China's High Speed Maglev
China has been busy building their own high speed maglev train to compete with the German-developed Transrapid maglev trains and the L0 Series train by the Central Japan Railway Company. This futuristic looking train is capable of hitting speeds of 600 km/h (372 mph). Commercial production of these brand new trains expected in 2021. Beijing to Shanghai trip would cut down to only 3.5 hours compared to the 5.5 hours by regular high-speed rail if these maglevs were running now.
How does the new Chinese high-speed maglev compare with the competition then? Well, the Japanese-made L0 Series holds the world record for land speed, it hit 603 km/h (375 mph) in 2015. The quickest maglev made by the German Transrapid company achieved 501 km/h (311 mph) in 2003. By the looks of it, China just made it to the top as their newest maglev train is in theory capable of keeping up with the L0 Series. They face two years of testing and in the meantime we will hopefully know more about its capabilities.
