The Chinese government presents it as its new bullet train. Able to reach 450 km/h, CR450 It is the new prototype of the high speed China, has been developing for 2018 and are beginning to try this year. When ready, says the Locomotive and Vehicle Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Railway Sciences (CARS), can operate at 400 km/h, that is, that it could travel the distance that separates Beijing from Shanghai in 2.5 hours, instead of 4.5 that takes its high -speed models now.
His secret is, says the Beijing government, in its traction system of permanent magnets refrigerated by water and in new materials “with which it is possible to reduce air resistance by 22% and the weight a 10.” When it starts operating, the CR450 will sneak into the top ten of the fastest railways in the world, whose first positions are already some of the country’s locomotives. For example, Fuxing models, the first of totally Chinese production, and that would become the ancestor of this CR450, reach 350 km/h. For its part, The Shanghai Maglev to Pudong airport reaches a speed of 431 km/h.
The magnetic levitation trains, also called Maglev, operate thanks to magnets placed in the convoys and the roads that are repelled or attracted, now the large speed records hold. In some tests they have exceeded 600 km/h. Vicente Dolz, of the Higher Technical School of Aerospace Engineering and Industrial Design of the Polytechnic University of Valencia clarifies that «one thing is the tests in the best possible conditions and another the operating speeds. It is true that they exceed conventional trains by rolling,. These, the usual ones in Europe, have a technological limit of operation, because by increasing the speed will always appear some small disturbance in the Raíl; Any deformation of the terrain or wheel causes it to begin to vibrate and lose speed. The solution is magnetic levitation, where you are no longer in contact with the road ».
The Magleb are silent and, in theory, they have less maintenance costs, but building a kilometer of line is much more expensive. In fact, there are only six commercial systems in operation in the world: one in Japan, two in South Korea and three in China. The longest is in Shanghai and covers the 30 km that separate the center of the Pudong International Airport. Although, we will have to wait for little, it seems for Japan to lie the record. The country has recovered an old project to connect Nagoya, Tokyo and Osaka that would operate at 500km/h connecting Tokyo and Osaka in just over an hour. «In this case it makes sense because it connects two overcrowded cities. In the end, connect two centers to similar speeds to those given by an airplane, although the cost of the road is high, it can make sense, ”says Dolz, who details that he is being investigated in” levitation trains for attraction instead of repulsion. Traditionally levitation has been achieved by repulsion. The problem of that is that you have to generate magnetic fields on the road, you have to put imam coils and activate and disable the sections where the train passes. In attraction systems, the train would not have to be fed and the train would have coils to regulate the attraction with the road with a control system. This route began to investigate in Germany in the 90s and has now taken the Chinese relief ».
Hyperloop or the vacuum tube
What would happen if these magnetic levitation trains that do not suffer friction with the tracks, are also introduced into a vacuum tube? That air resistance would also disappear and The train could reach 1,000 km/h. This idea is launched by Elon Musk to the international community in 2013 with the publication of the White Paper Hyperloop Alpha. “It was a time when there was a lot to develop high speed in the US, but without depending on Europe that had all the technology,” Dolz clarifies. During these more than 12 years companies have been created and carried out prototypes with greater or lesser success and some sound failures. One of the best known is that of Virgin. The firm was one of the first to join the car and even made an essay with passengers that did not exceed 172 km/h. After making an investment of more than 450 million dollars left the Hyperloop One project.
The Spanish Zeleros Global also picked up the Musk glove. However, in recent times, the Valencian firm has taken a business turn to also bet on mature sectors such as electric mobility. His CEO in a recent interview claimed that they continue to test Hyperloop and that the first made in China have exceeded 600 km/h on a 30 km track. It also ensures that they continue in this development because both the European Commission and the Draghi report consider it priority. The Swiss Limitless project also continues that at the end of 2024 beat a record record with a 1:12 scale model that circulated through a 40 cm tube. It toured 125.6 meters. The work of the Hyperloop European Center, which has a 420 meter tunnel in which they are testing (at the moment below 100 km/h). Twelve years later Hyperloop has problems to solve, such as costs or «security, what about passengers if there is any incidence? The tube does not have oxygen. In addition, we must develop the operation regulations, ”Dolz warns.
Since Hyperloop is still far and Maglev developments are anecdotal, it can be affirmed without fear of making mistakes that the kings of speed in passenger transport are high -speed trains. In this section, China also holds several records. Only in ten years he has extended high -speed roads for more than 50,000 km. Behind is the EU with 8,556 km, of which Spain has 3,190. «From pioneers such as Japan, Italy, France, Germany and Spain, the high -speed railroad has expanded at a global scale. In just a decade, China has built a network that represents more than two thirds of the world total. Developments are also being carried out in Türkiye, Morocco, the United States, India, Southeast Asia, etc. Approximately 5,000 high -speed trains operate daily, transporting more than 2,000 million passengers per year, ”explains the International Railway Union.
Not everything is speed
While the US begins timidly in this high speed, in Europe -there is some of the first to bet on it such as France and Spain, the key is now in the expansion of the network and the increase in interconnections. Although not everything is the speed, at least this is believed by Mariano Sanz Lubeiro, Confederal Secretary of Occupational Health and Environmental Sustainability of CC OO. «We have focused a lot on high speed (which is already face that not everyone can access) and we have set aside everything that is the conventional train, which complements it and allows it to have a more important social use of the railroad. Also It is essential to bet on night trains When we talk about interconnections. With the Covid the train that connected us with Lisbon was eliminated and ended in Paris, while in Europe there has been an important development of these trains in Austria, Germany, Belgium … that is, that, at general, there are only two international routes from Spain. They are the ones who leave Barcelona; one that goes to Marseille and another that goes to Lyon. We are on a railway island and more if one takes into account that the train is one of the most sustainable, economic and social media there are. It is also necessary to bet on the transport of goods, because it is anecdotal. In Spain we do not move 4% of the goods per railway, While in the US this figure reaches almost 40%, ”says spokesman CC OO. The organization recently celebrated a day in which these issues discussed.
USA joins the bird
The US has more than 5,000 public airports and about 6.5 million km of roads, but there is no high -speed railroad for the displacements of its 340 million inhabitants. In project, however, they appear a first route between San Francisco and Los Angeles, “difficult to build due to the California mountains,” says the BBC. Then there is Las Vegas to Los Angeles and, in addition, there are plans for a high -speed line from Portland, in Oregon, even Seattle, in the state of Washington, and even Vancouver, in Canada. And another between Dallas and Houston.