Friday, September 09, 2016

More Vaporware

In case you think I just pick on self-driving cars, this, too, will never happen.
BALTIMORE (AP) — The head of a private venture to build a high-speed magnetic-levitation train between Washington and Baltimore believes the project could break ground in as little as three to four years.

Nothing against Maglev. It works. It's also one of those shiny "space age" sounding technologies that sound super neato to people with no understanding of mass transit. I frequently read comments like "why are we building 19th century technology like light rail? We should build maglev trains instead!" as if that would be appropriate technology for an 8 mile route with stops every 3/4 mile (it wouldn't).

But the cost of building maglev on this route isn't building maglev, it's assembling right of ways and building into city centers and creating station space at either end. And you can run regular SUPERTRAINS on non-supertrain track, allowing integrated systems, while maglev won't connect up with anything else.

Anyway, it'll never be built, just not sure what the game is.