Speed demon
During my recent visit to Shanghai and Beijing, I used the opportunity to ride the maglev train from Shanghai to the Pu Dong airport. This train, "hovering" on magnetic tracks, achieves and max speed of 430 km/h, and the ride is quite the experience.
The current maglev is only a test track, just 30 km, and one has to go well outside Shanghai city center to catch it. And, at 400 km/h, even having to accelerate and wind down again, it completes the 30 km trip in just 8 minutes. From a pure transport point of view, it's not making sense. But, who cares? The geek value is immense.
One of the most impressive things about a ride on the maglev is the acceleration. The train goes from zero to more than 400 km/h in less that 4 minutes, and the acceleration is perfectly smooth.
It's never uncomfortable, there's no sense of strain or effort - it just glides along. And the acceleration is constant - even at 300+ km/h, it keeps increasing the pace at an amazing rate. It's really incredible to experience the power of that - more so, I felt, that the top speed. All during the acceleration I kept looking out, seeing the train going ever faster, look back and take a picture of the "speed indicator", and look out again.
That's not saying the the top speed is not impressive, of course. Going more than 400 km/h is wild. And it doesn't hurt that the train looks both sexy and cool. Somehow it all feel perfectly right for Shanghai and the "new China". There's rumors of extending the track all the way to Shanghai city center, and of wild plans for a Beijing - Shanghai maglev line. If they ever do that, count on me to drop by for a ride.
For the train enthusiasts, there's more photos on flickr