http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5370564.stm

Didn't even know maglevs were real yet.

Pretty dumb accident when you think about it really. I think maglevs are cool. I dont know about the costs though.

There's one running in China.

cool... human error is responsible, of course, and I sure hope they don't decide to derail the project (rofl) as a result. Perhaps some more safey devices can be put in place to keep this from happening again, but overall it sounds alot better than a slow ass train or transport via auto.

Yeah, ive done a little reading on this. Theres one running in China with about 7k pasengers a day from Shanghai city centre to the airport. I think its average speed is 150mph, which doesnt sound too impressive to me. They had a crash on this one too about a couple of years ago, i dontknow how it happened. With its relatively low amount of users, its nice to see the service is sustaining itself, which means its generally cheaper to run than trains. Basically, all you need to run it is electricity, which means burning fossil fuels to generate it. Also, apparently its not too expensive to set-up.

It's just as expensive as high speed train to set up, and the Shanghai project is not really a succes, mainly because you shouldn't use maglevs for short distances. I think they can compete quite well with aircraft traffic for distances around 1000 km.

Agreed. I hear there have been some requests for a London - Edinburgh service which is very much liked by the gvt.