The Track is a Giant Motor: How 603 km/h Maglev Trains Actually Move [3D Anatomy]
500 kilometres an hour.
Most explanations say the maglev is fast because it floats.
But floating does not move a train forward by a single millimetre.
Levitating and accelerating are two completely separate mechanisms.
So what is actually pushing this train?
The answer is not on the train at all. It is in the track.
Those countless coils in the guideway wall are not decoration.
Together, they are one enormous motor, laid out flat along the line.
In this video we take the body off, peel the wall away, freeze a train travelling at
500 kilometres an hour, and go through the superconducting maglev part by part.
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■ Chapters
0:00 A maglev at 500 km/h
1:09 A Vehicle That Pushes Against the Rails
1:56 The Motor Is in the Track
3:26 A Magnet With Zero Electrical Resistance
4:58 What Levitation Is For
6:36 Pushed Back to the Centre
7:27 The Air That Remains
8:43 500 km/h You Can Actually Use
9:43 One Very Long Motor
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■ About the 3D models
The 3D models in this video (the train, the bogies, the superconducting magnets and the
guideway) were built by Anatomy of the World.
The 28-metre lead car with its 15-metre nose, the layout of the superconducting magnets,
and the arrangement of the guideway side walls, the propulsion coils and the levitation
and guidance coils are a schematic reconstruction based on JR Central's published
material and on figures in Hitachi Review, 1997. They are not modelled from measured
engineering drawings.
The magnetic force arrows, the airflow lines, and the assembly and disassembly sequences
are all ways of showing how the mechanism works. They are not things you could see.
The rate of acceleration is likewise compressed to make the comparison readable.
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■ About the numbers in this video
Top speed in service 500 km/h, levitation height about 10 cm
As published by JR Central.
603 km/h on a manned run in 2015, certified by Guinness World Records
JR Central's press release and the Guinness World Records entry agree on both the
figure and the date.
Levitation begins "somewhere around 150 km/h"
We deliberately do not say "at exactly 150". JR Central states 150 km/h and above,
while the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's technical
evaluation report lists per-section settings such as 135 km/h on straight track and
150 km/h in curves. The real figure has a range.
About 13 percent less aerodynamic drag from the optimised nose shape
This figure comes from JR Central. We found no independent verification of it.
Note that we do not connect this 13 percent to the two nose shapes shown in the video.
Those two shapes are schematic and neither is a real vehicle.
Support tyres replaced after about 1,500 landings; about 25 landings a day in
commercial service; a tyre life of about 60 days
From the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism technical
evaluation report (2009). Levitating does not remove the landings: the train still
touches down every time it starts and stops.
Shinagawa to Nagoya, about 286 km
From the summary of the environmental impact assessment scoping document for the Chuo
Shinkansen (Tokyo to Nagoya), Nagano Prefecture edition. The route drawn on the map at
the start of the video traces the "route outline" figure in that same document, which
the document itself labels as approximate. There is no published route map west of
Nagoya, so that section only passes through the stated waypoint near Nara and is
otherwise indicative.
Tokyo to Osaka, about 1 hour
As published by JR Central.
We do not state an opening date anywhere in this video. No source lets us state one.
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■ Sources
JR Central, Linear Chuo Shinkansen
https://linear-chuo-shinkansen.jr-cen...
JR Central press release, "Superconducting Maglev certified by Guinness World Records
at 603 km/h" (26 June 2015)
JR Central press release, "Outline of the new SCMaglev vehicle" (26 October 2010)
the 28 m lead car and 15 m nose
Guinness World Records, "Fastest maglev train"
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/...
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (Japan), reports of the
Superconducting Maglev Practical Technology Evaluation Committee (2005 and 2009)
per-section levitation onset speeds, and the support tyre replacement interval
Environmental impact assessment scoping document, summary, Chuo Shinkansen
(Tokyo - Nagoya), Nagano Prefecture edition - 286 km, terminals, intermediate station
prefectures, and the route outline figure
Hitachi Review, 1997, Vol. 79 No. 2, "Superconducting magnets and ground coils for the
Yamanashi Maglev Test Line" - the structure of the superconducting magnet, the
niobium-titanium alloy, and the liquid helium