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Maglev 2000
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Genre: EDS (Repulsive) MAGLEV 2000 of Florida Corporation is proposing its own patented magnetic levitation technology for application to high speed intercity and urban transit operations. This technology is currently being developed and tested for use in both high speed intercity and lower speed urban transit operations. The Florida Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, the Federal Transit Administration along with other public and private funding sources, have already invested several million dollars in the validation and demonstration project for the Maglev 2000 system at a facility in Titusville, Florida near Cape Canaveral. Critical system components including vehicle, guideway, magnets have been designed and fabricated at the Florida site. Levitation of the vehicle chassis and propulsion force tests on a short segment of guideway will be conducted and by early 2003 full scale system components will be ready for production and assembly for high speed operational demonstration when funding becomes available. The MAGLEV 2000 technology incorporates the most recent patented refinements of the magnetic levitation system originally invented in by Drs. Gordon Danby and James Powell. After the United States government made its decision in 1973 to abandon high-speed ground transportation development in this country, the Danby Powell system was adopted by the Japanese National Railroads and is now under construction and an 18-km demonstration line is in operation. Ultimately the line will be extended to link Tokyo and Osaka in a much shorter travel time than the spectacularly successful Shinkansen rail line, now carrying over 100,000 passengers daily. The Japanese maglev system now operates the fastest ground transportation passenger vehicles in the world, having achieved the speed of 550.8 km/h in 1998. Clearly, the original Powell/Danby technology has been proved to be operationally feasible, as acknowledged by the Japanese builders. Danby and Powell have continued to refine their maglev passenger and freight system to match American transportation conditions, which are characterized by longer travel distances and lower density of development, even in urbanized areas. In response to the need to achieve major cost reductions for maglev systems and to efficiently serve regions of lower development density, MAGLEV 2000 has developed two newly patented solutions: reduced-cost guideways and high-speed switches. |
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