wikipedia has a good article on the various types of maglev trains in existance as well as a bit on inductrack. i’ve always found the two primary forms of maglev trains a bit disappointing in their requirements of electromagnets, superconductors and active tracks. the control systems are too complicated as well. all these cons are removed by inductrack which was originally created at lawrence livermore national laboratory by richard post. the prototype and future commercial implementations are currently underway by a company named general atomics. inductrack is also unique among maglev train designs in that it, according to some articles, could be retrofitted onto existing railways. the prototype was supposed to be finished in 2004 in san diego, but i haven’t found anything about more recent project status.
there is this skytran proposal for a personal transportation system, but no working prototypes or apparent implementation plans as far as i can tell.
now if only we could get vactrains.
I like the idea of vactrains. Might help with my travel problems. Why don’t you get on that?
I just read an article about a senator trying to build a maglev train from anaheim to las vegas. It’s obviously a pork project since there probably isn’t a huge need to cart people between the two destinations, and since there appears to be a better solution than maglev, as you noted.
the maglev to las vegas was mentioned in one/some of the articles i read. not sure if they were linked. it was supposed to be a private company doing it. california was giving push back because they didn’t want the money leaving the state or something. good to see other places than birmingham (to atlanta) make that stupid argument. i can see a fast non-flight to vegas being desirable for l.a. an atlanta to chattanooga line, boston to d.c. and something in pennsylvania are part of the same bill. it’s just undecided who will get it. you’re actually unfortunate if you do since they’ll all be using the old tech.