China has developed a new maglev passenger train, good for a top speed of 600 kilometers per hour. Maglev, short for magnetic levitation, is considered the holy grail of railway engineering and train speed. The carriages ‘ride’ on a magnetic field without direct contact to the surface of the railroad. A maglev train brakes by reversing the magnetic field, basically pushing the train in the other direction. There are only six fully operational commercial maglev lines in the world; three in China, two in South Korea, and one in Japan. However, these are all relatively short and heavily subsidized lines, and are not intended as mass transit systems.
China’s latest maglev train is going to change that. The ‘CF600-0001’ is billed as the world’s first maglev system actually capable do run on long distances with up to a 1000 passengers on board. With a 600 km/h top speed, it could do Beijing-Shanghai in 2.5 hours, a distance of about 1200 kilometers. The current high-speed trains need 5.5 hours and an airplane needs 2 hours and 15 minutes.
The CF600-0001 was built by CRRC Qingdao Sifang Corporation, a subsidiary of the state-owned train-making conglomerate CRRC. The company makes lots of very speedy conventional trains, including the Fuxing CR400AF, the world’s fastest conventional high speed train in regular service. But that one ‘only’ does 350 km/h, the maglev goes another 150 km/h faster!
Development of the train was announced in early 2019 and a first concept was unveiled in 2019. But CRRC Qingdao Sifang Corporation didn’t design the maglev all on its own. Far from it! The maglev system was a country-wide project called Advanced Rail Transit Key Special Project, it was part of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020). Chinese state media say that over thirty universities and research institutes combined forces to develop the new CF600-0001 maglev train, including the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Tongji University in Shanghai.
The maglev train will operate with a high degree of autonomy, with the driver basically functioning as a backup. CRRC Qingdao Sifang Corporation has built five units so far of the CF600-0001, all of which are being tested for final development. The company says the first trains will run commercially “in a few years”. When the maglev will run from Beijing to Shanghai is yet unknown. It can’t ride on a normal track of course, so China will need to build an entirely new line, stations, and adjoining infrastructure. That will take a while, even in China.