The online edition of the NZZ recently published an article about the project Swiss-Rapide-Express. The idea is to connect Bern and Zurich with a maglev train based on the Transrapid. The similarity with Swissmetro is striking, to the extent that even the title of the article sounds almost like Swissmetro’s catch-phrase “Zurich – Bern in 12 minutes”. However, the arrticle mentions Swissmetro only in passing. A brief comparison seems therefore appropriate.
Both projects benefit from the advantages of maglev technology: speeds up to 500 km/h, quick acceleration and high frequency as well as low wear operation. Compared to Swissmetro the project Swiss-Rapide-Express has the advantage that the technology has already been developed and connects Shanghai – Pudong International Airport since 2004. Moreover, building the track above ground seems to be less costly than boring the tunnels for Swissmetro.
Swissmetro has the complete underground track in its favor. Above ground the aerodynamic drag increases with the square of the speed. Tripling the speed to 500 km/h requires an input of 9 times the normal amount of energy, in order to overcome the aerodynamic drag. This creates a lot of noise, which carries quite far because the track is elevated on pillars. The Swissmetro tunnel, by contrast, is under a partial vacuum so it only needs to overcome about 10% of the normal air pressure. This is why the energy consumptions of Swissmetro is very low and it does not create any noise. The Transrapid also requires tunnel sections, because there is no other way to get to the city centers due to the high noise level and the costs for the land required for the tracks. Even in Shanghai the Transrapid is unable to run as far as the city center and the project of a Transrapid connection between Munich airport and the city center had to be given up because of the expensive tunnel sections.
If tunnels are unavoidable, we should make full use of their advantages. The Swissmetro tunnels lower the energy consumption, avoid scarring the landscape, save the cost of buying land, eliminate all noise emissions, thus avoiding resistance of the residents and a protracted approval process. Today, the only way a new highspeed connection can be built in a densely populated country like Switzerland is to go underground like Swissmetro.
