech coolness, “shinkansen” just means “new main line.”

Sure, a dead-sexy maglev bullet train is a concept that sells itself, but let’s hope that gets some polish. Because calling this thing the “Central Shinkansen” would be like naming the latest Ferrari “Red Car.”

• • •

Akihabara News Contributor Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com.

Via RocketNews 24 via IT Media (Japanese)

More than a year after the Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai) received construction approval to get going on its maglev railways, it has finally unveiled a Series L0 prototype that would put its current bullet train system to shame. Designed to travel at 311 mph, a single one of these high-speed marvels is designed to carry about 16 carriages, which translates to about 1,000 commuters. While Japanese travelers already enjoy a speedy 90-minute trip from Tokyo to Nagoya, this new maglev system promises to cut that journey to just 40 minutes. Announced nearly five years ago, the project has since been extended to include an Osaka-Tokyo leg and will cost around nine trillion yen (approximately $112 billion) when all is said and done. Don’t pack your bags just yet though; the maglev’s Nagoya rail isn’t scheduled to go live until 2027, and the boarding call for Osaka isn’t until 2045. Of course, if you need to ride electromagnetic rails now, there’s always China’s Shanghai Transrapid, which has been ferrying passengers to and fro the Pudong airport since 2004 — it once reached speeds of 501km/h (311mph). China’s even planning a whopping 1,000 km/h vacuum-tube maglev train in just a year or so. Of course, those of us on the other end of the Pacific are still waiting for that long-delayed California-Nevada maglev project to work out. Sigh.

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Via: Inhabitat

Source: Phys.org

Bullet trains are one of the most popular modes of public transport in Japan, especially during the daily commute from one prefecture to another. Well, these bullet trains are called so for one specific reason – they are fast, extremely fast. Still, the need for speed has been an obsession with train engineers, and recently, the carriage of the Maglev bullet train series which are meant to run between Tokyo and Nagoya from 2027 onward was revealed to the world at a test line in Japan by the Central Japan Railway recently. The front carriage itself measures 28 meters long, 2.9 meters wide and 3.1 meters tall, where it comes complete with a blue stripe on a white base. The front carriage is capable of carrying 24 passengers, while the other carriages on the train are able to carry 68 passengers each. To get an idea on how fast it is, you can leave your Ferrari at home – the train zips along at a maximum speed of 500 kilometers per hour.

To date, a total of five carriages for the Maglev train have been constructed by Nippon Sharyo and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, where test runs on these carriages will be carried out after ongoing work so that the test line can be extended, and all tests are scheduled to be completed by next year.

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