How to restart high-speed maglev in dispute
China News Weekly reporter/Yang Zhijie
Issued in the 954th issue of China News Weekly, 2020.7.06
A blue-gray high-speed maglev prototype passed by on a 1.5 km long maglev test line.
On June 21, at the Jiading campus of Tongji University, a high-speed maglev prototype independently developed by CRRC Sifang Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as CRRC Sifang) completed its first test run. Although the prototype car travels slowly, it represents China's fastest ground-speed transportation, a high-speed maglev train with a speed of 600 kilometers per hour, which has taken the first step of the Long March.
"Taking Beijing to Shanghai as an example, plus travel preparation time, it takes about 4.5 hours by plane, about 5.5 hours by high-speed rail, and only about 3.5 hours by high-speed maglev." Head of the high-speed maglev project, deputy general manager of CRRC Sifang Engineer Ding Sansan described this.
Maglev once had a "gray past" in China. As early as 2006, the Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev Transportation Project Proposal was approved by the State Council and was originally planned to be put into use at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. However, due to various problems, the start time was put on hold indefinitely. The heat of magnetic levitation has also been quiet for a time in China.
Today, a test run of a high-speed maglev test car at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour seems to release a new signal: China's high-speed maglev may "restart". Chen Xiaohong, Dean of the Railway and Urban Rail Transit Research Institute of Tongji University and Director of the (National) Maglev Transportation Engineering Technology Research Center said, "My personal view is that with the maturity of the entire system and technology, high-speed maglev will definitely start to invest in our country. Application is just a matter of which line to do first and when to do it is a problem, and doing it is not a problem."
Critical year
Maglev train, also known as maglev train, is a train driven by the attractive force and repulsive force of magnet. Unlike high-speed rail, subway and other wheel and rail transportation, maglev trains are suspended in the air and do not contact the rails.
In science fiction scenes, people imagine maglev trains to travel at very high speeds. Not in reality, maglev trains have multiple levels in speed. The medium and low speed maglev is between 80 and 120 kilometers per hour, and it has been used in some urban rail transit systems or airport contact rail systems. In May 2016, the Changsha Maglev Express Line opened for operation, connecting Changsha South Railway Station and Changsha Huanghua International Airport with a speed of 100 km/h. It is China's first medium and low speed maglev train.
The speed of medium-speed maglev is between 200 and 400 kilometers per hour, which is similar to the speed of high-speed rail. Speeds of 400 to 1000 kilometers per hour are called high-speed magnetic levitation, and over 1000 kilometers are super-high-speed magnetic levitation. In 2013, Elon Musk, the then CEO of Tesla Motors, proposed the concept of a hypercapsule high-speed rail (Hyperloop) with a design speed of about 1,000 kilometers per hour.
The high-speed maglev transportation system is "the largest achievable and fastest large-scale public transportation at present". Japan's R&D in this field is at the forefront of the world. In 2015, Japan carried out a trial operation of passenger trains for magnetic levitation trains, setting a world record of 603 kilometers per hour. Currently, the Central Shinkansen is under construction, with an operating speed of 505 kilometers per hour. It is planned to open the Tokyo to Nagoya section in 2027.
China sets the target speed of high-speed maglev trains at 600 kilometers per hour. The higher the speed, the greater the technical challenges. CRRC Sifang said that the successful trial run of the test sample achieved a breakthrough from static to dynamic operation, and obtained a large amount of key data. The key performance of the high-speed maglev system and core components has been initially verified, which is the sample for the subsequent high-speed maglev project The development of the car provided important technical support.
Sun Zhang is a retired professor and a high-speed rail expert at Tongji University. He explained to China News Weekly: "The test line of Tongji University is only 1.5 kilometers. This is only a preliminary test. But the prototype can run, float, turn, and climb. , It all makes sense and is the first step to success."
