Word: transrapid
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That confidence will have to be serene to carry the Japanese through what looks to be years of headlines and television coverage for the West Germans. Their Transrapid program, which has consumed more than $830 million of public funds, is readying its final prototype, the TR-07, for tests on a 20-mile track with loops at both ends at Lathen, near the Dutch border. A previous model, the TR-06, has already run the straightaway at 256 m.p.h.; the TR-07 is designed to reach 300 m.p.h. Most impressive of all, though, is the Transrapid consortium's push...
...Kiel-Munich line, but not all systems are go yet. Some politicians and many citizens remain unconvinced that the $1.8 billion needed for the first segment will be money well spent, especially with $1.35 billion already allocated for a high-speed conventional-railway project called the Inter-City Experimental. Transrapid supporters, however, do not think the choice between conventional trains and maglevs should be an either-or one. Says one maglev enthusiast, Heinz Riesenhuber, Minister of Research and Technology: "Sailing ships were improved greatly in the past century, but at the same time steamship development went along and suddenly completely...
...decision on the Los Angeles-Las Vegas line is due in 1989, when a 16- member commission will announce whether Transrapid or a conventional rail builder will receive the contract for the fast track to the gaming tables. No American company is expected to submit a maglev plan. Although the U.S. had a maglev project under way until 1975, federal austerity measures turned off the electromagnets. At least one politician, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, wants funding for research resumed, but congressional action is not expected before next year...
Despite the absence of a homegrown maglev, enthusiasm in the U.S. is running high for the Transrapid, which would cut travel time between Los Angeles and Las Vegas from five hours by car to 70 minutes by train. Ironically, the Japanese trading company C. Itoh & Co. has pledged to help arrange the $2.5 billion in financing that the West Germans would need to build the California- to-Nevada link. Reason: C. Itoh is Transrapid's agent in Japan and is pondering the possibility of building that system at home...
...Even if Transrapid is not awarded the casino-express contract, maglev technology is already on its way to the U.S. Magnetic Transit of America, a subsidiary of West Germany's Daimler-Benz, broke ground in downtown Las Vegas last January for a slower-speed -- 50 m.p.h. -- maglev urban-transit system. Completion of the initial 1.3-mile segment of the Las Vegas People Mover is planned for 1991 -- perhaps a good year for dating the beginning of the maglev...