18 replies to this topic

[CHamilton]

Company offers $315M floating train to Central Florida

Nearly 20 years after vowing to build magnetically levitated trains in Volusia County, Tony Morris is back in Central Florida pitching a $315 million mass-transportation deal that seems almost too good to be true.

He is offering, essentially for free, a nearly silent train that would swoosh along a 15-mile-long elevated track linking Orlando International Airport with the Orange County Convention Center, Florida Mall and the SunRail commuter train now under construction.

[George Harris]

Fantasyland

[Anderson]

My first thought on seeing the title of this thread involved the mental uttering of vulgar language. The article doesn't improve my thoughts on things...I'd spent most of the last semester wondering what that random chunk of track on ODU's campus was (my guess, for the record, was that it was some sort of test track).

I don't see any compelling reason that this option should be looked at before something in the vein of, for example, what Disney already operates (be it a monorail or something else) or a conventional elevated light rail option (especially one that could be better integrated into Sunrail and the like over time).

[CHamilton]

Maglev and monorail are two technologies that have been marketed as being better than standard rail technology because

• They're "better, faster, more reliable"...etc.
• Their "cool factor" would make them destinations in themselves and/or attract riders who would not ride conventional transit like buses and trains.

Due to my unfortunate involvement with the ill-fated Seattle monorail project, I know more about monorail than I do about maglev, but I think the thoughts below apply to both.

• These technologies are proprietary. Once you've selected a vendor, you're stuck with them.
• As a result, they can't interoperate with any existing transit you already have.
• Their track configurations make construction, grade crossings, etc., difficult in urban environments, but the speed isn't that much better over short distances. Maglev might actually make more sense in longer applications.
• They're rare enough that there isn't much research on long-term reliability.
• Since you're not buying an off-the-shelf system, costs are difficult to estimate.
• I think that the "cool factor" is real, but it's almost impossible to quantify.

[jis]

I think they should skip all this pre-historic transportation systems and directly propose a tele-transporter system. Since they won;t fund anything might as well dream big

[Anderson]

Maglev and monorail are two technologies that have been marketed as being better than standard rail technology because

• They're "better, faster, more reliable"...etc.
• Their "cool factor" would make them destinations in themselves and/or attract riders who would not ride conventional transit like buses and trains.

Due to my unfortunate involvement with the ill-fated Seattle monorail project, I know more about monorail than I do about maglev, but I think the thoughts below apply to both.

• These technologies are proprietary. Once you've selected a vendor, you're stuck with them.
• As a result, they can't interoperate with any existing transit you already have.
• Their track configurations make construction, grade crossings, etc., difficult in urban environments, but the speed isn't that much better over short distances. Maglev might actually make more sense in longer applications.
• They're rare enough that there isn't much research on long-term reliability.
• Since you're not buying an off-the-shelf system, costs are difficult to estimate.
• I think that the "cool factor" is real, but it's almost impossible to quantify.

#1 seems to be the most likely to cause problems (and, more likely than not, trigger a cascade of lawsuits if a vendor fails to provide necessary services), and can cascade into trouble with #4 and/or #5 (if you buy a system from X, it doesn't work, and the vendor won't fix it, you're basically stuck suing to force them to either fix it or let you back out of the contract in some form, or to force them to eat losses because of misrepresentations on reliability and so forth). #2 is an almost unbelievable operational drawback that reminds me of the issues NYC has had with having two subway systems.

I agree that over longer distances, they make more sense...but those generally imply that you're simply not allowing grade crossings, but either elevating or burying most of the line. In FL, that seems to be the plan: Just elevate the train...but then again, we're back to the question of "Why not just call up Disney and talk monorails?" at that point. At least with the monorail system there, you have a known quantity for a longer-distance system; the only questions would involve re-speccing the system to different speeds...but at the same time, that sort of system has something like a 40-year operational record in FL.

And as to #6, at least my inclination is more that there is a cool factor with most rail-based systems (down to and including streetcars) that handicaps buses. Actually, it's more that there is an "uncool" factor around buses that, when combined with a mix of unpleasant waiting places (often just standing by a sign without even a bench), bad frequencies (I noted this elsewhere, but once frequencies start wandering into the 30 minute range, I become far more reluctant to ride), and a stigma that buses have had since at least the 50s and have never gotten around, the general rule IMHO is that you should avoid a bus line if you want people to ride something. The fact that some areas have tried pitching buses as "trains with rubber wheels" (and that the pitch, again from what I can tell, doesn't "fool" anyone) say something right there.

[CHamilton]

A 267 mph ride on the Shanghai maglev train
Lori Cuthbert, editor-in-chief of Discovery News, shot a video of her recent ride on the Shanghai maglev train, which has a top speed of 270 mph. You can't really tell how fast it's going by watching the scenery move by outside the window, but the passengers' delighted giggles make it clear they are enjoying the high-speed ride.http://boingboing.ne...e-shanghai.html

Edited by CHamilton, 02 May 2012 - 12:16 AM.

[Anderson]

A 267 mph ride on the Shanghai maglev train
Lori Cuthbert, editor-in-chief of Discovery News, shot a video of her recent ride on the Shanghai maglev train, which has a top speed of 270 mph. You can't really tell how fast it's going by watching the scenery move by outside the window, but the passengers' delighted giggles make it clear they are enjoying the high-speed ride.http://boingboing.ne...e-shanghai.html

Practially-speaking, given that this system (the FL one) is only supposed to go 60 or so...wouldn't a 200+ system be entirely different beyond basic concept?

