BIZCHINA> From the Watchdog
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BIZCHINA> From the Watchdog
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Maglev trains not a national option
By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-04-30 08:38 The national authorities will rely on high-tech rail lines rather than maglev technology to improve the country's rail transport capacity, a senior railway official said over the weekend. The comments came at a time when some operators have been using or are planning to use maglev (magnetic levitation) technology on relatively short local routes. "At present, most countries use tracks. Maglev technology is a new means of transport that still needs to be researched and improved," said Wang Yongping, spokesman of the Ministry of Railways. TheNational Development and Reform Commissionapproved a project last year that would use maglev technology on theShanghai-Hangzhou Railway, though there have been no developments since the approval. In contrast, Wang said, the Railways Ministry, which is responsible for building national rail lines, had "never chosen to use maglev technology" and thus had not done any research on it. He added that the Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway and the maglev train serving Shanghai's Pudong Airport - the world's first commercial maglev train - are both local railways. The Railways Ministry has been focusing on state-of-the-art track technology to upgrade the country's railway transport capacity. And since 2004, it has incorporated engine and car technology from France's Alstom, Canada's Bombardier, Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Germany's Siemens AG and the US's GE and EMD. (For more biz stories, please visit Industries)
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