March 11, 1998. Copyright, 1998, Graphic News. All rights reserved

MAGLEV AND TILTING TRAINS HERALD REBIRTH OF RAIL
By Oliver Burkeman

LONDON, March 11, Graphic News: FOR British railway users exasperated by delays, poor travelling conditions and disintegrating schedules, Richard BransonÕs promise last week [March 4] to introduce a £1.85bn [U.S.$2.96bn] fleet of125mph [202kph] tilting trains, slashing journey times on VirginÕs West Coast and CrossCountry services, might have been viewed with scepticism.
But from a global perspective, his announcement is just another example of the regeneration of rail.
The tycoon Ð whose privatised rail franchise has long been the weakness in a diverse empire Ð awarded contracts to GEC Alsthom, Montreal-based Bombardier and Italian rolling stock manufacturer Fiat Ferroviaria to design and build more than 130 new trains. They could enter service from 2000, though optimum speeds are unlikely to be achieved before 2005.
Trains are speeding up elsewhere too. BritainÕs disastrous foray into tilting trains Ð the Advanced Passenger Train, abandoned in 1981 because of technical problems and passenger sickness Ð has been forgotten, and tilting trains are proliferating through Europe and North America. Journey times on the Washington-New York-Boston route should be reduced from eight to five hours when AmtrakÕs new vehicles take to the rails next year.
Fastest and most innovative of all is the technology of magnetic levitation, or ÔmaglevÕ, which is finally set to come of age with JapanÕs 350mph [565kph] MLX-01, currently running on a Tokyo test track. By 1999, GermanyÕs DM9.8bn [US$5.4bn] Transrapid, known as the ÕWhispering ArrowÕ, should have reduced the trip between Hamburg and Berlin from more than three hours to under one hour. It is scheduled to enter commercial service in 2005.
But it is conventional train technology, not maglev, which may hold the key to the future of rail. Again, Japan leads the field: since the Shinkansen Ôbullet trainsÕ were first launched between Osaka and Tokyo in 1964, the network has spread to cover most of the country and the trains now cruise at 170mph [274kph]. An army of 3,000 workers maintains the tracks at night and have assured the system an outstanding safety record: no passenger has ever died on a Shinkansen train.
Experts agree that significant government investment will be crucial if promising technology is to become commercially viable as well as environmentally friendly, fast and quiet. EuropeÕs state-run rail companies are hardly in a position to develop the trains unaided Ð ItalyÕs operator, for example, is currently losing four trillion lire [US$2.2bn] a year Ð and many newly-privatised companies elsewhere in Europe and America have yet to achieve profitability.
Yet developers remain optimistic. ÔResearch on the new generation trains has demonstrated that speeds of up to 360kph [223mph] are technically and economically realistic,Õ writes Jean-Claude Raoul, technical director of GEC Alsthom. ÔIt seems reasonable to predict that speeds of 400kph [248mph] could be commonplace on the new tracks early in the next century.Õ
ENDS

Sources: Scientific American, Reuter