Nov 3, 2025, 12:19 AMA lot of rail fans criticise the Chūō Shinkansen (the under construction maglev railway in Japan), and maglev more generally, for being pointless, as it will only do 500km/h in service, and only has a speed record of 600km/h, barely faster than the 2007 TGV record of 574.8km/h using traditional steel wheels on rail.
Being the maglev enthusiast I am, I wanted to take a couple of toots to suggest why this is an unfair comparison. 1/
Nov 3, 2025, 12:25 AMThe L0 series used for Chūō Shinkansen tests, while prototypes, are as close as they can be to the production vehicles. They routinely carry passengers (I believe a full complement of them) on tests.
The trainset 4402 used in the TGV trials was heavily modified for the tests, stripped down to be lighter weight. 2/
Nov 3, 2025, 12:28 AMOperation V150 used a 140km section of LGV, requiring 70km of acceleration to reach the record speed.
The Yamanashi test track, the longest and currently only test track, is 42.8km long. It has to get up to its top speed and then stop again in that distance.
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Nov 3, 2025, 12:31 AMThe LGV used for the French record was specially selected from all the LGV in France for its gradients, including some generous downhill
The Yamanashi test track is built on the route of the Tokyo–Nagoya route. While it has been deliberately built with the gentle curves and gradients needed for500km/h+ operation, it doesn’t get to pick and choose where it has downhills to get a better top record apeed
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