(The following story by Martin Regg Cohn appeared on the Toronto Star website on January 30.)
TORONTO — It’s a fast train to nowhere. The fastest, in fact, the world has ever seen.
For seven magnetic minutes, passengers hurtle along at speeds that can top 430 kilometres an hour — faster than the old Concorde supersonic jetliners at takeoff.
Welcome aboard the Maglev — the world’s first magnetic-levitation train. Propelled by magnetic fields along a 30-kilometre elevated guideway, it floats on a cushion of air.
Unfortunately, it is also sinking into an ocean of debt.
Opened last March, the $1.4 billion Maglev is an engineering marvel — and a commercial flop.
Passengers are balking at a high-speed train that leaves them high and dry, laden with luggage and fumbling for taxi fare in the middle of nowhere.
The Maglev track links outlying Pudong International Airport with …outlying suburban Pudong, a dead end for air travellers.
Far from Shanghai’s commercial centre, passengers clamber into taxis for another ride — up to one hour in heavy traffic — across the urban wasteland of Pudong’s high-rise towers, then through congested tunnels to reach their downtown hotels across the river.
That detour has made Maglev the world’s fastest-moving white elephant.
Priced too high for most Chinese, it operates with its seats mostly empty, often at barely one-third capacity.
The initial price for a one-way trip was slashed by 33 per cent to 50 yuan, or $7.50, but that failed to fill many seats in a city where the average daily wage is about 80 yuan.
As Toronto’s Pearson International Airport prepares for its own rail link into town, to be built and operated by the private sector, Shanghai’s experience is a bitter lesson in how planners can aim for the sky only to come crashing down to earth.
Toronto’s planned $200 million “Blue 22” — so-called because it will reach Union Station from the airport in 22 minutes — will ferry passengers straight downtown after a stop in west Toronto.
Not so in Shanghai, where the train’s terminus is so isolated that my taxi drivers got lost both coming and going. That’s why most passengers hire taxis to take them straight to the airport. The taxi costs twice as much as the train, but it’s half the headache.
“If you have luggage, it’s easier to take a taxi,” says Peter Fu, a Chinese Canadian architect living in Shanghai. “Otherwise, you have to transfer at the station, so it’s too complicated.”
Fu tried out the Maglev once on a VIP tour with Canadian diplomats. He found the high-speed trip irresistible but impractical.
“Everyone will want to try it out once,” he predicts. But not twice.
It’s a long march from the Maglev’s airport terminus to the terminal. And passengers have to surrender their luggage to X-ray scanners before boarding the train.
These days, many of the Mag-lev’s passengers are bereft of baggage but armed with digital cameras and videocams — suggesting they are tourists on a joyride rather than travellers with a destination.
It’s easy to see why the Maglev is such a popular attraction for sightseers. Onboard attendants introduce the train to passengers, boasting that it is the world’s fastest form of ground transportation — though technically it operates about one centimetre above ground.
The train accelerates to 330 km/h within a couple of minutes. That’s the cruising speed of an airborne Beech 1900D commuter aircraft.
A few seconds later, electronic scoreboards in each coach display readings above 400 km/h — peaking at 432 km/h for all of about one minute.
That’s well above the operational speeds of the Japanese Bullet train (260 km/h) and France’s TGV (300 km/h).
At top speed, the view from the window of farms and factories becomes a 21st-century blur. Cars and trucks on an adjacent highway appear to be crawling like caterpillars.
Another Maglev train approaching from the opposite direction on an adjacent track creates the sensation of a momentary shockwave — not surprising if you do the math, since the speed of approach would be in excess of 860 km/h.
As the train begins to decelerate, it feels as if we are slowing to a crawl — until you look again at the cars on the highway receding in the distance. A quick glance up at the speedometer confirms we are moving at a mere 250 km/h.
Most passengers jump out of their plush seats to take snapshots and pose by the window. But it’s a quick thrill. Seven minutes after pushing off, the trip is over.
To generate such unprecedented speeds, the Maglev is kept afloat by powerful magnetic fields that reduce the friction from grinding on steel rails.
Indeed, the Maglev is a train without wheels, unencumbered by an engine, pollution-free and virtually noiseless.
Instead of an onboard motor, the lightweight coaches rely on magnets built into the guideway to provide propulsion. Built with German technology by ThyssenKrupp and Siemens, the Maglev is the first of its kind — and so far, the last.
Apart from a test track in Germany, no one has been able to make a go of it.
China’s central government, anxious to project an image of high-tech modernity to the world, became the first customer. But after going well over budget, China has quietly shelved plans to link Shanghai and Beijing with the Maglev.
There is talk of extending the line by eight kilometres to Shanghai’s 2010 World Expo site along the Huangpu River, and possibly to the city of Hangzhou, 200 kilometres to the southwest.
But the Maglev could face stiff competition from an unexpected quarter: the municipal government has decided to extend a conventional subway line 29.2 kilometres to Pudong airport, connecting it to the vast commuter network for a mere $1.50 per ride.
Facing slow competition from taxis and conventional subways, the futuristic Maglev may be going nowhere fast.
Indeed, for serious travellers, sightseeing only goes so far.
“Why would I take the Mag- lev?” asks Yan Minjie, 26. “Isn’t it more convenient to take the bus or taxi to the airport?”
She should know. As a tour guide, Yan would take the train only when showing it off to tourists, not when she needs to get to the airport in a hurry.
“The Maglev is simply a tourist spot,” she muses. “I’ll only go there when I’m guiding a group.”