The Maglev supporter is completely off base….

Did you know that monorails have been around longer then electric trolleys but still considered futuristic? Maglev is an updated monorail on a magnetic electric cushion that rides on an expensive bridge structure.  Its entire route has to be built all brand new and can not share or use any existing rail network like High Speed trains.

So for like maybe 5 times the already very expensive cost of HS rail you are only going to build segments here and there and have to transfer you and your bags several times to make what could be a single seat ride.

Lets say you wanted to go from Lancaster to lets say Chicago under what is likely to happen if a Maglev was built in Pa.   First, to save money,  they would not build one where there is existing high speed rail like what will be mostly a 90-125 Mph line to Harrisburg. So you’d have to transfer in the capital.

And because money is tight and you can’t share tracks, the line would probably end in Pittsburgh where you’d have to transfer again, but to a slow regular train since all the money went into the “futuristic” line.

Under the all rail mode, your one seat and train going 100 something to Harrisburg would get on the partially new right of way to ease the sharp curves of the existing line through the mountains even faster for true HS. Because it was so much cheaper to share and build the high speed rail treatment was extended on the fairly straight existing right of ways west of the Steel City along the Ohio river and, even with some conventional rail section at 80 mph, reaches the Midwest high speed system to finish your trip in a couple more relaxing hours.

Don’t believe Maglev is too expensive and not the answer?  Wellafter 30 years of worldwide research and development, even the supercharged Chinese economy could only build one city airport line more for bragging rights then because it was better then a super fast train. And how fast do you want to go, 300 mph?

High speed trains have been tested at over 320 mph and are now operating regularly in Spain at 220.

Old fashion conventional trains tested at nearly 300 miles an hour in the 1960s on old jointed rail track . No Maglev runs that fast except in salesmen’s and duped peoples’ imaginations. Theoretically they are faster and safer but there was an accident on a test track in Germany a few years back where they have developing this stuff for decades that killed some passengers going for a ride around the loop they can only afford to build to get it up to any decent speed.

Lancaster and the state of Pennsylvania need High Speed trains grafted to the Northeast Corridor and Keystone line to draw the benefits through and from them to the west to connect with the network of medium speed trains that will emerge out of Chicago and Ohio on the cheaper to upgrade flatlands where steam engines used to run well over 100 miles per hour on some regular runs. Crossings will need to be eliminated and some places will need to be straitened out. Maglev might appear sexy, but trains get the job done more efficiently.