Maglev test run marks high-speed headway

A TEST high-speed vehicle, with a speed of 600 kilometers per hour, successfully conducted a test run on a maglev line at Tongji University's Jiading campus in Shanghai on Sunday, marking an important breakthrough in China’s high-speed maglev research and development.

The development of a 600kph high-speed maglev transportation system is a key project in China’s “Advanced Rail Transit” program initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

This is the maiden track run for the prototype since the project’s launch in July 2016.

The project team, with CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co Ltd responsible for the technical part, has integrated experts from over 30 enterprises, universities and research institutes. They have broken through core technologies of the high-speed maglev series during the past four years and enabled a test operation on track after ground debugging and static tests.

On the maglev test track, the prototype carried out the system joint debugging for the first time and conducted a dynamic operation test under various working conditions.

Technical indicators

“During the multi-condition test, the vehicle showed stable suspension guidance and a sound operation state. All key technical indicators met design requirements and expectations,” Ding Sansan, R&D team head and deputy chief engineer of CRRC Qingdao Sifang, said.

The trial run saw improvements from static to dynamic operation, obtained a large number of key data and preliminarily verified the key performance of the high-speed maglev system and core components, which provides important technical support for the development and optimization of the follow-up high-speed maglev project test vehicles.

The high-speed maglev prototype system is expected to be rolled off the production line by the end of 2020.

As an emerging high-speed traffic mode, the maglev features speed, safety, reliability, large passenger capacity, on-time performance, environment protection and low maintenance cost. It can be used for long-, short- and medium-distance transport.

The 600kph high-speed maglev train can fill the gap between the current high-speed rail and aviation services and help to establish a more reasonable, efficient and flexible transport network to meet the travel needs of different groups.