Researchers at Southern Jiaotong University have announced that they've successfully developed a model of a vacuum magnetic suspension train that could travel at speeds of up to 1,200kmp, and could be put into operation within 10 years. To put that in perspective, a normal commercial airplane travels at around 500kph, so we're talking jet speeds here. Subsequently, they've also announced that it's most likely prohibitively expensive, and according to one expert, doesn't even operate within the realm of reality. more ›

We were questioning why a Shanghai-to-Hangzhou Maglev was necessary since plans for it were resuscitated in 2009. Apparently, despite winning approval of the National People's Congress last year, it's now off again. An official said that the cancellation of the 22 billion~35 billion RMB endeavor was "a decision made by the central government after research by Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission." Seems like someone took a closer look and realized it was a bloated vanity project - especially when, for all its high technology, the maglev would've only cut the current commute time between the cities by 10 minutes. more ›

While Arnold Schwarzenegger's visit to Expo, and his profession of love for our railways, may have gotten the most attention, he was by no means the only American leader who was impressed. Chicagoist reports that their mayor, Richard Daley, also left Shanghai wanting some of that railroad magic. more ›

Remember that proposed maglev train - the one from Shanghai to Hangzhou - that we thought was scrapped after protests and then brought back up again last year? Apparently it won approval at the National People's Congress this weekend. The 199.4 km-long line is said to cost an estimated 22 billion RMB ($3.22 billion) - a surprising 13 billion RMB less than what a shorter line was proposed to cost in 2006. Huh. The train will allegedly go at speeds of 430km/h, essentially turning Hangzhou into a Shanghai suburb. more ›

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Apropos of nothing, the previously scrapped maglev train line that would have linked the Pudong and Hongqiao airports together is suddenly being dusted off again. Construction on the proposed 31.8-km train line was shelved in 2007, after everybody realized that it was a terrible idea. Well, at least we thought everybody realized it was a terrible idea. more ›

• Despite earlier protests, there will be a new maglev line between Shanghai and Hangzhou. This week, the local government announced that the construction of this line will start in 2010, three years later than planned. It is supposed to be finished in 2015, when we will be able to go to Hangzhou in just 30 minutes.
• Things are looking dark on the Shanghai stock market: This Monday the Shanghai Composite Index ended down 5.34 percent, at 2, 319.868 points. Over the last seven days, it dropped a whopping 14.95 percent.
• Safe sex is on the agenda, this week we read about free condoms in the office district of Jingan, now Shanghai's university and college campuses will get condom vending machines. According to Shanghai Daily, 85 percent of the students in a recent survey found it most convenient to buy condoms from machines, rather than in stores. We just think it's a little unfair that the students have to buy their condoms while office workers get them for free.

The Maglev station in Pudong has long been a breeding ground for taxi drivers eager to rip-off new arrivals. You step off the train, and into a den of thieves. more ›

A group of Shanghai residents who had applied to the government for the right to hold an anti-maglev protest were rejected by the government. Despite this, small numbers of them intended to go on another "walk" in order to publicly air their grievances. This time, they were stopped by some other residents. According to this AP article, this is what happened:

Residents in armbands used a megaphone to warn people not to "linger here too long," to avoid problems with the police, who had rejected their petition to hold a protest march against the magnetic levitation, or maglev, train.

By James Creegan more ›

Al-Jazeera's report on the anti-Maglev protest has interesting footage of how the city government is collecting feedback and an emergency residents meeting in one neighbourhood. While municipal authorities have promised more research and feedback opportunities, train protesters have been warned not to conduct any illegal protest during Gordon Brown's visit to Shanghai. more ›

BBC's Shanghai correspondent Quentin Sommerville goes to the Pingyang neighbourhood south of Shanghai and finds that the anti-Maglev protests have not quite abated. In his report [VPN required], he makes the following observation:

Rarely have protests in China been so well organised, or the protesters so well-dressed.

Translation of captions:

OPPOSING THE SHANGHAI MAGLEV ONSTRUCTION PLAN: 10,000 RESIDENTS TAKE PART IN THE 'HARMONIOUS WALK' NEAR PEOPLE'S SQUARE more ›

Yesterday, we were tipped off on our Contribute page that an anti-maglev protest was going to take place today 2pm at People's Square. Apparently that has been derailed by the police. From Reuters:

Police in China's financial hub of Shanghai detained scores of people on Saturday after hundreds showed up to protest a planned extension of the city's magnetic levitation train, or "maglev", worried it would emit radiation. more ›

Thanks to the commenters on that last post, especially the one that alerted us to videos of the protests/marches that were on the Taiwan Youtube site. There were two that we found, embedded below. The first one is just a short clip of people walking around during the day. The second is from Xujiahui in the evening, with more chanting, from the evening of January 6. Oh yeah, and to the commenter who mentioned that we ought to put "alleged" in front of "health effects", you're probably right. If you're interested in learning a little about what health effects maglevs might have on people, you could try this Google scholar search. No definitive answers, but maybe a rudimentary way of glimpsing what is out there. more ›

From Boxun.com (you need a proxy) we discovered that there was a maglev-related protest on January 6th. It first started around 11am, around the Xinzhuang/Minhang area, and was dispersed, only to form again sometime around 3pm, this time in the busy Xujiahui CBD. It managed to, in some form, last until 11pm. Protesters carried signs saying "out for a walk" (散步), while other chanted slogans about protecting their homes. The proposed maglev was to link the city's two airports as well as Shanghai to Hangzhou. However, recent protests brought public attention to the health effects of the maglev, leading, according to some, to the recent government decision to reroute the maglev so as to minimize the noise, radiation, and collateral damage. These proposed changes are part of the reason why the price estimates of the maglev have increased from 200 million per km to about 500 million per kilometer. more ›

The state media had reported around May of this year that the proposed Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev was canceled. In the report just linked to, it says that the official reason why the thing was canceled was because of health and environmental concerns, while the supposed "real reason" was that residents in the maglev's path were starting a petition. Reading over this report reminds of how this issue has been ping-ponging back and forth for years. We thought perhaps that the ginormous cost of the thing, including some behind-the-scenes bickering between Zhejiang province and Shanghai regarding the division of construction costs, was the final nail in the coffin, but if you think about it, since when can a few petitioners writing letters to their National People's Congress "reps" can hardly hold back the ineluctable forces of progress? more ›

Photo taken by meckleychina at the Pudong International Station. Share with us how you see Shanghai, or China! Simply post your photos on Flickr, tag them with "shanghaiist", and we'll select one favorite image per day. Or you can simply email your photos to photos[at]shanghaiist.com.... more ›