Japan to give free technology to US

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Nice if you can get it, but I can't see anything like this coming to the US unless someone is getting filthy rich from it.

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/j ... SOC&dom=fb

Japan isn't giving anything free to anybody.

Besides, the US has always had a case of the attitude "if we didn't invent it, it ain't worth s***!"

Ain't free.

The license may be free but you can imagine how many contracts the Japanese firms will get if the US starts building maglev trains all over the country.

This is basically a subsidy..a cheap one...to generate work for Japanese specialists. Big bucks, long term contracts.

It IS a win-win situation though. The US could certainly use this.

..but we all know the powerful interest groups shoving cash into congressional anuses will result in it not happening.

also the rails are far from cheap and the united states compared to japan is huge japan is smaller than some states
more bus's would be a better investment they use the already existing infrastructure

There's no such thing as free Sushi.

Why is the word "rich" so often preceded by the word "filthy".

If we want maglev trains in the U.S. someone is going to have to risk some money in building maglev railroads. If they succeeded they -should- make money for building such railroads.

ruveyn

Thats the point. Japan is roughly twice the size of Florida. Yet they have their cities not only fully interconnected by train tracks (passengers and freight) but also within the cities with subways and above ground trains.

The long distance, inter-city travel is done by bullet train. It takes me 4~5 hours to go from Orlando to Miami by car (~240 miles)..but I'd have to add about an hour more in stops for gas and to stretch my legs/rest. In comparison in a bullet train I went from Tokyo to Kyoto (~320 miles) in just under 2 hours and I arrive there quite rested.

Of course, I could have taken a flight to Miami and it wouldve been cheaper than my gas & wear on the car. Yes, the price of the train ticket would have likely be more expensive than the plane ticket.

...but a train can and does carry a lot more passengers than aircraft do and they don't use up anywhere near the amount of fuel a jet does.

Maintaining railway infrastructure is cheaper than maintaining roads. The wear and tear of roads and bridges is a killer while railway tracks are easily repaired and monitored.

The basic reason why railways are not a big thing in the US is because the taxi/bus/truck/airline companies would suffer a big hit..not only profits wise but also because they employ a lot of people...a railway requires significantly less staff to operate and maintain.

,,and its a shame because the US if connected with a rail system like Japan has would have tremendous economic benefits that exceed the losses for implementing it. Fast, reliable inter-city trade and transport would be ideal.

Rails for inter-city travel, air for long distance travel (cross-state/country) and roads/subways for short range inside the city travel. (Rails can carry your cars across state/country too!).

If enterprising folk can overcome some NIH resistance and government interference MagLev may hit it very big in the
U.S. We have very long distances to cover quickly and the the the economic of air traffic does not produce the quantity of high speed overland travel that we need. MagLeve could be the biggest thing since the Transcontinental Railroad.

And the fact that it was not invented here is irrelavent. The railroads got their technology from England when they were first developed in the U.S. Japanese technology in maglev transit would be very welcome. And the U.S. could probably improve on it.

ruveyn

Well considering the fact that our rail networks save for the Northeast Corridor are designed for low speed heavy freight traffic, they may 'give' us 'free Maglev tech', but what's the point? -- It's not like we'd be using it for anything.

your forgetting one critical problem with rail
it takes lots and lots of land
a lot of land already has buildings on it especially near city's. the government could steal the land or pay huge prices, the people that know their property is in the path of destruction they would sell it at a high price

Don't know about that... a railtrack is really no wider than a highway and train stations on several key city locations I doubt will add up to the size of a major airport.

Of course, there will be major building problems if the city did not have a rail system to begin with but that's basically an investment given the huge returns and benefits.

the returns are not there
the places with real rail demand have already been supplied, rail in the united states is mostly for freight. cars just so much better you are not stuck to a schedule you can go where you want when you want

While a high-speed, efficient, and low cost for the customers train system would be a handy, there are still times when going somewhere by car or airliner has its advantages.