[CHamilton]

A 267 mph ride on the Shanghai maglev train
Lori Cuthbert, editor-in-chief of Discovery News, shot a video of her recent ride on the Shanghai maglev train, which has a top speed of 270 mph. You can't really tell how fast it's going by watching the scenery move by outside the window, but the passengers' delighted giggles make it clear they are enjoying the high-speed ride.http://boingboing.ne...e-shanghai.html

Practially-speaking, given that this system (the FL one) is only supposed to go 60 or so...wouldn't a 200+ system be entirely different beyond basic concept?

Yes, you're probably right. But I imagine that the basic technology wouldn't be that different. But I'll leave that to those who know more about maglev than I do.

[Shawn Ryu]

Would be sweet, but quite frankly the city the size of orlando would be better served by a light rail, financially. Kind of what LA and Charlotte have.

[tp49]

A 267 mph ride on the Shanghai maglev train
Lori Cuthbert, editor-in-chief of Discovery News, shot a video of her recent ride on the Shanghai maglev train, which has a top speed of 270 mph. You can't really tell how fast it's going by watching the scenery move by outside the window, but the passengers' delighted giggles make it clear they are enjoying the high-speed ride.http://boingboing.ne...e-shanghai.html

But the reality of the Shanghai maglev is that it that it is speed restricted at night, the inside of the cars looks outright cheap and for what it is, is not worth the money it costs to ride it (50 kwai or close to $9 US). The maglev does not even go into either Lujiazui or to "downtown" by People's Square instead forcing a transfer on to Metro line 2 or a taxi for the the rest of the trip to the main hotel area by People's Square and Nanjing Lu.

Now that Metro Line 2 runs to Pudong Airport until 10PM it took the biggest plus to the maglev away which is it ran out to the airport later than the subway.

[Green Maned Lion]

The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

[TampAGS]

Would be sweet, but quite frankly the city the size of orlando would be better served by a light rail, financially. Kind of what LA and Charlotte have.

Orlando is presently constructing a commuter rail system on tracks which the Florida DOT purchased from CSX (and are used by Amtrak). Those tracks, however, don't go near Orlando International Airport. The maglev system is only being brought up as an option to link SunRail with OIA and the convention center, not as a city-wide transit network.

Current master-plans call for the development of a tourism-focused light-rail line to service points between Universal Studios and Sea World, but these plans are tentative at best.

[AutoTrDvr]

Would be sweet, but quite frankly the city the size of orlando would be better served by a light rail, financially. Kind of what LA and Charlotte have.

Orlando is presently constructing a commuter rail system on tracks which the Florida DOT purchased from CSX (and are used by Amtrak). Those tracks, however, don't go near Orlando International Airport. The maglev system is only being brought up as an option to link SunRail with OIA and the convention center, not as a city-wide transit network.

Current master-plans call for the development of a tourism-focused light-rail line to service points between Universal Studios and Sea World, but these plans are tentative at best.

What? No Maglev between Orlando & Tampa? I would think they'd want to alleviate all the traffic on I-4.

[TampAGS]

Would be sweet, but quite frankly the city the size of orlando would be better served by a light rail, financially. Kind of what LA and Charlotte have.

Orlando is presently constructing a commuter rail system on tracks which the Florida DOT purchased from CSX (and are used by Amtrak). Those tracks, however, don't go near Orlando International Airport. The maglev system is only being brought up as an option to link SunRail with OIA and the convention center, not as a city-wide transit network.

Current master-plans call for the development of a tourism-focused light-rail line to service points between Universal Studios and Sea World, but these plans are tentative at best.

What? No Maglev between Orlando & Tampa? I would think they'd want to alleviate all the traffic on I-4.

Sigh... Yes, well... that was a goal of the Florida High Speed Rail project, though it didn't involve maglev. Unfortunately, our creep of a Governor decided that Florida was too good to accept any Federal money, so after years of planning and effort invested, the whole initiative was dead.

Oddly enough, before Scott was elected Governor, he seemed to have no qualms over Federal money. After all, the company he ran systematically overcharged the government and Medicaid for a couple billion dollars.

[CHamilton]

Georgia Company Unveils Plans for Maglev Train Linking SunRail, Airport

A private company wants to build a magnetically propelled rail system to link with the SunRail commuter train and the International Airport. American Maglev Technology says it can build an elevated monorail in time for the start of SunRail in 2014.

The news story seems to think maglev and monorail are the same thing, but I suspect that's just poor reporting.

[Anderson]

Actually, as silly as this sounds...wasn't the plan for a maglev monorail of some sort? I thought I'd read that somewhere.

[MattW]

Well, they aren't wrong. Except for the trough design used on the experimental Japanese monorail, I believe most maglevs actually are "monorails." With most of them, unless you just knew, or looked at the [lack of] wheels, you wouldn't necessarily know they weren't wheeled monorails.

[Scott Orlando]

There is a spur the goes close to OIA that services the OUC coal plant. Expansion plans for the airport show a station for Sunrail, Light Rail and the FEC.