The Maglev Technological Revolution

For decades, engineers have been dreaming and working hard to perfection the use of puissant electromagnets to levitate trains above their tracks so they could travel as fast as an aircraft. Speeds can be so extremely high because there is no physical contact between the tracks and the vehicles. In low pressure tunnels, maglev trains would potentially be able to reach the speed of thousands of kmh/mph.
Scientists Goddard in the USA and Bachelet in France imagined the use of magnetically levitated vehicles for high speed transport already in the early 1900′s. In the 1960′s, Powell and Danby proposed the first practical solution for non-contact magnetically levitated trains. The maglev trains promised to be the major revolutionary mode of transport for the 21st Century, but reality is that the maglev technology has not yet caught on globally and so far the maglev trains operate commercially only in Shanghai, China.

In the meantime, high-tech & high speed magnetic transportation keeps on inspiring scientists, designers and artists. Here you can see some futuristic maglev train illustrations by game illustrator Ferdinand D. Ladera (DigitalHadz). The designs are part of “Project Phoenix” of Aninogames and were selected as “Art of the Week” on digitalart.org and “Editor’s Pick” on cgchannel.com. We absolutely love DigitalHadz’s wild imagination and eye for detail and hope that his still-futuristic magnetic train will see the light of day in a future not so far, far away…