Japan's magnetically levitated vehicle train sets new speed record.

Magnetically levitated vehicle surpasses 366mph on test track and sets sights on going even faster

Japan’s magnetically levitated (maglev) train has set a new speed record, hitting 366.61mph on a test track.
Central Japan Railway Co., which is developing a vehicle that it sees as the long-distance, mass transportation system of the future, is aiming to break the 600km per hour (372.82mph) in more tests scheduled for next week.
The seven-car maglev surpassed the previous record, which it sent in December 2003, for a period of 19 seconds on JR Central’s test track in Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo, on Thursday.
The company is pushing ahead in its development of the maglev, which uses magnetic pulses to propel the carriages, doing away with the need for wheels, axles and bearings, after being granted approval to construct a track between Tokyo and Nagoya.
The reduction in the number of parts that come into contact with the track gives the maglev dramatically less friction, providing a smoother and quieter ride at a faster speed.
Maglev projects have been put into operation previously – Shanghai put its Transrapid system into operation in 2004 and similar vehicles are used at airports in South Korea and Beijing – although Japan is regarded as the world leader in the technology and nothing on the scale of the Tokyo-Nagoya route has ever before been attempted before.
JR Central is hoping to complete the stretch of maglev track to Nagoya by 2027, reducing a journey that at present takes 90 minutes by bullet train to just 40 minutes.
More than 80 per cent of the 177-mile Linear Chuo Shinkansen track will be underground, although this has generated concerns over how to dispose of an estimated 2 billion cubic feet of soil and rock excavated for the tunnels.
The track will be extended to Osaka by 2045 and the journey from Tokyo to Japan’s second city will take just one hour.
The cost of the project has been put at 8.44 trillion yen (£47.5 billion) but Japan is hoping to claw some of that back by selling the technology overseas. Plans are in place for Japanese firms to build a maglev system in the United States, where it would link Washington DC and Baltimore in a mere 15 minutes.
The 37-mile journey presently takes one hour by conventional rail link and Tokyo is so keen to use the route as a demonstration of its maglev technology that it has offered to pay half the estimated £5.4 billion construction cost.

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