A Solution to Problems Facing Conventional Highspeed Trains

For his book Swissmetro – l’avion sans ailes (airplane without wings) Jacques Neirynck interviewed Rodolphe Nieth about how he conceived the idea of a Swissmetro. Nieth explained that not only had his father worked for the railway but he was also working for the Swiss Federal Railways at the time and that he spent about 3 hours each day commuting between Lausanne and Berne. Through conversations with colleagues and his own work, Nieth was aware of plans to introduce highspeed track for trains like the French TGV that would be able to run at up to 250 km/h in the future. An engineer by training, Nieth knew that with conventional rail-wheel technology one faces enormous problems at such speeds. Because of the topography, new track with many tunnels and bridges would have to be built at high cost. Moreover, doubling the speed from 100km/h to 200km/h results in aerodynamic drag increasing between factor 4 and 8 and the deterioration of tracks also increases exponentially. These problems inspired Nieth to come up with Swissmetro as a solution. Running underground the problems of topography would be eliminated. With a maglev train propelled by a linear motor there would be no wear of track and rolling stock and by creating a partial vacuum in the tunnels this train would be able to run at very high speeds without the drawback of exponentially increasing aerodynamic drag.