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Department Of Lunacy, West Wales

Posted August 22nd, 2007 by Tom

There's been a lot of railway politics recently - the sober, serious guys in charge in Westminster saying that electrification is silly, the sober, serious guys in charge in Edinburgh saying it's a great idea.  Devolution, dontchalove it.  John Redwood, on the other hand, wants to put rubber tyres on trains, while most of us think we should put John Redwood in a rubber room.  Meanwhile in Wales, the Veritas loony fringe have their own ideas - from the Aberystwyth Today site:

Madam, The proposed new rail link from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth gives Wales the chance to show the way to the rest of the UK. If the AMs were brave enough they would shelve the idea of a conventional two-rail system and build a Megalev mono rail which not only would be as much as one third the cost but would be virtually carbon free, faster, safer, and possibly the first phase of a linking line north to south, travelling at speeds up to 300mph and making highly-polluting local air travel obsolete. Not only would the above be true, but due to its narrow rail shadow it would be far less intrusive of land and the environment, running on renewable energy which Wales has in abundance. Councils and Assembly take note, this is your chance to show how serious you are about climate change. Let Wales show the way. Yours etc, I James Sheldon Veritas Wales Party.

Now, maglev is of course the ideologues favourite form of transport, and we know what that means - it's big, expensive, silly and not worth it.  Distrust anyone advocating it - TYR explains why:

It's a classic case of bad technology, for the same reasons the NHS NPfIT is, and for the same reasons Tony Blair fell for it. John Waclawsky said that there are two kinds of technology, the kind that provides a direct benefit to the end user, and the kind that's designed by people who think they can see the future. These, he said, are also known as success and failure.

Mr. Sheldon is apparently an aerospace engineer - the last time they got involved in railways was the San Francisco BART, which wasn't a spectacular advert for their talents.  In fact, it's a classic example of the second kind of technology.

Wasn't Maglev one of the

On August 23rd, 2007 redpesto (not verified) says:

Wasn't Maglev one of the items on Johyn Redwood's wish list?

Let me delve...I was so

On August 23rd, 2007 Tom says:

Let me delve...I was so taken aback by his mad ideas for rubber-wheeled trains to solve overcrowding that I rather gave up - he did say .  The whole thing is barking mad 80s Thatcherism and they never got railways until about 1988 anyway.  He has had a bee in his bonnet about it for a while, this obviously dates back a bit:

For long distance fast travel we need to look abroad to a very different technology. Steel wheels on steel rails will never be fast enough, but the faster they go the more damage they will do

That can only mean Maglev (it is impossible that he's referring to TGVs, which are steel wheel on steel rail, but irredeemably French and state-owned).  It's like someone reading engineering textbooks upside down through a telescope backwards - all the words are there, but not necessarily in the right order.  The man's a nutter - this from 2003 confirms it:

The modern commuter railway is left blasting sticky sand onto the track in the hope that steel wheels will then adhere. Surely we can think of something better? Why not use some rubber wheels, or have combi vehicles that could drive to the rail head on rubbers and then use steel if the conditions are good? Why not build a maglev concrete track for a fast London to Scotland route dedicated to speed and comfort?

Maglev - the choice of the mad as a March hare right winger.  Just say no.

Actually the cost of maglev

On August 24th, 2007 Krippers2 says:

Actually the cost of maglev is very prohibitive I think I read that deployment is priced at about $10 - $60 million per mile and a 20 mile track costs about $60 million a year to run in China where wages for maintenance runs at a bag of rice a day per 10 people. Having said that it is bl@@dy incredible to ride and the distance is covered in about 7 minutes. I personally wouldn't do it too often, I absolutely pall at the thought of sitting repeatedly in the EM field given the strength required. Having said all that there are much better ways of deploying the technology that have not yet been explored so in real terms there is a future for it but certainly not in the format these people are expressing.