In Sun Zhang's view, the greater significance lies in the fact that the Shanghai Pudong Maglev Demonstration Line introduced German technology. The test car developed by CRRC Sifang is completely self-developed. In April 2006, the Shanghai Maglev Demonstration Line connecting Shanghai Pudong Airport and Longyang Road opened to traffic, becoming the world's first commercial high-speed maglev line.
In 2019, high-speed maglev was included in the National "Outline for the Construction of a Powerful Transportation Country" as a frontier key technology. Chen Xiaohong believes that the test run of the prototype is successful. "From the perspective of the overall national planning and construction promotion, relevant research units, engineering units and decision-makers can see the actual progress of this system and see a new generation of domestically-produced The R&D car is running, which can enhance everyone's confidence to continue to promote the project."
However, Zhu Qijie, the former vice president of the China Academy of Railway Sciences, told China News Weekly that it is not necessary to over-interpret the significance of this test run. "I also served as the director of the General Station for Quality Supervision and Inspection of the Ministry of Railways during my tenure, The high-speed test is the person in charge of technology, so it is very clear for the various tests of rail vehicles. This test run does not explain any problems."
Local passion
Ding Sansan, the principal of the high-speed maglev project and the deputy chief engineer of CRRC Sifang Co., Ltd., once said: "The high-speed maglev fills the gap between the air and railway traffic, and the high-speed maglev will be between cities with a journey of 1,000 to 1,500 kilometers. It is the best transportation choice." He explained that the high-speed maglev can achieve "quick start and quick stop", and it can accelerate from zero to 600 kilometers per hour in only 3 minutes and run less than 20 kilometers, while the high-speed rail accelerates to 350 kilometers per hour. It takes 6 minutes and an acceleration distance of about 25 kilometers.
Therefore, the "Maglev School" believes that even with the high-speed rail, high-speed maglev still has a certain application market in China. Used for long-distance transportation, it can form a high-speed "corridor" between large hub cities or between urban agglomerations and urban agglomerations.
Chen Xiaohong believes that cities such as Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao, Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and the Yangtze River Delta have time requirements for rapid contact in the future. The current high-speed rail network has some room for speeding up in some corridors, but it will not be too large. "On an important corridor, it is not enough to have a high-speed rail. In the future, Beijing and Shanghai, including the entire coastal channel, will have requirements to increase routes and increase transportation capacity from the entire passenger demand."
In the context of the current slowdown in economic growth, new infrastructure, including intercity high-speed railways and urban rail transit, is seen as a weapon to spur growth and has attracted various local governments to deploy. Some regions have also clearly stated the need for high-speed magnetic levitation. In the past two years, many plans in Shenzhen have mentioned the plan to build the second high-speed rail in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In 2019, Shenzhen issued a bidding announcement for the Planning Study of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen High-speed Maglev Intercity Railway, clearly guiding bidders to study the feasibility of applying the high-speed maglev train at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour to the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Second High-speed Railway.
In December of the same year, the State Council issued the "Outline of the Yangtze River Delta Regional Integration Development Plan," which mentioned that "the Yangtze River Delta will actively and carefully carry out planning studies on maglev projects such as Shanghai and Hangzhou." On April 17 this year, Zhejiang announced that it will build a batch of leading, iconic and leading major projects in the country, including the planning of the Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo (Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo) Super Maglev, and the project is expected to have a total investment 100 billion yuan and a speed of 600 kilometers per hour to promote regional integration in the Yangtze River Delta.
At present, Chengdu, Qingdao, Hainan and other places have incorporated the development of high-speed maglev into their long-term transportation strategic planning or conducting feasibility studies.
According to Chen Xiaohong, the development of high-speed maglev will not conflict with the existing high-speed rail network. "In the service group, high-speed maglev does not conflict with high-speed rail. On important trunk corridors, when high-speed rail already exists, maglev is The supplement to the channel capacity is the filling of the speed section."
