Engineered4Extremes - In Focus

Most trains take minutes to reach top speed. This one took two seconds. On a 400-metre test track, a Chinese superconducting maglev vehicle built by the National University of Defense Technology accelerated to 700km/h in roughly two seconds, a rate of acceleration more associated with fighter jet catapults than passenger rail. There are no wheels, no rails in the conventional sense and no friction to overcome: the vehicle is suspended and propelled entirely by magnetic fields. Researchers behind the programme have suggested the same underlying technology could eventually support ultra-high-speed tube transport, and even electromagnetic launch-assist systems for spacecraft. It is rail engineering reaching for a role well beyond the railway, using physics that owes as much to space launch as to public transport.