China’s state-owned China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) has designed and built the world’s fastest Maglev train, capable of speeds up to 600 km/h. The presentation of the first train took place on July 20 in Qingdao, Shandong province, in eastern China. According to the developers, the new transport system was completely created by Chinese engineers.
The high-speed magnetic levitation train is able to cover the 1200 km distance between Beijing and Shanghai in just three hours, with all stops. For comparison: this journey by plane takes 2 hours and 5 minutes, and by car, the travel time will be 12 hours. Analysts said that the new train will occupy a niche between China’s already existing high-speed trains at around 350 km/h and airplanes at 800 km/h.
The development of a new transport system started in October 2016. Among the many technological innovations applied in the new CRRC train, the in-house developed braking system stands out, which is 30 percent more efficient than the one used in the already operating magnetic suspension train in Shanghai.
As a result, the braking distance was reduced from 16 km to 10 km. CRRC’s main competitor is the Japanese Central Japan Railway Company, whose experimental train was able to reach a speed of 603 km/h. The first serial Japanese trains will enter the Tokyo-Nagoya route by 2027.
The high-speed magnetic suspension transport system with a speed of 600 km/h will most likely be used on the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong and Shanghai-Hangzhou routes, which can provide sufficient passenger traffic to pay off this very expensive transport system. For example, the Chinese spent $1.14 billion on the construction of a thirty-kilometer road between the center of Shanghai and the international airport, and the annual maintenance costs another $ 100 million.
