'47Soton' took a back seat for me again for a few weeks, will shortly bring back up to speed. Meanwhile in China ......
At a nudge over 430 kph (267 mph) this will likely be my fastest ever "train" journey, recorded in video throughout the acceleration period. The route is of two dedicated tracks between Shanghai Pudong Airport and a city terminal, one per train. An 18.6 mile journey can take as little as 7 mins 20 secs.
Crossing point between the two moving trains,which use German technologies, was "impressive". Overall journey was about 8 minutes and cost 40 yuan (4.40 GBP) with an incoming boarding pass.
There is a museum and presentation centre underneath the city terminal. On a Sunday morning I had it all to myself.
Unfortunately the line makes financial losses, reported to be up to 700 million yuan per year (77 million GBP). The city terminal at Longyang Road appears to be poorly placed for users other than coming to/from the metro, also it is cheaper to take the metro all of the way to the airport. For me, taxi to the airport was a bit more expensive upon return, but avoided various extra handling steps and a shuffle at the maglev terminal.
The rust on the structure is no great surprise, the environment is at times likely to be corrosive to the steel and covering involved. The train leaves the city terminal.
A video made on the train, I am reading out some of the key speeds as shown in km/h.
A video made on the train, I am reading out some of the key speeds as shown in km/h.
In this airport takeoff video, a Maglev can be seen arriving at the airport at ~1m22s (moving left to right).
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