Stuff You Should Know - How Maglev Trains Work

Episode Date: December 5, 2013

Thanks to the amazing properties of magnets, clever engineers have figured out how to make entire trains levitate above their tracks, letting them move frictionlessly and allowing them to reach incredible speeds. Learn about how maglev trains work and what's taking so long for us to get aboard in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-Pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Just a Skyline drive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Attention Bachelor Nation, he's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all, and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times, it'll be funny, we'll push the envelope, we have a lot to talk about. Welcome to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the all new 2014 Toyota Corolla. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast, I'm Josh Clark, and this is Charles W. Chuck, Chuckers, Brian, yeah, whoo, and this is Stuff You Should Know. Oh, is that what you're going with? Sure, yeah. I might bust right into CC Rider, all the style.

I already gone with the Muppet show. Oh, yeah. It's time we put on makeup. Yeah. What, was that somebody's giant stomach? That's not the bike. What was that? That's weird.

Did you guys hear that? That thing? Yeah. That was crazy. That could have been Jerry's stomach. Anyway, all right, what's your intro? It's stalling, huh? Chuck.

Yes. Well, you remember our magnet podcast? Yeah. I personally thought it was a great episode because we explained how magnets work. Yeah, it was good, tough, but good. Yeah, it was tough, but it was also kind of, it was one of those ones where you're like, oh, okay, that explains pretty much everything about magnets, the thing that I've used before in my life.

Sure. I just kind of took for granted. Some people think that they're magic, but we kind of said, this is how they work. I liked it. So, I liked this article in theory. The one we're about to do a show on? Yeah, yeah. About maglev trains.

Yeah, we did a video on maglev trains, remember that? One of our interstitial shorts was on maglev trains. Did we? Yeah. I remember doing the quantum levitation, was that it? No, maglev. Are you sure? Yeah, because that's the only way I knew about any of this was the fact that we had talked

about it before. Well, what did we talk about? Maglev, you know, the basic principle in one minute behind magnetic levitation. Well, that's pretty much what we're going to do here. Yeah, except slightly longer. Yeah, so that was my intro, my non-intro. We should say also, everyone, it is next to impossible to get up to the minute, up to the year information about what maglev trains are in operation, what are still planned,

what's still going on. So, it is possible. We may get that part a little incorrect, but we're going to try our best to be as accurate as possible. Yeah. And the reason why is because magnetic levitation to power a train is so new, well, it's actually not that new because they've been doing it for a while and fits and starts. Well, it was proposed ever since Tesla started noticing what was going on in the late 19th

century. But it's so new in this regard as far as super fast speed trains powered by magnets transporting lots of people over distances, maybe great distances. That is so new and there are a few different technologies that it is kind of hard to keep track on which one is in the forefront, which ones are being funded because this stuff is expensive. It is. And it's hard to get funding, especially here in the States.

Yeah, and if you just type maglev into Google or your favorite search engine, or duck-duck-go if you're kind of watching who's watching you. Oh, is that like a secret? It's like an anonymous search engine. You will find there's projects all over the United States and all of them are like, we're shovel ready. We're ready to go. Just give us some money.

And they're not getting any money because the construction costs are so enormous because with maglev trains, you can't use existing railways. Yeah, it's all new. And I saw one quote and again, who knows how recent this is, but 50 million euros per mile is what the German consortium is quoting. The thing is, is once you get it built, maintenance is not bad. Yeah, not bad at all because there's not a lot of wear and tear on it as you'll see. No friction, baby.

And if you do look into maglev, you will see that it is very much like the transportation technology of the future that's going on today, especially after looking into Elon Musk's tube hyperloop thing. I've heard of that. So basically, Elon Musk, who is like our good friend, super rich guy, right? He basically just jotted down this idea on a cocktail napkin and all of a sudden it's like the new thing. But it's an enclosed tube system that just you put in a little car or whatever that seats

12 people or something comfortably and you suck all the air out of it. No resistance. So you can go really fast. Basically, I think it goes about 700 miles an hour, a little under the speed of sound. So you can get from the west coast to the east coast or vice versa very, very fast. The thing is, the construction costs for this are just preposterous, but if it can come along or come down a little more, then it will give maglev a run for its money. But if maglev can start to really kind of get some traction and get some lines going,

it will be the movement of the future for at least a decade or two. Yeah. I saw where they're proposing both in the future maglev trains that operate inside vacuum tubes as fast as 2,000 miles an hour as crazy. Right now they're breaking records like 300 miles an hour plus. What's the fastest right now? So apparently, and this is kind of mind boggling because maglev, as again, we realize everybody, we haven't explained what maglev is, we're just talking here.

