Testing of the first commercial model of Japan’s new high speed “maglev” train began earlier this month on a test track in Yamanashi Prefecture.
Dubbed the L0 model, the new train, which uses magnetic levitation instead of conventional wheels to “float” along the tracks, is scheduled to begin service in 2027 and will connect central Tokyo’s Shinagawa Station to Nagoya. The new maglev train is reportedly the first to utilize superconducting electromagnets, which eliminate electrical resistance and create a stronger magnetic field, forcing the train to levitate higher than conventional maglev trains currently in use in several countries around the world.
According to developer Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai), the train is expected to travel at speeds up to 500 km/h (311 mph) and will carry up to 1,000 passengers at a time. Additional development plans for a route extension to Osaka by 2045 will connect two of Japan’s biggest cities and shorten a current two-and-a-half hour, 300-mile trip to just over one hour.
Engineers around the world are continuing to strive for increasingly faster, more sophisticated means of transportation. In 2012, the BBC reported that engineers in the U.S. and China are working on trains that would travel at speeds of up to 4,000 miles per hour by combining magnetic levitation with a vacuum tunnel to reduce friction and air resistance. These mega-fast “vacuum trains” could potentially reduce travel time between New York City and Beijing to just two hours; however, no reports of testing have surfaced thus far.
