High speed rail has a small niche for routes a few hundred km between two large cities. Any shorter and the car becomes more convenient, any longer and the plane becomes cheaper and faster.
Lots of cities where people dont own cars, so the car is actually less convenient (most of the world where high speed rail is even a consideration).
Planes are only cheaper and faster when you don't care about land usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and maximum ridership. Additionally, the maglev trains that this article is about have a top speed even more comparable with flight - Tokyo to Osaka will be 67 minutes, same as a flight - but without needing to arrive early, go through security, or commute an hour at each end to get to/from the airport.
that's a hell of a niche given that it probably describes the distances between countless of population centres on the globe. As the article points out, it's a 2 trillion dollar industry.
Exactly: large cities a few hundred km away. This is the typical landscape of much of Japan, much of China, especially coastal, much of Europe.
It's not much of North America, though, except a few coastal agglomerations. North America is quite sparsely populated — maybe not as sparsely as Siberia or Sahara, but not near European levels, to say nothing of Japan or south of China, so high-speed rail makes relatively little sense here.
I have no clue how production ready that really is, when they will be in service, and to be honest the shown operation in the video from the second link looks not that smooth, but it is thinking out of the box for delivery of boxes :-)
[+] [-] yyy888sss|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SECProto|5 years ago|reply
Planes are only cheaper and faster when you don't care about land usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and maximum ridership. Additionally, the maglev trains that this article is about have a top speed even more comparable with flight - Tokyo to Osaka will be 67 minutes, same as a flight - but without needing to arrive early, go through security, or commute an hour at each end to get to/from the airport.
[+] [-] Barrin92|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nine_k|5 years ago|reply
It's not much of North America, though, except a few coastal agglomerations. North America is quite sparsely populated — maybe not as sparsely as Siberia or Sahara, but not near European levels, to say nothing of Japan or south of China, so high-speed rail makes relatively little sense here.
[+] [-] zm262|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justicezyx|5 years ago|reply
I could be wrong, this spending is mostly in domestic China, right? Japan is that foolish to believe they have a chance there?
[+] [-] presentation|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LargoLasskhyfv|5 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-12/23/c_139613705.htm
[2] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-12/24/c_139615873.htm
[3] https://www.railfreight.com/railfreight/2021/01/05/new-claim...
I have no clue how production ready that really is, when they will be in service, and to be honest the shown operation in the video from the second link looks not that smooth, but it is thinking out of the box for delivery of boxes :-)