But maglev, the great advantage it has is that it supposedly goes faster than the normal steel wheel train. Oh yeah. Apparently, a TGV train, which is a steel wheel train in Europe, they beat a maglev land speed rally that was held by the Japanese maglev of about 351 miles an hour. I think it went like 360. Man, I don't know if I'd feel safe. Yeah.

I can imagine. I was reading a quote from a maglev rider and they were saying like, you can tell you're going really fast. Like on the bullet train, Yumi's going to be so disappointed because she's taught me how to say it in Japanese so many times that I don't want to butcher it. But the bullet train, it goes pretty fast, like 150 miles an hour or something. But it just looks like everything's a blur. You don't feel like you're going fast.

Apparently, in a maglev, it goes fast enough to where you feel like, holy cow, we're going 350 miles an hour. Well, our very own parent company did a show, World's Fastest Trains, and I watched the maglev segment and the dude was in the front room with the driver and they were like, all right, we're going 300 miles an hour now. And it's hard to tell on the TV exactly how fast they're going because I looked and I was like, well, it looks like about 100 to me. But yeah, I think being on the train.

And I think the key to not feeling too weird is obviously you're not being shot out like a bullet. You're ramping up to that speed. Right. So that helps. Plus, if you dress normally for your train ride, you'll feel less weird too. That's right. Also, hold on one more thing.

We're talking very high speeds, 350 miles an hour. That's the speed record of a maglev. But they're averaging like 250 or more. Which means if you get these things built, you're going to expand the range of where people can live and commute and go to work every day tremendously. So there is a lot of value in creating these maglevs. Right? Are we there yet?

Well, before we do that, let's just might as well do a message break now, huh? I think it's a good time. Okay. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running

and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. It doesn't look good, there is a risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed whether you're a skeptic or a believer.

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The way I thought of it was, whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Cheekies and Chill on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right.

So now can we get down to brass tacks? Yes. Let's. Okay. This is kind of confusing because I read a paper in 1980, I think 1980, where this guy was saying like, there's a lot of people calling all these different technologies maglev. This is all very early stage proposal, hadn't been proven yet. But he's saying there's at least seven different kinds of technology here that everyone's calling

maglev that are different enough that it doesn't, they're just different. But for the purposes of this podcast, we can get away with maglev, but we have to point out that there are some really different systems that are in use and being proposed right now. And a lot of them have to do with the suspension systems. Yeah. I think what's going on now, there are three pretty much leading competing systems, right? Yeah.

Because we should say Chuck, a maglev train is a train that uses magnets to float above a track. Yeah. By either a half a centimeter to, I saw one that floats up to a foot off the track. That's a little scary. It seems a little scary, but apparently the higher you go in that high end of the range, the more stable it is. All right.

Yeah. But so the train is literally not touching the tracks and it floats along and the reason that's why it can go so fast is because there's no friction. No friction. The only resistance is air. Right. And they're super sleek, of course. Yeah.

So even the air is cut down. So let's go to Germany first because they have a system, TransRapid, the actual company is called TransRapid International. There's also a TransRapid USA now, I think. USA. That's right. And the German version is electromagnetic suspension and the way that the guy on the Discovery Channel Show described it was that electromagnets, well, when you use electromagnets, they're

only magnetized when there's a power source involved when there's electricity running through them. Exactly. So that's important to remember. It is. And we'll point out why later. Because in the German system, the EMS system, it's all about attraction. It's not magnets repelling each other.

It's magnets that are attracted to each other. And the reason that they float is they're basically switching it on and off, pulsing the electromagnetic magnet so fast that it creates that hovering attraction. Okay. So that's the German version. So apparently this German version, I think they do use repulsive magnets, but on the sides for the guidance magnets. So to make it hover, they're turning it on and off a lot.

