High-speed maglev trains are expected to further boost inter-regional connectivity in China.
These trains can reach an astounding 600 kilometers per hour, with the acceleration process taking just over three minutes, said Fu Shanqiang, a senior maglev engineer with CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd.
"We've been pursuing speed to enhance travel efficiency. In principle, wheel-on-rail trains, if they are to exceed 400 kilometers per hour, face constraints. The high-speed maglev takes another approach to bypass these constraints, allowing for faster speeds," said Fu.
"In fact, the focus now is on planning a route for actual high-speed testing. It is suitable for rapid commuting within city clusters like Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, and it can reduce travel time between Beijing and Xiong'an to just 20 minutes. It effectively transforms city clusters into a single city. Another scenario is the fast connection between city clusters. For fast-developing, city-level economic circles, such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, the Greater Bay Area, and Chengdu-Chongqing, using high-speed maglev trains as links can be a powerful driving force and hugely convenient," said Fu.
Adding his perspective on China's high-speed maglev technology, Warwick Powell, an adjunct professor at Queensland University of Technology, said, "China is a big country territorially, but it's the population scale that changes that story. Because of scale, we are able to achieve cost economies. It's all about innovatively finding new ways to do things better, quicker, cheaper. Particularly as it moves into this informationalized phase, the manufacturing capacity of China is bringing to the world an ability to access the tools of digital economics in ways that have never been possible before."
Maglev trains to boost inter-regional connectivity in China: engineer