Sun Zhang is more optimistic about the future of high-speed magnetic levitation. He believes that he should look longer and see the strategic significance of high-speed magnetic levitation, "China's economic development is uneven, and the main gap is still between the east and the west. According to the theory of urban agglomeration, if the maglev high-speed railway line runs from Shanghai to Hefei, and then through Wuhan to Chengdu and Chongqing, this strategic significance will be greater, and the time will become more and more valuable in the future."
Long restart
This sample car test run is just the first step of high-speed maglev, and there is still a long way to go to the ground.
Sun Zhang told China News Weekly that there are several stages before the restart of the high-speed maglev train, from the current single locomotive to one train, and then extend the length of the test line to increase the highest test speed. Then, the entire train will be tested by joint commissioning, (detection) power supply, suspension, turning, operational stability, communication signals, train operation control system, etc. Finally, 600,000 kilometers of trial operation must be completed before it can be put into official operation. This is also a series of procedures before the high-speed rail is put into use.
Under the background that the high-speed rail network has been widely covered, what is the breakthrough path of high-speed magnetic levitation? In an interview, Chen Xiaohong said that the construction of high-speed maglev will follow the market demand, and it will be built when there is demand, rather than building a large network at the beginning. "High-speed maglev will actually be a corridor-type and naturally formed in the future. Local network, which is the future application scenario that can be seen at present."
High-speed magnetic levitation is not compatible with existing wheel-rail traffic, and the operation network cannot be formed in a short period of time, which has become the most controversial topic in whether magnetic levitation should be restarted.
More than a decade ago, the Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev Project was launched, and the Ministry of Railways, Zhejiang Province and Shanghai organized a demonstration meeting, and Zhu Qijie participated as an invited expert in the evaluation. He told China News Weekly that there were two railway lines from Shanghai to Hangzhou at that time, and high-speed rail was to be built. If the maglev is built, there will be four Shanghai-Hangzhou channels. Is there so much passenger flow?
In addition, high investment and high cost have always been the focus of controversy. Sun Zhang compared with the calculation of the line being planned in Japan, the construction cost of high-speed maglev is about 1.5 times that of high-speed rail. Chen Xiaohong said that the cost of high-speed maglev will not be much higher than that of wheel rails, and the cost includes not only construction costs, but also long-term operation and maintenance costs. It only makes sense to compare with the same conditions of the line. For example, the overall cost of the Tokyo-Osaka Maglev Shinkansen is about 10% higher than the wheel rail, but it can shorten the round-trip time and generate more socio-economic value.
But the voice of opposition always exists. Zhao Jian, a professor at the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University, analyzed China News Weekly, "At present, our high-speed rail capacity is not fully utilized. The utilization rate of the Tokaido Shinkansen in Japan is 160 pairs per day. Passenger traffic. It is even more meaningless to repair the high-speed maglev."
Zhao Jian takes the Beijing-Shanghai line as an example. Two-thirds of the passenger flow of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail comes from cross-line trains, that is, trains passing this line in addition to the main line. If a magnetic levitation line is repaired and does not form a network, it will not be compatible with other rail transit, passenger traffic will be greatly reduced, making it difficult to make money.
He also believes that a maglev train with a speed of 500 to 600 kilometers per hour can only set up a station every 100 kilometers, and the number of stops is small, which cannot play a great role in pulling the economy along the line. "Some local governments hope to use this to boost the local economy, but after the New Coronary Pneumonia, the debts of various regions have increased, and the debt pressure of high-speed rail and highways is great, not to mention the investment of high-speed maglev. After some local governments invest, they will definitely lose money. , Can only be carried out by the country." Zhao Jian said.
"As a late-developed system, it is still difficult to find its development space." As a supporter, Chen Xiaohong also admitted in an interview that the wheel and rail system has a development history of more than 100 years and has a good coverage in China. network of. For high-speed magnetic levitation, "the public will have a little lack of acceptance and recognition."
"China News Weekly" No. 24, 2020
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