So it wants to stick but no, but stick but no. Yeah. And there's not a dude on a switch doing it really fast. No. It's all programmed to pulse. Right. They have computers handling it. Sure.

And then so this is the suspension system you're talking about, right? The electromagnetic suspension. Yeah. The EMS. And the word suspension is kind of easily overlooked. But in this case, we're literally talking about how the train is suspended in midair above the track in this case. And with the EMS, it's about, I think, a half a centimeter to a centimeter.

It's very close to the track. And they use the electromagnets to attract and they use the guidance magnets, which are magnets installed on the side of the train that are along the side of the track to repel magnets along the side of the track to keep the train from bumping into the guide rails. But it requires a computer system to constantly make adjustments to the current that's going through these electromagnets to either attract the train to make it float or to repel it from the sides to adjust it to make sure it never bumps into the rails or the track. Because if you're going 350 miles an hour and your train scuffs the track, you're in

big trouble. You're in big trouble. One advantage of this, the German system, is that you only need to power on for the section of track that you're using at the time. So they literally will turn on a section of track, the train goes over it, and then they'll turn it back off. Right. So it's very, like, economically fuel it will not fuel efficient because it's not fuel.

Right. It's power efficient. Right. And it doesn't use fossil fuels in the sense that a normal train does, although if you go far enough down the line, that electricity has to come from somewhere. So ultimately it is coming from fossil fuels. But the efficiency, the fuel efficiency is incredible compared to a normal train that burns fossil fuels just to move, right?

The guide's shoveling coal into a fire. I should say, so my understanding of the delivery of electricity to the track is the same for both suspension systems that you propel like that. So the whole track is made of electromagnets, right? On both systems. And you're just sending electricity to the electromagnets that are immediately in front of and immediately behind the train. Yeah.

And immediately under. Because you need to float the train, then you need to propel it. Right. And the way you're propelling it is the magnets that are just ahead of the train are going to be positive. And so that's going to attract the train, meaning it's going to pull it forward. And then the magnets behind it are going to be charged so that they're negative. And they're going to repel the train, push it.

So in the front, the magnets are pulling it, and in the back, the magnets are pushing it. And again, remember, there's no friction here. It's just air. So it doesn't take a whole lot to make this train go really, really fast just using magnets. Yeah. And they, in 2002, debuted commercially in Shanghai, China, a pretty short run transporting people from airport to airport, basically, at a speed, it speeds over 250 miles an hour. So I read that the journey, the 19 mile journey now takes about seven and a half minutes as

opposed to about an hour in a cab. And they were going to expand it. But that was halted in 2008 over radiation fears by people. And now it's being proposed as an underground system, like to go underground to halt those fears. But in 2010, another high speed train in the area was a non-maglev system opened. So they basically said, well, we probably won't do this. We probably won't extend the Shanghai line now.

So yeah, I heard it's definitely on hold, but I didn't hear that they decided they weren't going to do it. Well, the regular bullet train popped up and they're like, well, now that we have that, I guess we don't need the maglev. Oh, well. Oh, well. So Japan's got the other big rival system. So the propulsion systems are the same.

You use magnets ahead of the train and behind the train to attract or repel it, right, to push it forward. I believe so, sir. The suspension systems are what differ. In Germany, you're using magnets to repel it, right? To attract it. To attract it. In Japan, you're using something called the Meisner effect.

So basically, Chuck, the Meisner effect is where you take a super cooled superconductor, right? Yes. I think like liquid helium temperature, which is very, very cold. And you put it in a magnetic field. The magnetic field basically hugs it. It goes around it rather than through it. Okay?

Yes. So when you do that, the field actually levitates the thing. So if you take enough superconductors that are at the right temperature and you put them in the presence of a magnetic field, a whole bunch of magnets, say on a train, the magnet will float. It will levitate. That's right. And that's the electrodynamic suspension that the Japanese are using.

So basically, you have a tunnel, a magnetic field tunnel that these things are traveling through, which means that they don't need any extra magnets on the sides or they don't need any on the bottom or extra magnets on the bottom. It's just going to stay put within this bent magnetic field that's warped to wrap around it. That's right. It's a drop and it's totally stable, which is the big, that's a big advantage from what I understand of the Japanese system over the German system.

