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Worlds Future Megaprojects
#1
I randomly came across this interesting video tonight. 

Of interest to this group may be the sections on Songdo, Korea and Masdar City, UAE. 

Of interest to Canard is the $85B Japan is spending on maglev trains.  Wink

Check it out. 
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I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#2
I guess my question to you is, why do you think those projects are of particular interest to us?  I suppose I'm curious why you think they're interesting, before watching a half hour program.

As for Japan's Maglev, it recently hit the news again, by breaking the train speed record again, with 590km/h sustained for 19 seconds. 19 seconds might not seem like much, but the test track is only 42km long, so the train spends most of that speeding up and slowing down. I was in Japan for the last two weeks, and got to ride a train through the valley under the test track, and I even caught a glimpse of the train!
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#3
590km/hr? We can't even manage a tenth of that currently. $85B? I'd be happy if we threw a tenth as much on the issue.

Leave the piemaglev in the sky to future generations. Let's first get regular hourly service, both in frequency and in duration, between here and Union during the day and early evening. Can we at least make something as modest as that happen in the next decade?

I propose the slogan as a call for action, "GO K-W. One hour. Every hour."
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#4
Another slogan could be joining the XXth century one year at a time. LRT, electric trains, beer laws, mixed usage zoning... all things that have been around for over half a century in Europe but are considered breakthroughs in Ontario.
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#5
(04-20-2015, 01:10 PM)Markster Wrote: I guess my question to you is, why do you think those projects are of particular interest to us?  I suppose I'm curious why you think they're interesting, before watching a half hour program.

Sorry, Markster, you make a good point. I specifically highlight Songdu and Masdar City for their planned urban designs and especially Masdar for the overall carbon neutral philosophy and technologies it is utilizing. The entire 30 minutes may not be your cup of tea. There is a planned ecological disaster of a canal across Nicaragua as well as a rather over my head nuclear fusion project called ITER that is being built in France.

I had included links to Songdu and Masdar in my original posting. If anyone has a glance at those links and finds it interesting, have a look see at the video for more information.
_____________________________________
I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#6
I'd heard about the Nicaragua canal recently, and I find the concept fascinating, to provide competition to Panama.

Further on the topic of the Japanese Maglev, it's really an interesting situation they have over there.
Realistically, in most any situation, Maglev going 500km/h is going to be absolute infrastructure overkill. I would absolutely argue against any implementation in Canada anytime soon, as the tech is simply not proven yet. We would be entirely well served by 300km/h high speed rail that uses existing rail tech, and there is a wealth of expertise worldwide to assist in creating a system. It uses familiar rails, ties, overhead, with the main difference being that they are highly, highly tuned for maximum efficiency.

In Japan, however, Maglev actually makes sense.

Their high speed rail system is 50 years old now, and is hyper-popular. They have squeezed every last bit of efficiency out of the existing rails. We're talking about 16-car trains carrying ~1500 people each running at subway frequencies between Osaka and Tokyo. There is literally no more room on the existing rails, and the speed of the network is now fully restricted by the track curvature.
Simply put, in order to increase capacity, they need to build a bypass. And once you talk about building an entirely new corridor to relieve an existing, popular, service, that's when you can look at making it the cutting edge for maximizing future returns.

Japan is also trying to sell it to the Americans, for Washington-New York-Boston, but frankly, I don't see that going over, because there is so much room for improvement using existing high speed rail tech, and that experimental new tech is not really required, or worth the gamble. But Japan does need to try to push it to help offset the massive R&D costs.

But for Japan, it absolutely makes sense.
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#7
I'm planing on visiting the Yamanashi test line next year (among others, like riding every AGT and Monorail in the country!).  Looking forward to finally getting a ride on it!

Video posted above is a bit misleading, showing mostly N700 and E5/7 stock - but I'm not surprised as this is just one of those YouTube videos that are more-or-less clickbait, using stock footage with some kid who read Wikipedia or used a Text-to-Speech program to narrate and try to get hits.  He completely missunderstood the Romanji - it's nickname is actually "Linear Motor Car", derived from the LSM used for propulsion along the guideway. There's even a catchy song about it. Enjoy having that stuck in your head for the rest of the week. You're welcome. Big Grin

Of the two major systems out there (SCMaglev and Transrapid), I still think Transrapid is the more developed and deployable system, with a significantly smaller guideway and requirement for infrastructure.  It's sad that the crash on the test line in Emsland effectivley killed it (and was totally preventable/stupid human error) - Shanghai's will likely be the only system of that type.
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