The Shanghai Transrapid

Incredible! I was on a bullet train years ago when I first started my career in IT. We were on a contract in Japan for NTT and took a weekend off (one of a few) and rode the bullet train back into Tokyo. It was an amazing experience! It wasn't going 430KM/H -- but pretty damn fast! It was also around that time that the first digital cameras were coming out, and a friend of mine spent $1,000 US on it... times have changed.

I think they need fast transportation like this everywhere. Why spend an hour traveling if you can get there in 12 minutes :lol:

Actually, is there something like that for posting? I need something that can help me write plenty of quality posts in 12 minutes. :lol:
~Terry

Your flight was short ... I remember when I travelled to Pakistan, it took about 24 hours in all 3 planes together ........ YIKES

Wow, the Transrapid is crazy fast! I'd love to take a ride in that puppy.

Wow. Impressive. When you first said VIP I was sitting there thinking about how expensive that would be.lol I guess not!!! LOL BTW, thanks for the somewhat tour of Shanghi. It is wonderful to be able to see other parts of the world even if it is through video.

Thanks for sharing the video...very nice
Hope one day i can do the same thing like you... :lol:

Oh, I also meant to say really cool video John.

I wish more people would embrace rapid rail here in the States. We'd be much better off.

I take a "baby bullet" train from San Jose to San Francisco for work that takes about an hour...I wish it was as fast as this thing!

Human error? Is there another kind? :twisted:

Glad to see you made it safely John! We are all very relieved. Keep us updated and don't forget to bring back that samurai sword! :-P

That looks like it'd be a lot of fun to ride on! You seem to be really flexible with the time change... I know friends who travel and they take days to adjust to new timezones! (sometimes weeks!)

:mrgreen:

I remember watching a documentary about the MagLevTrain system and the test track they have in Germany. Sure 400km/hr is crazy fast and the train sits like an inch off the track (unlike our skytrain system here in Vancouver) but did you hear about when the train collided with a maintainence train? KABOOM! Well not really a kaboom but it was pretty messy clean up.

Though it was human error that caused that collision and I hope they have a system in place to stop that from happening again. Imagine zooming past at 400km/hr and then hitting an object coming from the other direction. Ouch!

Anyway if I am ever in Shanghai I do want to try out the train, or Germany since they allow tourists to ride the test track.

The amount of concrete they used for the shanghai track is impressive, as are the pillars that support the track, they are buried in the ground higher than most skyscrapers. So if an earthquake happens the track won't fall over ;) If I keep typing, I'll end up turning this into a blog post...

Next year Brazil is planning to build a bullet train as well. I hope by the 2014 world cup we have it done.

Nice to see that fine German engineering is at least used somewhere. In its home country, the Transrapid is going to waste because of politics.

I always feel like jet lag is not as bad when the time difference is way more.

John,
Thanks for sharing. What type of camcorder are you using?

:shock: oooh, that train is fast! But what we really need are cars that can drive this fast without any legal trouble....

Thanks for the post. I also made virtual tour with Transrapid through your video.

Well, when we move fast and no worry about anything, it means that the vehicle is VERY comfortable...

But for me, there's no other more comfortable vehicle than our EARTH , lol...

Imagine how fast we move on the earth's surface? 24 hour a day around the world which is about 40000 km distance..means 1650 km/hour.

Thx for showing us to realize how we should very thankful to God for placing us in this comfortable "vehicle", our Earth, :D

The whole Shanghai Maglev is one expensive publicity stunt. The train goes from airport to middle of nowehere. From there you still have to take taxi or bus to get to the city ... Yes it saves some time in the traffic jam on the highway between Pudong airport and Pudong-middle-of-nowehere. But remember you have to wait for the train and then wait for the taxi or bus ... At the end it does not save that much time. It is fun experience though to travel at that speed, even if the train has only 2 minutes at the top speed before it has to start slowing down ...

Such a stupid expensive project with no economic viability is only possible in China ...

Well the Germans are happy, they have a test track for their train that someone actually paid them for :-)

It cost about USD15 at current exchange rate I think. They have some discount 20 or 30% if you have a boarding pass with you (if you just landed)

Phew !! Bloody hell fast !! :eek:

John,
How did you upload these videos to Youtube from Shanghai? I thought China's government censorship team filters out Youtube and other sites that contain so-called politically sensitive material?

hmmm 20 000 rss readers?? what happened to the 400 extra that were there a few days ago?
haha, i guess he has been concentrating more on dot com phos and dot com lifestyle than making money online lately...

:twisted: That train is especially for people that don`t have the patience to sit for 2 long boring hours in a cab. Business people would also save a lot of time. What`s the cost for a 12 minute ride to Shanghai John ? :lol:

That's a good magnitude faster than the Taiwan High Speed Rail. The Taiwan one only goes up to 300 KM/h.

I've ridden that, it doesn't even feel like it's moving fast. Crazy stuff :grin:

OMG, I don't want to think about if the train has to do an emergency stop! :shock:

And for the jet lag, well I supose some people stand with it better than others...I think for me it would be like a nightmare :)