The stability doesn't require a bunch of computers to constantly adjust it. And it is just inherently more stable because it's not just being held up from the bottom and then a little on the sides. It is wrapped in this basically blanket of an electromagnetic field. Right. It can conduct power electricity even when the power is cut off. So that's a definite advantage. Although the German system does have like battery backups, it's not like if the power

went off, the train would just go and stop. Right. But the German one doesn't need tires and the Japanese one does. Yeah. Because it needs to ramp up to a certain speed in order to begin the float. It doesn't just start immediately. What is it? Like 88 miles per hour?

That's back to the future. Okay. That's two miles an hour. And I think they use liquid nitrogen and it's just expensive to super cool these coils. And I think that's one of the drawbacks, but they're all expensive. They are very expensive. And none of this is, they haven't figured out a cheap way to do any of this. No, there's a proposed line in Japan.

It's already, it's the one that set the, that land speed record for Maglev trains. Right. It's the JR Token, that's the railway company. The JR Token? Kind of close. But it's their line that supposedly is already in operation. I read somewhere that it's moved like a million people already, but they have a proposed line that they want to open by 2027.

And it's from Tokyo to Nagoya. And then they want to extend that from Tokyo to Osaka by 2045. And they're talking like, it's like a $50 billion project and I think that's just the first line. Yeah. That's, yeah, it sounds about right. But the reason that it probably will happen is they're, they're basing all of this on data showing that people are going to keep moving to Japan and Osaka.

So they're going to have customers and they're not relying on any government money. They have so much money. They're just going to fund it themselves. Is this privately funded? Yeah. Another con though, the Japanese version is that if you have a pacemaker, you don't want to get on that train because that magnetic field will wreak havoc and you probably won't live.

It will shut you down. It will shut you down. And then there's the induct track and that is another type of EDF system, which is the Japanese system, except that they use room temperature magnets. And from what I could tell, this is as close to just the whole thing of two magnets, regular magnets opposing each other and they're just going to use that, right? Yeah. Like it's as close to we get as you going out to the store and getting two magnets and

putting their like poles against each other so that they repel. Yeah. There's actually something called the halbach array, which is a way to just line up the magnets in certain directions so that their poles are facing north, south, east or west. And when you put them together in a clump, basically the magnetic field below the magnets doubles. The magnetic field on the top of the magnet cancels one another out. Right.

So you have your extra strong magnetic field that can produce this Meisner effect basically without this super cooled superconductor. Yeah, and these aren't even electromagnets, I don't think, aren't they just magnets? I think they're permanent room temperature magnets. That's crazy. Yeah. There are three designs right now, the induct track one, two and three. One is high speed, two is slow speed and three is heavy load, slow speed.

Yeah. So I guess just freighting stuff back and forth. I guess so. You know, they did this in London at one point, but then shut it down like in the 80s. They had a maglev train. Yeah. Just a very slow moving like it might have been an airport type situation. And I looked up the one here in Atlanta, the new airport train, I thought it might have

been maglev, but of course it's not. It's just wheels. Just stupid wheels. Although they have Atlanta have its day. Well they have proposed one. Atlanta is one of the cities that's trying to get maglev going between Atlanta and Chattanooga. Yeah. And there's one proposed between DC and Baltimore.

It's L.A. in Las Vegas. Yeah, L.A. in Vegas. And I think one from Pittsburgh to someplace, but I'm not sure exactly where. I saw that one too. I don't remember where. It might have been DC. DC, Philly. Yeah.

Well, hold on. We're getting ahead of ourselves, man. Well, no. These are just proposals. And they're having a hard time getting the funding they need for any of these to really take off. Right. Because it's expensive.

It is. Chuck, how about a message break, huh? Hey. Let's do it. Okay. Stuff you shouldn't know. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life.

In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars. If you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,

my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Chikis from Chikis and Chill Podcast, and I want to tell you about a really

exciting episode. We're going to be talking to Nancy Rodriguez from Netflix's Love is Blind Season 3. Looking back at your experience, were there any red flags that you think you missed? What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was, whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes.

Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Listen to Chikis and Chill on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. This whole idea of going 350 miles an hour through space, even without friction, is awesome. It is awesome. It can also be deadly.

There have already been maglev accidents. Yeah. The one in Germany was a little distressing because in 2006 it crashed into a repair car that was accidentally left on the track. And this was a test too, so it's like everything should have been extra, yeah. Why do you leave a car on the track, period? I don't know. I don't know.

So they actually, people died in that one. The train was going at least 120 miles an hour when it struck the car. So it must have just been getting up to speed, I guess. But yeah, 29 people died on that one. There's another one in Shanghai on that line that is an operation. Yeah, that was just a fire though. Yeah. And then I want to make light of that, but it wasn't like a crash or an incident like

that. Yeah. I'm just glad no one got hurt. Exactly. And this is breaking news, dude. This was in the paper today as we record it in real time. Okay. The Washington Post said that northeast maglev, everyone's getting in on the maglev game.

Because it really is a great idea. It's just really, really expensive, but if you can get it up and running, it's awesome. I mean, I imagine literally in 100 years there'll be a lot of this as major transportation. Sure. But we won't see it. But as of today, November 4th, northeast maglev has raised $50 million in private funds. They can build five inches of track with it. Yeah, exactly.

And they're trying to get the Washington Baltimore leg going with private funding because the government's not putting up any money for this. I think we'll see it in our lifetime. They think $10 billion between DC and Baltimore, although they don't have a firm cost yet. I wonder how long it would take because, I mean, that's not even that long of a drive anyway. Yeah, agreed. Let me be 10 minutes, which I mean, if you live in Baltimore and work in DC, I'm sure

that would be extremely attractive. Yeah, that's true. I don't know about the Atlanta to Chattanooga thing. Who cares? Yeah, right. You know, people in Chattanooga would be psyched, I guess, because they could get to the airport in like 30 minutes. Yeah, I guess.

Not just in Chattanooga. I'll go there and pay in for gold. I saw this, it was some discovery show, a video from a discovery show too, and it had our good friend, Michio Kaku, and he was talking about a train, a bullet train, that could get you from one side of the world to the other in an hour. Wow. And the way that it would do that is to go through the middle of the earth. Basically, you would have to create this tube, basically like Elon Musk's idea.

You create a tube, you evacuate all of the air out of it, so that there's no resistance whatsoever, and you just drop, and the force of gravity takes you up to about 18,000 miles an hour, and then once you make it to the center and out the other side, gravity starts to work against you, so it slows you down, so within an hour you should be able to make it from one side of the earth to the other. But as Dr. Kaku put it, it's going to be very difficult getting through the center of the earth. Yeah.

Build the tube. I love all these theoretical ideas, these guys come up with it, like it's not even remotely possible. Right. And he'd probably say, I was just talking about what they asked me to talk about. Yeah, he's like, do you know I was at McDonald's one day when I said that? I was waiting in line at McDonald's. So what else you got?

I got nothing else. Maglev? Yeah, the wave of the future. Yeah, we have a standing bet now. We will see a Maglev train in operation that we can ride on while we're both alive. That's my bet. You say no? We will, like, I mean, if we went to Shanghai, we could do it right now.

So I feel like I just won my bet while you're going to pay for us to go to Shanghai. Here in the United States. Okay. Within our lifetime, which for me is going to be about 25 years. While we're both still healthy enough to ride it. Okay. I'll take that bet. Okay.

Cool. Let's see if you guys want to learn more about Maglev, you can type that word in the search part, howstuffworks.com. And since I said search part, it's time for listener mail. That's right. This is, I'm going to call this opportunity for students, filmmaking students, to get your film on. Hey guys, work for non-profit antiquity now, which is dedicated to raising awareness of

the importance of preserving our cultural heritage by demonstrating how antiquity's legacy influences and shapes our lives today. Yeah, they have good stuff. We follow them on Twitter. Oh, you do? Nice. We do, Chuck. Yes, we do.

Many of us at Antiquity Now are big fans of you guys. We thought you would be interested in this upcoming project. We are holding the first ever Legacy Quest International Children's Film and Video Festival, which aims to get tweens and teens excited about history. The festival will be held in conjunction with the Archeology Channel International Film and Video Festival on May 9 through 13, 2014, in Eugene, Oregon. So here's what you've got to do, kids. Young people, if you're between 12 and 15, you can submit videos that represent antiquity's

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But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me, and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes, because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, HeyDude the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to HeyDude the 90s called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.